Chapter 9

The stranger is also made sensible of the benevolent influence of this kindly day, if I may draw any inference from my own case. At an early hour a gentleman of whom I had a slight knowledge entered my room, accompanied by an elderly person I had never before seen, and who, on being named, excused himself for adopting such a frank mode of making my acquaintance, which he was pleased to add he much desired, and at once requested me to fall in with the custom of the day, whose privilege he had thus availed himself of, and accompany him on a visit to his family.

I was the last man on earth likely to decline an offer made in such a spirit; so, entering his carriage which was in waiting, we drove to his house in Broadway, where, after being presented to a very amiable lady, his wife, and a pretty, gentle-looking young girl, his daughter, I partook of a sumptuous luncheon, drank a glass of champagne, and, on the arrival of other visitors, made my bow, well pleased with my visit.

My host now begged me to make a few calls with him, explaining, as we drove along, the strict observances paid to this day throughout the State, and tracing the excellent custom to the early Dutch colonists.

I paid several calls in company with my new friend, at each place met a hearty welcome, and witnessed the same abundant preparation; but to lunch at each was, with the best intentions possible, quite out of the question. After a considerable round, my companion suggested that I might possibly have some compliments to make on my own account, and so leaving me, begged me to consider his carriage perfectly at my disposal.

This was very kind, but I at the time knew only two or three families; and indeed, on being left to myself in solitary state, where every carriage that whirled by was filled with merry stranger faces, my courage oozed away. So, leaving a card or two, and making a couple of hurried visits, I returned to my hotel, to think over the many beneficial effects likely to grow out of such a charitable custom, and to wish for its continued observance.

We have days enough of division in each year, and should indeed welcome and cherish one which inculcates peace and good-will to all; a day on which little coolnesses are explained away, past kindnesses confirmed, and injuries consigned to oblivion.

At night, the theatre was filled to suffocation by a joyous throng, although this portion of the season is not propitious to theatricals; but on to-day, as though no house must be left unvisited by any of its ordinary frequenters, the Park came in for a full participation in the benefit of this honoured custom.

_Friday, 3rd._--The prevailing topics of the new year are the President and his _quondam_ chum, Major Jack Downing;[6] the agitation of the community on the Bank question becoming daily more violent, as the limitation placed on credit embarrasses trade by narrowing its resources. I observe, however, that, in the midst of much wordy violence, the bulk of the people appear confident that matters will, to use a coinage of their own, "_eventuate_ for their ultimate benefit." Meanwhile, the government and the laws appear equally omnipotent; and although much embarrassment is unquestionably felt in the money-market, and all stock become unseasonably low for the sellers, yet is the country generally admitted to be very prosperous, and perfectly able to meet this shock without any permanent or ruinous difficulty. We shall see.

Went to Mrs. H----'s box at the opera,--the "Donna del Lago," for Bordogni's benefit: a very pretty woman, very well instructed; but with a little pipe, in which sweetness cannot make up for want of force. Fanti, a really good actress, and, although with a veiled voice, a capital singer, is not so much considered, I discover, as Bordogni.

The house was quite filled, the boxes rejoicing in a display of pretty faces few _salles d'opéra_ might be admitted to rival. The prevailing head-dress exceedingly showy and fanciful, a little too much so perhaps:--but these are doings which, after all, change with each season; therefore fashion can alone be arbiter. On the subject of beauty I speak fearlessly, all men, having clear eyesight, being, upon this point, admitted as competent witnesses. The _parterre_, too, was occupied by a few parties of well-dressed women; but its prevailing character, stalls included, was sombre and great-coatish,--not quite up to the pit of the King's Theatre;--there was more applause though, therefore I presume more enjoyment, which is the main object after all. At the close of the performance several delicate bouquets, together with a pretty coronal or two of choice flowers, were showered on the stage in compliment to the fair _bénéficière_.

_Wednesday, 12th._--Winter has at length arrived in person, and his active bridge-maker is laying for him a firm icy path across the waters. It was reported yesterday that the passage between Staten Island and New Jersey was no longer open, Amboy Creek being thickly frozen from Newark Bay to the Raritan. On reaching the steamboat this morning, I found that the report was a correct one, and that our only practicable passage lay through the Narrows and round the south end of Staten Island. The occasion thus presented of a winter view of the bay quite reconciled me to this more exposed and circuitous route, as it, in truth, amply compensated for it.

It was just seven A.M. when I reached the dock where the boat lay, to all appearance firmly imbedded in thick ice; the river, I perceived, was still pretty clear. Punctual as usual, the bell ceased to clang; the paddle-wheels were vigorously applied; and in a few moments we burst our bonds, thrusting the thick flakes of ice aside, and darting into the clear river free from all farther impediment.

