a plow factory which has for customers all Christendom in general.
At least so I was told by an agent of the concern who was on
the boat. He said–
‘You show me any country under the sun where they really know how to plow,
and if I don’t show you our mark on the plow they use, I’ll eat that plow;
and I won’t ask for any Woostershyre sauce to flavor it up with, either.’
All this part of the river is rich in Indian history and traditions.
Black Hawk’s was once a puissant name hereabouts; as was Keokuk’s,
further down. A few miles below Dubuque is the Tete de Mort–
Death’s-head rock, or bluff–to the top of which the French drove
a band of Indians, in early times, and cooped them up there,
with death for a certainty, and only the manner of it matter
of choice–to starve, or jump off and kill themselves.
Black Hawk adopted the ways of the white people, toward the end
of his life; and when he died he was buried, near Des Moines,
in Christian fashion, modified by Indian custom; that is to say,
clothed in a Christian military uniform, and with a Christian cane
in his hand, but deposited in the grave in a sitting posture.
Formerly, a horse had always been buried with a chief.
The substitution of the cane shows that Black Hawk’s haughty nature
was really humbled, and he expected to walk when he got over.
We noticed that above Dubuque the water of the Mississippi was
olive-green–rich and beautiful and semi-transparent, with the sun on it.
Of course the water was nowhere as clear or of as fine a complexion as it
is in some other seasons of the year; for now it was at flood stage,
and therefore dimmed and blurred by the mud manufactured from caving banks.
The majestic bluffs that overlook the river, along through this region,
charm one with the grace and variety of their forms, and the soft
beauty of their adornment. The steep verdant slope, whose base
is at the water’s edge is topped by a lofty rampart of broken,
turreted rocks, which are exquisitely rich and mellow in color–
mainly dark browns and dull greens, but splashed with other tints.
And then you have the shining river, winding here and there and yonder,
its sweep interrupted at intervals by clusters of wooded islands
threaded by silver channels; and you have glimpses of distant villages,
asleep upon capes; and of stealthy rafts slipping along in the shade
of the forest walls; and of white steamers vanishing around remote points.
And it is all as tranquil and reposeful as dreamland, and has nothing
this-worldly about it–nothing to hang a fret or a worry upon.
Until the unholy train comes tearing along–which it presently does,
ripping the sacred solitude to rags and tatters with its devil’s
warwhoop and the roar and thunder of its rushing wheels–and straightway
you are back in this world, and with one of its frets ready to hand
for your entertainment: for you remember that this is the very road
whose stock always goes down after you buy it, and always goes up
again as soon as you sell it. It makes me shudder to this day,
to remember that I once came near not getting rid of my stock at all.
It must be an awful thing to have a railroad left on your hands.
The locomotive is in sight from the deck of the steamboat almost
the whole way from St. Louis to St. Paul–eight hundred miles.
These railroads have made havoc with the steamboat commerce.
The clerk of our boat was a steamboat clerk before these roads
were built. In that day the influx of population was so great,
and the freight business so heavy, that the boats were not able
to keep up with the demands made upon their carrying capacity;
consequently the captains were very independent and airy–
pretty ‘biggity,’ as Uncle Remus would say. The clerk nut-shelled the
contrast between the former time and the present, thus–
‘Boat used to land–captain on hurricane roof–mighty stiff and straight–
iron ramrod for a spine–kid gloves, plug tile, hair parted behind–