Part 6

In town, all the boys were extravagantly fond of a diversion, that to us would appear a very odd and childish one. The great street of the town, in the midst of which, as has been formerly mentioned, stood all the churches and public buildings, sloped down from the hill on which the fort stood, towards the river: between the buildings was an unpaved carriage-road, the footpath, beside the houses, being the only part of the street which was paved. In winter, this sloping descent, continued for more than a quarter of a mile, acquiring firmness from the frost, and became extremely slippery. Then the amusement commenced. Every boy and youth in town, from eight to eighteen, had a little, low sledge, made with a rope like a bridle to the front, by which it could be dragged after one by the hand. On this, one or two, at most, could sit—and this sloping descent, being made as smooth as a looking-glass, by sliders, sledges, &c., perhaps a hundred at once set out in succession from the top of this street, each seated in his little sledge, with the rope in his hand, which drawn to the right or left, served to guide him. He pushed it off with a little stick, as one would launch a boat; and then, with the most astonishing velocity, precipitated by the weight of the owner, the little machine glided past, and was at the lower end of the street in an instant. What could be so peculiarly delightful in this rapid and smooth descent, I could never discover—though in a more retired place, and on a smaller scale, I have tried the amusement: but to a young Albanian, sleighing, as he called it, was one of the first joys of life, though attended with the drawback of walking to the top of the declivity, dragging his sledge every time he renewed his flight, for such it might well be called. In the management of this little machine, some dexterity was necessary: an unskilful Phaeton was sure to fall. The conveyance was so low, that a fall was attended with little danger, yet with much disgrace, for an universal laugh from all sides, assailed the fallen charioteer. This laugh was from a very full chorus, for the constant and rapid succession of this procession, where every one had a brother, lover, or kinsman, brought all the young people in town to the porticos, where they used to sit, wrapt in furs, till ten or eleven at night, engrossed by this delectable spectacle. What magical attraction it could possibly have, I never could find out; but I have known an Albanian, after residing some years in Britain, and becoming a polished, fine gentleman, join the sport, and slide down with the rest. Perhaps, after all our laborious refinements in amusement, being easily pleased is one of the great secrets of happiness, as far as it is attainable in this “frail and feverish being.”

Now there remains another amusement to be described, which I mention with reluctance, and should scarce venture to mention at all, had I not found a precedent for it among the virtuous Spartans. Had Lycurgus himself, been the founder of their community, the young men could scarce have stolen with more alacrity and dexterity. I could never conjecture how the custom could possibly originate among a set of people of such perfect and plain integrity; but thus it was. The young men now and then spent a convivial evening at a tavern together, where, from the extreme cheapness of liquor, their bills, (even when they committed an occasional excess,) were very moderate. Either to lessen the expense of the supper, or from the pure love of what they styled frolic, (anglicè mischief,) they never failed to steal either a roasting pig, or a fat turkey, for this festive occasion. The town was the scene of these depredations, which never extended beyond it. Swine and turkeys were reared in great numbers by all the inhabitants. For those they brought to town in winter, they had an appropriate place at the lower end of the garden, in which they were locked up. It is observable that these animals were the only things locked up about the house, for this good reason, that nothing else ran the least risk of being stolen. The dexterity of the theft consisted in climbing over very high walls, watching to steal in when the negroes went down to feed the horse or cow, or making a clandestine entrance at some window or aperture; breaking open doors was quite out of rule, and rarely ever resorted to. These exploits were always performed in the darkest nights; if the owner heard a noise in his stables, he usually ran down with a cudgel, and laid it without mercy on any culprit he could overtake. This was either dexterously avoided or patiently borne. To plunder a man, and afterwards offer him any personal injury, was accounted scandalous; but the turkies or pigs were never recovered. In some instances, a whole band of these young plunderers would traverse the town, and carry off such a prey as would afford provision for many jovial nights. Nothing was more common than to find one’s brothers or nephews amongst these pillagers.