There were very few passengers, and I had the promenade deck to my exclusive use. Although day had not long broke, the clearness and purity of the atmosphere gave to the most distant parts of the landscape an outline cold and distinct, and brought all objects apparently much nearer to each other, and to the looker-on, than they had ever before appeared. The city of Jersey, the woods of Hoboken, and the far-off bluffs of the Palisadoes, were each seen to stand separated and alone; not blended together into one harmonizing mass, as, through the medium of a rich warm atmosphere, I had hitherto viewed them. The effect was for a moment to render this scene, which frequent observation had made familiar, quite strange to me; and at the same time to invest its now separate portions with new and peculiar attractions.

The yet quiet city soon dropped astern; and on a good plan of its streets one might have traced the earliest and most notable of its sections, if not the particular houses, by the thin spiral lines of smoke which curled distinctly high above the chimneys from which they escaped.

We held our course close along the east side of Staten Island; and as we shot by the quarantine establishment, with its hospital and many offices, the sun rose, without one attendant cloud, over the forest heights of Brooklyn, burnishing, as with gold, every window and weathercock opposed to its radiance.

The drooping boughs of the graceful willow tribes, and all the neighbouring shrubs, which only a moment before I had shivered to look upon, bent down, as they appeared, beneath a load of ungenial icicles, were now, as though touched by some enchanter's wand, sparkling and brilliant, reminding one of the diamond-growing trees of young Aladdin's cave.

The Narrows were next passed, but the view seaward was bleak and cheerless: the Neversink hills for the first time appearing to me worthy such a high-sounding distinction. Not a symptom of frost was here, although the wind had ceased to stir the waters of the bay, and to the sun alone was left the task of opposing the advance of the ice-king. Sol, though with diminished powers, had made a glorious rally on this day; for not a thicket or creek within sight but rejoiced in his cheering rays, and gladly owned his supremacy.

The smoothness of the sea enabled our boat to make rapid way; and by a little after ten o'clock we were landed at Amboy, where we found the train awaiting our arrival. As we left our first stage, Hights-town, an accident occurred similar to the one I had, on my last trip southward, seen attended by such fearful consequences. We were proceeding, luckily at a moderate rate, when the axle of the engine-tender broke in two: the car occupied by myself and three others led the van, yet the first intimation we got of the break-down of our tender was our running foul of it with a bump that fairly unshipped us all, pitching the occupiers of the hind-seats head-on into the laps of those _vis-à-vis_ to them. Happily, this was the worst of the present mischance: the engine was speedily arrested, a sound axle drawn from the near car to replace the one fractured, myself and the others belonging to the carriage thus hauled out of the line were stowed in, as supernumeraries, elsewhere, and, after a delay, of some forty minutes, off we bowled again.

Halting for a few moments at Bordentown, where the Delaware steamer waits when the river is practicable, it now spread away below us in a solid mass; and we pursued our journey by the railroad provided for such seasons so far as it was at this time completed, that is, for some eight or nine miles farther on. This point achieved, we discovered a group of the clumsy-looking stage-coaches of the country, to the number of twelve, each having a team of four horses, ready harnessed, standing amongst the trees below.

The cold was by this time extreme; bustle was the word, therefore, amongst all parties,--drivers, porters, and passengers; and in a quarter of an hour the transfer was completed, the luggage packed, the people arranged, and the caravan in motion. The place had quite a wild, lone, forest air; and it was a curious scene to view the bustle, and hear the noise, so uncongenial to the spot, and no less so to observe the coaches wheeling about amongst the trees as each Jehu sought to make the best of his way into the lane at a little distance.

Miserably uncomfortable as the driver's seat is before these machines, I, as usual where the course was strange to me, requested leave to share it with him. I had cast about to select a team; and was soon seated, well rolled in broadcloth and bear-skin, behind four dark bays that might have done credit to a better judgment.

We soon got into a very narrow lane, through which lay the first few miles. In this the ruts, or track, as it is here called, was over a foot deep: on either side grew trees, thick and low-branched; therefore my companion and I had as much as we could do to avoid broken heads and keep the track. I looked impatiently, after practising this dodging exercise some time, for the great road which the driver told me was "a bit further ahead;" and at last we broke from our leafy shelter into it, but with little advantage that I could discover; for, though our heads were in less peril, our necks, I considered, required more especial looking after than ever. We certainly had here wider space, and a free choice of ruts or tracks, for there were several; but not one of them less profound than those we had hitherto ploughed through. In one or two places, the road was deeply trenched in every direction, and the edges of these cuts so glazed with new-formed ice that I expected my friend who was pilot would pass the box and back out. But no such thing, faith! he steered round all impediments as coolly as the wind that whistled through the half-frozen reins he held.

