exercised in simpler lessons, which they understood.
As in every other place I visited, the judges here were gentlemen
of high character and attainments. I was in one of the courts for
a few minutes, and found it like those to which I have already
referred. A nuisance cause was trying; there were not many
spectators; and the witnesses, counsel, and jury, formed a sort of
family circle, sufficiently jocose and snug.
The society with which I mingled, was intelligent, courteous, and
agreeable. The inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of their city
as one of the most interesting in America: and with good reason:
for beautiful and thriving as it is now, and containing, as it
does, a population of fifty thousand souls, but two-and-fifty years
have passed away since the ground on which it stands (bought at
that time for a few dollars) was a wild wood, and its citizens were
but a handful of dwellers in scattered log huts upon the river’s
shore.
CHAPTER XII – FROM CINCINNATI TO LOUISVILLE IN ANOTHER WESTERN
STEAMBOAT; AND FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS IN ANOTHER. ST. LOUIS
LEAVING Cincinnati at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, we embarked
for Louisville in the Pike steamboat, which, carrying the mails,
was a packet of a much better class than that in which we had come
from Pittsburg. As this passage does not occupy more than twelve
or thirteen hours, we arranged to go ashore that night: not
coveting the distinction of sleeping in a state-room, when it was
possible to sleep anywhere else.
There chanced to be on board this boat, in addition to the usual
dreary crowd of passengers, one Pitchlynn, a chief of the Choctaw
tribe of Indians, who SENT IN HIS CARD to me, and with whom I had
the pleasure of a long conversation.
He spoke English perfectly well, though he had not begun to learn
the language, he told me, until he was a young man grown. He had
read many books; and Scott’s poetry appeared to have left a strong
impression on his mind: especially the opening of The Lady of the
Lake, and the great battle scene in Marmion, in which, no doubt
from the congeniality of the subjects to his own pursuits and
tastes, he had great interest and delight. He appeared to
understand correctly all he had read; and whatever fiction had
enlisted his sympathy in its belief, had done so keenly and
earnestly. I might almost say fiercely. He was dressed in our
ordinary everyday costume, which hung about his fine figure
loosely, and with indifferent grace. On my telling him that I
regretted not to see him in his own attire, he threw up his right
arm, for a moment, as though he were brandishing some heavy weapon,
and answered, as he let it fall again, that his race were losing
many things besides their dress, and would soon be seen upon the
earth no more: but he wore it at home, he added proudly.
He told me that he had been away from his home, west of the
Mississippi, seventeen months: and was now returning. He had been
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chiefly at Washington on some negotiations pending between his
Tribe and the Government: which were not settled yet (he said in a
melancholy way), and he feared never would be: for what could a
few poor Indians do, against such well-skilled men of business as
the whites? He had no love for Washington; tired of towns and
cities very soon; and longed for the Forest and the Prairie.
I asked him what he thought of Congress? He answered, with a
smile, that it wanted dignity, in an Indian’s eyes.
He would very much like, he said, to see England before he died;
and spoke with much interest about the great things to be seen
there. When I told him of that chamber in the British Museum
wherein are preserved household memorials of a race that ceased to
be, thousands of years ago, he was very attentive, and it was not
hard to see that he had a reference in his mind to the gradual
fading away of his own people.