Marriage was followed by two dreadful privations: a married man could not fly down the street in a little sledge, or join a party of pig-stealers, without outraging decorum. If any of their confederates married, as they frequently did, very young, and were in circumstances to begin house-keeping, they were sure of an early visit of this nature from their old confederates. It was thought a great act of gallantry to overtake and chastise the robbers. I recollect an instance of a young married man, who had not long attained to that dignity, whose turkies screaming violently one night, he ran down to chastise the aggressors; he overtook them in the fact, but finding they were his old associates, could not resist the force of habit, joined the rest in another exploit of the same nature, and then shared his own turkey at the tavern. There were two inns in the town, the masters of which were “honourable men,” yet these pigs and turkies were always received and dressed, without questioning whence they came. In one instance, a young party had, in this manner, provided a pig, and ordered it to be roasted at the King’s Arms; another party attacked the same place, whence this booty was taken, but found it already rifled. This party was headed by an idle, mischievous young man, who was the Ned Poins of his fraternity: well guessing how the stolen roasted-pig was disposed of, he ordered his friends to adjourn to the rival tavern, and went himself to the King’s Arms. Inquiring in the kitchen, (where a pig was roasting,) who supped there, he soon arrived at certainty; then taking an opportunity when there was no one in the kitchen but the cook-maid, he sent for one of the jovial party, who were at cards up stairs. During her absence, he cut the string by which the pig was suspended, laid it in the dripping-pan, and through the quiet and dark streets of that sober city, carried it safely to the other tavern, where, after finishing the roasting, he and his companions prepared to regale themselves. Meantime, the pig was missed at the King’s Arms, and it was immediately concluded, from the dexterity and address with which this trick was performed, that no other but the Poins aforesaid, could be the author of it. A new stratagem was now devised to outwit this stealer of the stolen. An adventurous youth of the despoiled party, laid down a parcel of shavings opposite to the other tavern, and setting them in a blaze, cried fire! a most alarming sound here, where such accidents were too frequent. Every one rushed out of the house, where supper had been just served. The dexterous purveyor, who had occasioned all this disturbance, stole in, snatched up the dish with the pig in it, stole out again by the back door, and feasted his companions with the recovered spoils.

These were a few idle young men, the sons of avaricious fathers, who grudging to advance the means of pushing them forward, by the help of their own industry, to independence, allowed them to remain so long unoccupied, that their time was wasted, and habits of conviviality at length degenerated into those of dissipation. These were not only pitied and endured, but received with a great deal of kindness and indulgence, that was wonderful. They were usually a kind of wags, went about like privileged persons, at whose jests no one took offence, and were in their discourse and style of humour, so much like Shakspeare’s clowns, that on reading that admirable author, I thought I recognized my old acquaintances. Of these, however, I saw little, the society admitted at my friends being very select.

CHAP. XII.

Lay-Brothers—Catalina—Detached Indians.

Before I quit this attempt to delineate the number of which this community was composed, I must mention a class of aged persons, who, united by the same recollections, pursuits, and topics, associated very much with each other, and very little with a world which they seemed to have renounced. They might be styled lay-brothers, and were usually widowers, or persons who, in consequence of some early disappointment, had remained unmarried. These were not devotees, who had, as was formerly often the case in Catholic countries, run from the extreme of licentiousness to that of bigotry. They were generally persons who were never marked as being irreligious or immoral—and just as little distinguished for peculiar strictness or devotional fervour. These good men lived in the house of some relation, where they had their own apartments to themselves, and only occasionally mixed with the family. The people of the town lived to a great age; ninety was frequently attained, and I have seen different individuals of both sexes, who had reached a hundred. These ancients seemed to place all their delight in pious books and devotional exercises, particularly in singing psalms, which they would do in their own apartments for hours together. They came out and in like ghosts, and were treated in the same manner, for they never spoke unless when addressed, and seemed very careless of the things of this world, like people who had got above it. Yet they were much together, and seemed to enjoy each other’s conversation. Retrospection on the scenes of early life, anticipations of that futurity, so closely veiled from our sight, and discussions regarding different passages of holy writ, seemed their favourite themes. They were mild and benevolent, but abstracted, and unlike other people, their happiness, for happy I am convinced they were, was of a nature peculiar to themselves, not obvious to others. Others there were not deficient in their attention to religious duties, who, living in the bosom of their families, took an active and cheerful concern to the last, in all that amused or interested them; and I never understood that the lay-brothers, as I have chosen to call them, blamed them for so doing. One of the first Christian virtues, charity, in the most obvious and common sense of the word, had little scope. Here a beggar was unheard of. People, such as I have described in the _bush_, or going there, were no more considered as objects of pity, than we consider an apprentice as such, for having to serve his time before he sets up for himself. In such cases, the wealthier, because older settlers, frequently gave a heifer or colt each, to a new beginner, who set about clearing land in their vicinity. Orphans were never neglected; and from their early marriages, and the casualties their manner of life subjected them to, these were not unfrequent. You never entered a house without meeting children; maidens, bachelors, and childless married people, all adopted orphans, and all treated them as if they were their own.