Finding one place in the road quite impassable, he cast his eyes about him for a moment, and chose the best part of the right bank; when, gathering up his leaders, he first vexed them a little with the whip, and then, putting them fairly at it, gained its summit, drove along for a hundred yards, crashing through a thick cover of shrubs growing breast-high, when having thus turned the impracticable bit of highway, he coolly dropped down into it again. On looking back, I saw each team taking in succession the line we had thus led over.

This was all performed clumsily enough, as far as appearance went, I allow; but cleverly and confidently, though with leaders hardly within calling distance: and four snaffle-bits, and a pig-whip, being the only means of dictation and control possessed by the coachman. The more I see of these queer Whips the better I like them: it assuredly is impossible to conceive anything more uncoachmanlike than their outward man; but they grapple with the constantly occurring difficulties of their strange work hardily and with superior intelligence.

I have seen a pass on the high-road between Albany and New York, where a descending driver perceiving that collision with a coming carriage was from the slippery condition of the hill unavoidable, and also being aware that such an event would be fatal to both parties, on the instant turned his horses to the near bank, and dashed down into the bed of the Mohawk, a descent of more than a hundred feet, as nearly perpendicular as may well be. His presence of mind and courage saved both his own passengers and those in the other vehicle, with the loss of his coach and one of his horses only. The man was publicly thanked and rewarded, and, I believe, yet waggons the same road.

One might almost back one of these crack hands to hunt a picked team of their own, a cross country, with the Melton hounds, coach and all; and if it was not for the _pace_, it would not be such a very bad bet either.

At Camden we quitted our vehicular mode of progressing, and took once more to the water, or rather to the ice, since it certainly ruled over the broad Delaware. In many places this was strong enough to sustain the weight of our little steamer's bow, and only gave way beneath repeated heavy blows of the iron-sheathed paddles.

After a hard fight we forced a path through all obstacles, and as the clock struck four were alongside the Chestnut-street wharf; having, notwithstanding the delays occasioned by our mishap and various changes, accomplished the hundred miles in exactly ten hours.

I was expected, found a dinner prepared for five o'clock, and, going at once to my chamber to dress, thought I had never seen the Mansion-house look to greater advantage. A well-warmed and carpeted corridor led to my snug little room, the window of which looking into the inner court, afforded one of the most attractive winter prospects imaginable, in the form of entire carcasses of several fat bucks all hanging in a comely row, and linked together by a festooning composed of turkey, woodcock, snipe, grouse, and ducks of several denominations. Although quartered here for a month to come, I felt fortified against any fear of famine by this single glance without; nor did my interior appear less inviting, cheered as this was by a brisk fire of hickory, several logs of which lay athwart my hearth, sustained by a couple of antique-looking brass dogs, blazing and crackling most uproariously: this is a fire I prefer even to one of Liverpool coal; and how it can ever be superseded by that quiet, unsocial, unearthly-looking and smelling, anthracite, I am at a loss to _guess_!

FOOTNOTE:

[6] Described as the officer commanding the Downingsville militia, a New-Englander, and a stanch adherent of the "Gineral's, so far as 'a decent hunk of the animal wint,' but entirely agin' the whole-hog system." Under this perfect assumption there appeared a series of really familiar epistles, either remonstrating with or speaking of the "Gineral," or, as the Major latterly styled the President, "the Govermint;" no less admirable for the political acumen they display than for a caustic drollery, which is enforced with shrewd Yankee humour, and in the singular phraseology current amongst 'Uncle Sam's' kindred. These letters have been collected, and are published both in America and in England; and although neither the purity of the politics or the dialect of the honest Major can be fully appreciated by strangers, his intrinsic wit and native humour will well repay the task of a perusal by all who admire originality of thought and expression.

THE DUTCH AND IRISH COLONIES OF PENNSYLVANIA.

Here are two colonies yet existing within this State,--samples of both indeed may be found within a few miles of Philadelphia,--and these constitute with me a never-failing source of interest and amusement. They are composed of Dutch and Irish, often located on adjoining townships, but keeping their borders as clearly defined as though the wall of China were drawn between them. No two bodies exist in nature more repellent; neither time, nor the necessities of traffic, which daily arise amongst a growing population, can induce a repeal of their tacit non-intercourse system, or render them even tolerant of each other. I have understood that Pat has on occasions of high festivity been known to extend his courtesy so far as to pay his German neighbours a call to inquire kindly whether "any gintlemen in the place might be inclined for a fight;" but this evidence of good-nature appears to have been neither understood nor reciprocated, and, proof against the blandishment, Mynheer was not even to be hammered into contact with "dem wilder Irisher."

It is a curious matter to observe the purity with which both people have conserved the dialect of their respective countries, and the integrity of their manners, costume, prejudices, nay, their very air, all of which they yet present fresh and characteristic as imported by their ancestors, although some of them are the third in descent from the first colonists. Differing in all other particulars, on this point of character their similarity is striking.

