Part 8

This plan may be decidedly the most advantageous for the community at large, and I have no doubt is, since it works well here; but it has a chilly and depressing effect on the mind when viewed by one who would desire--and who does not?--to live in the creations which owe their existence to his labour or his taste, and who would revisit in the spirit the pleasant place enjoyed by his children, for whose dear sakes it was first projected.

After supper our spirited old host gave the hour of muster for five o'clock A.M., and we severally sought our beds in order to make the most of the brief time left for sleep. Much as I love a fox-hunt, I freely confess that this early rising did seem a mighty hard bargain.

28th.--Not choosing to be laggard, as the thing was to be done, I was first afoot for the honour of Britain;--the whole party, indeed, were exceedingly punctual;--and after a hearty breakfast, away we rode for cover, with a slight crisping of frost under hoof, and a warm-looking sky just opening over head, heralding a sun that gave promise of making woodland and meadow smoke again within the next hour or two; at present, however, the air was nippingly shrewd, to say the least of it, and set me to blowing my fingers like a trumpeter. At the end of about an hour's ride the dogs were laid on, and almost immediately hit off the scent, and went away merrily through the wood at a slashing rate. The rider is here kept wide awake by the vicinity of the trees, many of which are spreading and low-branched, requiring a quick eye and some suppleness to keep one's hat from getting hurt when going "the pace," and, by St. Hubert! these hounds in woodland appear anything but slow.

Many dark dells and lovely open glades did we thus hurrah by, and across, with barely a glimpse in passing. In one place the path was completely blocked up by two forest-trees, apparently but recently rooted up; they had been rent from the earth, and flung here from opposite sides, as though a mere stack of rushes, in the pride of their vigour and in the full bloom of their beauty; and here they lay to wither boll, and branch, and leaf.

A whirlwind had evidently descended on this very spot probably within a few days; I say descended, for the whole circumference of the circle devastated did not exceed twenty yards at most. One other tree, yet fixed in the soil, presented an awful example of the might of the tornado. It was a chestnut of the largest size, the trunk near the base being seven or eight feet in circumference; it reclined at what seemed to have been the very focus of the whirlwind; its roots yet clung to earth; but, through the resistance thus offered, the tree had been literally twisted round and round, until it was split into laths, the trunk having the appearance of a great bundle of saplings peeled and twined together by the hand of a Titan, as lads twist withy-wands; the sturdy limbs and spreading branches, although little broken, were wound about and knotted together in a way so curiously complicated as hardly to be made comprehensible without the aid and evidence of sight.

Attracted by this singular forest wreck, I took to moralizing like the melancholy Jaques, though in a strain not quite so well worthy of record; and, losing sight of my company, was for some time thrown out. When I caught the dogs up, it was found Reynard was fairly gone to earth in an inaccessible ravine; so we even left him of necessity to his repose, which had been tolerably well earned by a rattling burst of full six miles on end.

In half an hour after we found again, when we got a second run, which, with a couple of short checks, held us in sport for an hour and a half, with a similar result.

By this time the day was growing smoking hot, whilst the dogs and horses were anything but fresh; so it was agreed to collect our, by this time, scattered forces, and turn the rein once again for the Lodge. To the sound of "merrie horn and loud halloo" we took our way through the pathless forest, picking up now a strayed hound and now a man astray, until, by the time home was reached, all our company was well accounted for; and so ends my last fox-chase in America.

Let me here insert that my hospitable host never followed hound again: he on this day, I remember, regretted to me that a pain in his chest, with a growing difficulty of respiration, prevented his riding as he had once done; within a few weeks after he died, leaving a gap in the hospitality of Baltimore that will be felt by hundreds. Mr. Oliver was one of a class of excellent open-house men, of which class there are specimens to be found in every part of this Union, men whose frank hospitality is of itself sufficient to keep up the reputation of the country amongst strangers: many of these yet live, and I trust will long live, to the lasting honour of the States.