Having given a sketch, that appears to my recollection, (aided by subsequent conversations with my fellow-travellers,) a faithful one of the country and its inhabitants, it is time to return to the history of the mind of Miss Schuyler, for by no other circumstances than prematurity of intellect, and superior culture, were her earliest years distinguished. Her father, dying early, left her very much to the tuition of his brother. Her uncle’s frontier situation, made him a kind of barrier to the settlement; while the powerful influence that his knowledge of nature and of character, his sound judgment and unstained integrity, had obtained over both parties, made him the bond by which the aborigines were united with the colonists. Thus, little leisure was left him for domestic enjoyments or literary pursuits, for both of which his mind was peculiarly adapted. Of the leisure time he could command, however, he made the best use, and soon distinguished Catalina as the one amongst his family to whom nature had been most liberal; he was at the pains to cultivate her taste for reading, which soon discovered itself, by procuring for her the best authors in history, divinity, and belles lettres; in this latter branch, her reading was not very extensive, but then the few books of this kind that she possessed, were very well chosen, and she was early and intimately familiar with them. What I remember of her, assisted by comparisons since made with others, has led me to think that extensive reading, superficial and indiscriminate—such as the very easy access to books among us encourages, is not at an early period of life, favourable to solid thinking, true taste, or fixed principle. Whatever she knew, she knew to the bottom; and the reflections which were thus suggested to her strong, discerning mind, were digested by means of easy and instructive conversation. Colonel Schuyler had many relations in New-York—and the governor and other ruling characters there, carefully cultivated the acquaintance of a person, so well qualified to instruct and inform them on certain points as he was. Having considerable dealings in the fur trade, too, he went every winter to the capital for a short time, to adjust his commercial concerns, and often took his favourite niece along with him, who, being of an uncommonly quick growth and tall stature, soon attracted attention by her personal graces, as well as by the charms of her conversation. I have been told, and should conclude from a picture I have seen drawn when she was fifteen, that she was in her youth very handsome. Of this, few traces remained when I knew her; excessive corpulence having then overloaded her majestic person, and entirely changed the aspect of a countenance, once eminently graceful. In no place did female excellence of any kind more amply receive its due tribute of applause and admiration than here, for various reasons; first, cultivation and refinement were rare. Then, as it was not the common routine that women should necessarily have such and such accomplishments, pains were only taken on minds strong enough to bear improvement, without becoming conceited or pedantic; and lastly, as the spur of emulation was not invidiously applied, those who acquired a superior degree of knowledge, considered themselves as very fortunate in having a new source of enjoyment opened to them. But never having been made to understand that the chief motive of excelling was to dazzle or outshine others, they no more thought of despising their less fortunate companions, than of assuming pre-eminence for discovering a wild plum-tree or bee-hive in the woods, though, as in the former case, they would have regarded such a discovery as a benefit and a pleasure; their acquisitions, therefore, were never shaded by affectation. The women were all natives of the country, and few had more than a domestic education; but men, who possessed the advantages of early culture and usage of the world, daily arrived on the continent from different parts of Europe; so that if we may be indulged in the inelegant liberty of talking commercially of female elegance, the supply was not equal to the demand. It may be easily supposed that Miss Schuyler met with due attention; who, even at this early age, was respected for the strength of her character, and the dignity and composure of her manners. Her mother, whom she delighted to recollect, was mild, pious, and amiable; her acknowledged worth was chastened by the utmost diffidence. Yet, accustomed to exercise a certain power over the minds of the natives, she had great influence in restraining their irregularities and swaying their opinions. From her knowledge of their language, and habit of conversing with them, some detached Indian families resided for a while in summer in the vicinity of houses occupied by the more wealthy and benevolent inhabitants. They generally built a slight wigwam under shelter of the orchard fence, on the shadiest side; and never were neighbours more harmless, peaceable, and obliging—I might truly add industrious, for in one way or other they were constantly occupied. The women and their children employed themselves in many ingenious handicrafts, which, since the introduction of European arts and manufactures, have greatly declined. Baking trays, wooden dishes, ladles and spoons, shovels and rakes, brooms of a peculiar manufacture, made by splitting a birch block into slender but tough filaments; baskets of all kinds and sizes, made of similar filaments, enriched with the most beautiful colours, which they alone knew how to extract from vegetable substances, and incorporate with the wood. They made also of the birch-bark, (which is here so strong and tenacious, that cradles and canoes are made of it,) many receptacles for holding fruit and other things, curiously adorned with embroidery—not inelegant, done with the sinews of deer, and leggins and moomesans, a very comfortable and highly ornamental substitute for shoes and stockings, then universally used in winter among the men of our own people. They had also a beautiful manufacture of deer skin, softened to the consistence of the finest Chamois leather, and embroidered with beads of wampum, formed like bugles; these, with great art and industry, they formed out of shells, which had the appearance of fine, white porcelain, veined with purple. This embroidery showed both skill and taste, and was among themselves highly valued. They had belts, large embroidered garters, and many other ornaments, formed, first of deer sinews, divided to the size of coarse thread, and afterwards, when they obtained worsted thread from us, of that material, formed in a manner which I could never comprehend. It was neither knitted nor wrought in the manner of net, nor yet woven—but the texture was formed more like an officer’s sash than any thing I can compare it to. While the women and children were thus employed, the men sometimes assisted them in the more laborious part of their business, but oftener occupied themselves in fishing on the rivers, and drying or preserving, by means of smoke, in sheds erected for the purpose, sturgeon and large eels, which they caught in great quantities, and of an extraordinary size, for winter provision.