Amongst the Germans I have had families pointed out to me, whose fathers beheld the commencement of the war of Independence in Pennsylvania, yet who are at this day as ignorant of its language, extent, policy, or population, as was the worthy pastor of whom it is related, that, having been requested to communicate to his flock the want of supplies which existed in the American camp, he assured the authorities that he had done so, as well as described to them the exact state of affairs:

"I said to dem," he repeated in English, "Get op, min broders und mine zisters, und put dem paerd by die vagen, mit brood und corn; mit schaap's flesh und flesh of die groote bigs, und os flesh; und alles be brepare to go op de vay, mit oder goed mens, to sooply General Vashinton, who was fighting die Englishe Konig vor our peoples, und der lifes, und der liberdies, op-on dem banks of de Schuylkill, diese side of die Vestern Indies."

In his piggery of a residence and his palace of a barn, in his waggon, his oxen, his pipe, his person and physiognomy, the third in descent, from the worthies exhorted as above, remains unchanged. The cases upon which, as a juryman, he decides, he hears through the medium of an official interpreter; he has his own journal, which serves out his portion of politics to him in Low Dutch, and in the same language is printed such portions of the acts of the State legislature as may in any way relate to the section he inhabits; the only portion of the community, indeed, which he knows, or cares to know, anything about.

My honest countrymen of the same class, I can answer for being as slightly sophisticated as their colder neighbours: it is true, their tattered robes have been superseded by sufficient clothing, and a bit of good broadcloth for Sunday or Saint's day, and their protracted lenten fare exchanged for abundance of good meat, and bread, and "tay, galore, for the priest and the mistress;" but when politics or any stirring cause is offered to them, their feelings are found to be as excitable, and their temperament as fiery, as though still standing on the banks of the Suir or the Shannon.

On all occasions of rustic holiday they may yet be readily recognised by their slinging gait, the bit of a stick borne in the hollow of the hand, the inimitable shape and set of the hat, the love of top-coats in the men, and the abiding taste for red ribands and silk gowns amongst the women.

The inherent difference between the two people is never more strikingly perceived than when you have occasion to make any inquiry whilst passing through their villages. Pull up your horse by a group of little Dutchmen, in order to learn your way or ask any information, and the chance is they either run away, "upon instinct," or are screamed at to come within doors by their prudent mothers; upon which cry they scatter, like scared rabbits, for the warren, leaving you to "_Try Turner_" or any other shop within hail.

For myself, after a slight experience, I succeeded with my friends to admiration: the few sentences of indifferent Dutch which I yet conserved from my education amongst the Vee boors, at the Cape, served as a passport to their civility. Without this accomplishment, all strangers are suspected of being Irishers; and, as such, partake of the dislike and dread in which their more mercurial neighbours are held by this sober-sided and close-handed generation.

On the other hand, enter an Irish village, and by any chance see the young villains precipitated out of the common school: call to one of these, and a dozen will be under your horse's feet in a moment; prompt in their replies, even if ignorant of that you seek to learn; and ready and willing to show you any place or road they know anything, or nothing, about. I have frequently on these occasions, when asked to walk into their cabin by the old people, on hearing their accent, and seeing myself thus surrounded, almost doubted my being in the valley of Pennsylvania.

So little indeed does the accent of the Irish American,--who lives exclusively amongst his own people in the country parts,--differ from that of the settler of a year, that on occasions of closely-contested elections this leads to imposition on one hand and vexation on the other; and it is by no means uncommon for a man, whose father was born in the States, to be questioned as to his right of citizenship, and requested to bring proofs of a three years' residence.

I now passed another month in this city most agreeably, during which the weather was never unendurably cold: sharp frosts, but not a single fall of snow that continued over an hour or two, or lay longer on the ground. The majority of days I find noted in my journal as frosty but fine, many as mild, and some even are described as warm: there were few, indeed, during which exercise on horseback might not have been pleasantly taken. When February set in, and no snow had yet fallen, I heard much despair evinced on the diminished chances of a good sleighing-time; and, although an enemy to severe cold, I confess I had my own regrets at not being permitted to assist at a sleighing frolic, of which I received on all hands such glowing descriptions.

On the eighth of this month I looked with some anxiety for the continuance of mild weather, as the Delaware was, happily, once more open, and the line by way of that river and French-town resumed; a very important event, as far as both comfort and expedition were concerned. Indeed, a journey by land to Baltimore was an adventure by no means to be desired; the time of travel having varied during the last month from three to nine days, the distance being under a hundred miles. But the waters were up, the bridges down; one road was washed away, and another filled in with rocks, and roots of trees on their travels from the Alleghanies to the Atlantic, which rested there, abiding the next flood, without any fear of receiving a visit _ad interim_ from M'Adam.