By birth, the subject of this notice was an Irishman; but his affections, his sympathies, his prejudices, were all on the side of his adopted country, which in his eyes had no equal in the world. It was amusing to hear him speak of his visits to Europe: to England only did he cede the right even of comparison; and on the subject of our wines he was quite a sceptic, although he had dined at the best tables, and spoke most warmly of his entertainers. He protested against the wines of England being at all comparable to those of America; nay, I remember he was heretic enough to deny us the supremacy of a rump-steak, and raised his voice against the majesty of Dolly's.

I would not have so much heeded his advancing this heterodox doctrine before Americans, had he not at the same time come well prepared to prove himself qualified to give judgment by producing, hot-and-hot, a steak that even I was compelled to admit might have been entered as A.1. at Lloyd's.

They possess in the States generally as good beef as need be desired; but, strange to say, with this exception, I have rarely met a tolerable steak, according to our idea of the matter; the secret of which is, the meat is not kept, is full of blood and fibre, and, although excellent of flavour, is not easily disposed of by those who reject the bolting principle, and desire to adhere to the more toilsome plan of mastication.

29th.--Quitted the pleasant banks of the Gunpowder, and, with my old sporting companion, returned to Baltimore. Same day, embarked on board steam-boat for an excursion as far as Petersburg, Virginia, via Norfolk; we had a fine day and night whilst steering through this great bay of the Chesapeake: went to bed late in consequence.

30th.--Coming out of the cabin this morning at an early hour, found we were off the old fort, Point Comfort. Fort Calhoun, a work on which enormous outlay has been made, is not yet completed: the great difficulty appears to be the unstable nature of the bank on which the works are placed: upon the elevation of the terre-plain alone, nearly four thousand cubic yards of sand have been employed; all of which is shipped from the main, and deposited within the fort. It is computed that, by the time this place is fitted to receive a garrison, one hundred thousand tons of stone will have been expended on the works and breakwater which are required as an exterior support to the pressure from within.

The completion of this truly great military work must, in a great measure, depend upon the decrease of the subsidence to which the soil is liable, and for which it is necessary to pause after every year's addition of pressure, in order to proportion such a resistance as may restore the equilibrium and secure the foundation. When I was here, one of these pauses in the engineering department had place; but it was said, the President had intimated his design of passing the hot season upon this spot, when the works would be vigorously resumed under his inspection.

Sailing up the Elizabeth river, so famous in the gallant Raleigh's story, we reached Norfolk at eight o'clock A.M., when a portion of our living freight was quickly transferred to the Virginia steamer for Charleston; another portion, to which I was attached, being, with similar promptitude, handed over to the Pocahontas ditto, bound for Richmond, the capital of Virginia. In less than an hour we were sailing back through the well-closed harbour of Norfolk; whence, crossing the Elizabeth river, we entered, in a couple of hours, the noble stream now rightly called, after its legitimate sovereign, the Powhatan, but better known as the James's river,--"a great sinking in the poetry of the thing," though Jamie also was a king, "but no more like his brother," &c.

Upon the southern banks rise a constant series of fine bold bluffs, mostly crowned with forest trees of great beauty, now dressed in that rich-coloured foliage so often lauded by poet and painter, but as yet, I fancy, never done full justice to. Scott and Turner, those inspired illustrators of nature, might have done this: as it is, I hope America will, before many years are past, find, amongst her own sons, pens and pencils worthy to give her beauties to the admiration of the Old World.

We arrived off the original city founded in the "Old Dominion," having some passengers to land upon the beach, now almost as wild as when first trodden by the adventurous foot of the bold Captain Smith. Within a few yards of the landing-place stood the first Christian church erected on this mighty continent: I grieve to add, this interesting altar to the true God no longer bears his holy word: a dilapidated, but sturdy-looking square tower of brick, alone remains to mark the site of church and city; indeed, without timely care is bestowed by some gentle, generous spirit, even this most interesting memorial will speedily disappear. At present this forms one of the very few objects to which the term picturesque may properly be applied, existing in the States; and, linked as it is with the recollections of its gallant founders, I confess it laid strong hold of my imagination, absorbing my eyes and interest as long as I could keep it in view.