Boys on the verge of manhood, and ambitious to be admitted into the hunting parties of the ensuing winter, exercised themselves in trying to improve their skill in archery, by shooting birds, squirrels, and raccoons. These petty huntings helped to support the little colony in the neighbourhood, which, however, derived its principal subsistence from an exchange of their manufactures with the neighbouring family, for milk, bread, and other articles of food.

The summer residence of these ingenious artisans promoted a great intimacy between the females of the vicinity and the Indian women, whose sagacity and comprehension of mind were beyond belief.

It is a singular circumstance, that though they saw the negroes in every respectable family not only treated with humanity, but cherished with parental kindness, they always regarded them with contempt and dislike, as an inferior race, and would have no communication with them. It was necessary then that all conversations should be held, and all business transacted with these females, by the mistress of the family. In the infancy of the settlement, the Indian language was familiar to the more intelligent inhabitants, who found it very useful, and were, no doubt, pleased with its nervous and emphatic idiom, and its lofty and sonorous cadence. It was, indeed, a noble and copious language, when one considers that it served as the vehicle of thought to a people, whose ideas and sphere of action we should consider as so very confined.

CHAP. XIII.

Progress of knowledge—Indian manners.

Conversing with those interesting and deeply-reflecting natives, was, to thinking minds, no mean source of entertainment. Communication soon grew easier, for the Indians had a singular facility in acquiring other languages—the children, I well remember, from experimental knowledge, for I delighted to hover about the wigwam, and converse with those of the Indians, and we very frequently mingled languages. But to return: whatever comfort or advantage a good and benevolent mind possesses, it is willing to extend to others. The mother of my friend, and other matrons, who, like her, experienced the consolations, the hopes, and the joys of Christianity, wished those estimable natives to share in their pure enjoyments.

Of all others, these mild and practical Christians were the best fitted for making proselytes. Unlike professed missionaries, whose zeal is not always seconded by judgment, they did not begin by alarming the jealousy, with which all manner of people watch over their hereditary prejudices. Engaged in active life, they had daily opportunities of demonstrating the truth of their religion, by its influence upon their conduct. Equally unable and unwilling to enter into deep disquisitions or polemical arguments, their calm and unstudied explanations of the essential doctrines of Christianity, were the natural results which arose out of their ordinary conversation. To make this better understood, I must endeavour to explain what I have observed in the unpolished society that occupies the wild and remote districts of different countries. Their conversation is not only more original, but, however odd the expression may appear, more philosophical than that of persons equally destitute of mental culture, in more populous districts. They derive their subjects of reflection and conversation, more from natural objects, which lead minds, possessing a certain degree of intelligence, more forward to trace effects to their causes. Nature, there, too, is seen arrayed in virgin beauty and simple majesty. Its various aspects are more grand and impressive; its voice is more distinctly heard, and sinks deeper into the heart. These people, more dependent on the simples of the fields and the wild fruits of the woods, better acquainted with the forms and instincts of the birds and beasts, their fellow denizens in the wilds, and more observant of every constellation and every change in the sky, from living so much in the open air, have a wider range of ideas than we are aware of. With us, art every where combats nature—opposes her plainest dictates, and too often conquers her. The poor, are so confined to the spot where their occupations lie—so engrossed by their struggles for daily bread, and so surrounded by the works of man, that those of their Creator are almost excluded from their view, at least form a very small part of the subjects that engross their thoughts. What knowledge they have is often merely the husks and orts that fall from the table of their superiors, which they swallow without chewing.

Many of those who are one degree above the lowest class, see nature in poetry, novels, and other books, and never think of looking for her any where else; like a person amused by seeing the reflection of the starry heavens, or shifting clouds in a calm lake, never lifting his eyes to those objects, of which he sees the imperfect though resembling pictures.