Фредерик Марриет - Diary in America, Series One

Set off by coach, long before day-light. There is something very gratifying when once you are up , in finding yourself up before the sun; you can repeat to yourself, “How doth the little busy bee,” with such satisfaction. Some few stars still twinkled in the sky, winking like the eyelids of tired sentinels, but soon they were relieved, one after another, by the light of morning.

It was still dark when we started, and off we went, up hill and down hill—short steep pitches , as they term them here—at a furious rate. There was no level ground; it was all undulating, and very trying to the springs. But an American driver stops at nothing; he will flog away with six horses in hand; and it is wonderful how few accidents happen: but it is very fatiguing, and one hundred miles of American travelling by stage, is equal to four hundred in England.

There is much amusement to be extracted from the drivers of these stages, if you will take your seat with them on the front, which few Americans do, as they prefer the inside. One of the drivers, soon after we had changed our team, called out to the off-leader, as he flanked her with his whip. “Go along, you no-tongued crittur!”

“Why no-tongued ?” enquired I.

“Well, I reckon she has no tongue, having bitten it off herself, I was going to say—but it wasn’t exactly that, neither.”

“How was it, then?”

“Well now, the fact is, that she is awful ugly,” (ill-tempered); “she bites like a badger, and kicks up as high as the church-steeple. She’s an almighty crittur to handle. I was trying to hitch her under-jaw like, with the halter, but she worretted so, that I could only hitch her tongue: she ran back, the end of the halter was fast to the ring, and so she left her tongue in the hitch—that’s a fact !”

“I wonder it did not kill her; didn’t she bleed very much? How does she contrive to eat her corn?”

“Well, now, she bled pretty considerable—but not to speak off. I did keep her one day in the stable, because I thought she might feel queer ; since that she has worked in the team every day; and she’ll eat her peck of corn with any horse in the stable. But her tongue is out, that’s certain—so she’ll tell no more lies !”

Not the least doubting my friend’s veracity I, nevertheless, took an opportunity, when we changed, of ascertaining the fact; and her tongue was half of it out, that is the fact.

When we stopped, we had to shift the luggage to another coach. The driver, who was a slight man, was, for some time, looking rather puzzled at the trunks which lay on the road, and which he had to put on the coach: he tried to lift one of the largest, let it down again, and then beckoned to me:—

“I say, captain, them four large trunks be rather overmuch for me; but I guess you can master them, so just lift them up on the hind board for me.”

I complied; and as I had to lift them as high as my head, they required all my strength.

“Thank ye, captain; don’t trouble yourself any more, the rest be all right, and I can manage them myself.”

The Americans never refuse to assist each other in such difficulties as this. In a young country they must assist each other, if they wish to be assisted themselves—and there always will be a mutual dependence. If a man is in a fix in America, every one stops to assist him, and expects the same for himself.

Bellows Falls, a beautiful, romantic spot on the Connecticut River, which separates the States of New Hampshire and Vermont. The masses of rocks through which the river forces its way at the Falls, are very grand and imposing; and the surrounding hills, rich with the autumnal tints, rivet the eye. On these masses of rocks are many faces, cut out by the tribe of Pequod Indians, who formerly used to fish in their waters. Being informed that there was to be a militia muster, I resolved to attend it.

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Paragraph from a New York paper . That old, deaf English maiden lady, Miss Martineau, who travelled through some of the states, a few years since, gives a full account of Mr Poindexter’s death; unfortunately for her veracity, the gentleman still lives; but this is about as near the truth as the majority of her statements. The loafing English men and women who visit America, as penny-a-liners, are perfectly understood here, and Jonathan amuses himself whenever he meets them, by imposing upon their credulity the most absurd stories which he can invent, which they swallow whole, go home with their eyes sticking out of their heads with wonder, and print all they have heard for the benefit of John Bull’s calves.

The clocks in America—there rendered so famous by Sam Slick—instead of the moral lessons inculcated by the dials in this country, such as “Time flies,” etcetera, teach one more suited to American feeling:—“Time is money!”

And in this opinion I find that I am borne out by an American writer, who says—“It is true, indeed, that the American government, which, as first set up, was properly republican—that is, representation in a course of salutary degrees, and with salutary checks upon the popular will, on the powers of legislation, of the executive, and the judiciary,—was assailed at an early period of its history, and has been assailed continuously down to the present time, by a power called democracy, and that this power has been constantly acquiring influence and gaining ascendency in the republic during the term of its history.”—( A Voice from America to England , by an American Gentleman, page 10.)

One single proof may be given of the ruinous policy of the Jackson administration in temporising with the credit of the country. To check the export of bullion from our country, the Bank of England had but one remedy, that of rendering money scarce: they contracted their issues, and it became so. The consequence was, that the price of cotton fell forty dollars per bale. The crop of cotton amounted to 1,600,000 bales, which, at forty dollars per bale, was a loss to the southern planters of 64,000,000 of dollars.

A curious proof of this system of hoarding, which immediately took place upon the bank stopping payment, was told me by a gentleman from Baltimore. He went into a store to purchase, as he often had done, a canvas shot-bag, and to his surprise was asked three times the former price for it. Upon his expostulating, the vendors told him, that the demand for them by the farmers and other people who brought their produce to market, and who used them to put their specie in, was so great, that they could hardly supply them.