The low, unhealthy site of this city proved, after a prolonged struggle, the cause, I believe, of its total desertion. Elizabeth Town, its near neighbour and once rival, is, I have been informed, fast verging to a similar condition.

Scattered along the banks on both sides of the river, are several mansions raised in the old times by the wealthy planters of the "Old Dominion," the remembrance of whose liberal expenditure and open hospitality still does honour to their state. These houses have a strong resemblance to the English squirearchical dwellings of the last century, being generally large square brick buildings, commonly flanked by low disproportioned wings; they have all hospitable-looking entrances, and flights of steps made with reference to the number and free access of the visitors rather than in keeping with the size of the house; their steep, many-chimneyed roofs are usually surrounded by a showy balustrade, and their appearance imposing and respectable, bespeaking affluence and good housekeeping.

One or two of these mansions stood upon fine open lawns of some extent, which swept down until their grass mingled with the waters of the gently-flowing river, offering a slope of great natural beauty, studded with clumps of goodly trees; the whole, however, having that most melancholy air of neglect that seemed to say their best days were "the days that are gone."

Under the existing law of the States those days may not be expected ever to return; and such places as are here alluded to cannot be kept up in families whose possessions, however ample originally, must be parcelled out at the demise of each inheritor, until, like poor Sir Lucius, the "mansion-house and the dirty acres" having slipped through the not over-tenacious fingers of the Virginian proprietor, the family honour and the family pictures will alone be left.

In reverting again to the subject of this law, which I confess I have only viewed under its most melancholy aspect, I must add that it is by no means unpopular here, being, in fact, perfectly accordant with both reason and justice, and probably, as far as the commonwealth is concerned, for the best; yet cannot I look without regret on this oblivion of the once gentle of the land, and the scattering of the children of those brave men whose blood and labour redeemed the wilderness, or won it from the savage and his prey.

Quitted the Pocahontas at City-point; wherefore so called I know not, since here is neither city nor point that I could discover, but only a few buildings, and a fine natural wharf at which two noble ships were lying taking in tobacco and cotton.

Whilst waiting at the landing-place amidst the bustle incident to shifting baggage, landing passengers, and packing carriages, I witnessed a wedding assemblage that amused me highly, and was no bad sample of slavery in the Old Dominion.

From a large hut close to where we were set ashore poured forth a bevy of beauty of all colours, from the deepest jet up to the quadroon just tinged with amber. They were for the most part dressed in white, many having expensive scarfs of gay colours, and all wearing wreaths and bouquets of the most beautiful flowers, tastefully arranged and put on. I had only time to learn that it was a wedding-party, and to "guess" at the bride. I hit upon a plump, roguish-looking little devil, having a skin like new copper, teeth of pearl, and eyes black as "Kilkenny's own coal." She was, I observed, the centre of the many-tinted circle, and wore, moreover, a wreath composed of the pearl-like wax-berry in her jetty hair.

These, as I was informed, were all slaves; certainly a merrier-looking party I never saw of white folk, and, for this occasion, their chain was literally hidden under wreaths of roses; for a day, at least, they were very happy, and who amongst the freest can count on what the morrow may bring forth!

This was the first glance I had been allowed of the Virginian agricultural slave, and I was not ill pleased to be presented with the bright side of a condition which, to the mind of the philanthropist of every land, is sufficiently painful without the exaggerations of the political quack, or the fanatic outcry of the sectarian bigot seeking to preach a crusade of extermination against men whose slaves form their only inheritance, himself meantime, for the most selfish ends, daily planning how best to enslave the mental part of those whose credulity and weakness expose them for a prey.