standing water: where poisonous fungus grows in the rare footprint
on the oozy ground, and sprouts like witches’ coral, from the
crevices in the cabin wall and floor; it is a hideous thing to lie
upon the very threshold of a city. But it was purchased years ago,
and as the owner cannot be discovered, the State has been unable to
reclaim it. So there it remains, in the midst of cultivation and
improvement, like ground accursed, and made obscene and rank by
some great crime.
We reached Columbus shortly before seven o’clock, and stayed there,
to refresh, that day and night: having excellent apartments in a
very large unfinished hotel called the Neill House, which were
richly fitted with the polished wood of the black walnut, and
opened on a handsome portico and stone verandah, like rooms in some
Italian mansion. The town is clean and pretty, and of course is
‘going to be’ much larger. It is the seat of the State legislature
of Ohio, and lays claim, in consequence, to some consideration and
importance.
There being no stage-coach next day, upon the road we wished to
take, I hired ‘an extra,’ at a reasonable charge to carry us to
Tiffin; a small town from whence there is a railroad to Sandusky.
This extra was an ordinary four-horse stage-coach, such as I have
described, changing horses and drivers, as the stage-coach would,
but was exclusively our own for the journey. To ensure our having
horses at the proper stations, and being incommoded by no
strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on the box, who was to
accompany us the whole way through; and thus attended, and bearing
with us, besides, a hamper full of savoury cold meats, and fruit,
and wine, we started off again in high spirits, at half-past six
o’clock next morning, very much delighted to be by ourselves, and
disposed to enjoy even the roughest journey.
It was well for us, that we were in this humour, for the road we
went over that day, was certainly enough to have shaken tempers
that were not resolutely at Set Fair, down to some inches below
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Stormy. At one time we were all flung together in a heap at the
bottom of the coach, and at another we were crushing our heads
against the roof. Now, one side was down deep in the mire, and we
were holding on to the other. Now, the coach was lying on the
tails of the two wheelers; and now it was rearing up in the air, in
a frantic state, with all four horses standing on the top of an
insurmountable eminence, looking coolly back at it, as though they
would say ‘Unharness us. It can’t be done.’ The drivers on these
roads, who certainly get over the ground in a manner which is quite
miraculous, so twist and turn the team about in forcing a passage,
corkscrew fashion, through the bogs and swamps, that it was quite a
common circumstance on looking out of the window, to see the
coachman with the ends of a pair of reins in his hands, apparently
driving nothing, or playing at horses, and the leaders staring at
one unexpectedly from the back of the coach, as if they had some
idea of getting up behind. A great portion of the way was over
what is called a corduroy road, which is made by throwing trunks of
trees into a marsh, and leaving them to settle there. The very
slightest of the jolts with which the ponderous carriage fell from
log to log, was enough, it seemed, to have dislocated all the bones
in the human body. It would be impossible to experience a similar
set of sensations, in any other circumstances, unless perhaps in
attempting to go up to the top of St. Paul’s in an omnibus. Never,
never once, that day, was the coach in any position, attitude, or
kind of motion to which we are accustomed in coaches. Never did it
make the smallest approach to one’s experience of the proceedings
of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels.
Still, it was a fine day, and the temperature was delicious, and