the bar, and it still stands, a dismal witness of the destruction
that has been, and a boding prophet of that which is to come.’
Emotions of Hon. Charles Augustus Murray (near St. Louis), seven years later–
‘It is only when you ascend the mighty current for fifty or a
hundred miles, and use the eye of imagination as well as that
of nature, that you begin to understand all his might and majesty.
You see him fertilizing a boundless valley, bearing along in his course
the trophies of his thousand victories over the shattered forest–
here carrying away large masses of soil with all their growth,
and there forming islands, destined at some future period to be
the residence of man; and while indulging in this prospect,
it is then time for reflection to suggest that the current
before you has flowed through two or three thousand miles, and has
yet to travel one thousand three hundred more before reaching
its ocean destination.’
Receive, now, the emotions of Captain Marryat, R.N. author of the sea tales,
writing in 1837, three years after Mr. Murray–
‘Never, perhaps, in the records of nations, was there an instance of a
century of such unvarying and unmitigated crime as is to be collected
from the history of the turbulent and blood-stained Mississippi.
The stream itself appears as if appropriate for the deeds which have
been committed. It is not like most rivers, beautiful to the sight,
bestowing fertility in its course; not one that the eye loves
to dwell upon as it sweeps along, nor can you wander upon
its banks, or trust yourself without danger to its stream.
It is a furious, rapid, desolating torrent, loaded with alluvial soil;
and few of those who are received into its waters ever rise again,
support themselves long upon its surface without assistance from
some friendly log. It contains the coarsest and most uneatable
of fish, such as the cat-fish and such genus, and as you descend,
its banks are occupied with the fetid alligator, while the panther
basks at its edge in the cane-brakes, almost impervious to man.
Pouring its impetuous waters through wild tracks covered with
trees of little value except for firewood, it sweeps down whole
forests in its course, which disappear in tumultuous confusion,
whirled away by the stream now loaded with the masses of soil
which nourished their roots, often blocking up and changing
for a time the channel of the river, which, as if in anger at its
being opposed, inundates and devastates the whole country round;
and as soon as it forces its way through its former channel,
plants in every direction the uprooted monarchs of the forest
(upon whose branches the bird will never again perch, or the raccoon,
the opossum, or the squirrel climb) as traps to the adventurous
navigators of its waters by steam, who, borne down upon these concealed
dangers which pierce through the planks, very often have not time
to steer for and gain the shore before they sink to the bottom.
There are no pleasing associations connected with the great common sewer
of the Western America, which pours out its mud into the Mexican Gulf,
polluting the clear blue sea for many miles beyond its mouth.
It is a river of desolation; and instead of reminding you,
like other beautiful rivers, of an angel which has descended
for the benefit of man, you imagine it a devil, whose energies
have been only overcome by the wonderful power of steam.’
It is pretty crude literature for a man accustomed to
handling a pen; still, as a panorama of the emotions sent
weltering through this noted visitor’s breast by the aspect
and traditions of the ‘great common sewer,’ it has a value.
A value, though marred in the matter of statistics by inaccuracies;
for the catfish is a plenty good enough fish for anybody,
and there are no panthers that are ‘impervious to man.’
Later still comes Alexander Mackay, of the Middle Temple, Barrister at Law,