Читать книгу Journal of a Residence in America - Fanny Kemble - Страница 36

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Rose late: there was music in the night, which is always a strange enchantment to me. After breakfast, wrote journal. At eleven, Captain—— and—— called for us; and my uncle having joined us, we proceeded to the slip, as they call the places where the ships lie, and which answer to our docks. Poor dear Pacific! I ran up her side with great glee, and was introduced to Captain——, her old commander; rushed down into my berth, and was actually growing pathetic over the scene of my sea-sorrows, when Mr. ——clapped his hands close to me, and startled me out of my reverie. Certainly my adhesiveness must either be very large, or uncommonly active just now, for my heart yearned towards the old timbers with exceeding affection. The old ship was all drest out in her best, and after sitting for some time in our cabin, we adjourned to the larger one and lunched. Mr. ——joined our party; and we had one or two of our old ship songs, with their ridiculous burdens, with due solemnity. Saw Mr. ——, but not dear M. ——. Visited the forecastle, whence I have watched such glorious sunsets, such fair uprisings of the starry sisterhood; now it looked upon the dusty quay and dirty dock water, and the graceful sails were all stripped away, and the bare masts and rigging shone in the intense sunlight. Poor good ship! I wish to Heaven my feet were on her deck, and her prow turned to the east. I would not care if the devil himself drove a hurricane at our backs. Visited the fish and fruit markets:[12] it was too late in the day to see either to advantage, but the latter reminded me of Aladdin's treasure: the heaps of peaches, filling with their rich downy balls high baskets ranged in endless rows, and painted of a bright vermilion colour, which threw a ruddy ripeness over the fruit. The enormous baskets (such as are used in England to carry linen) piled with melons, the wild grapes, the pears, and apples, all so plenteous, so fragrant, so beautiful in form and colour, leading the mind to the wondrous bounteousness which has dowered this land with every natural treasure—the whole enchanted me. ——, to my horror, bought a couple of beautiful live wild-pigeons, which he carried home, head downwards, one in each coat pocket. We parted from him at the Park gate, and proceeded to Murray Street, to look at the furnished house my father wishes to take. Upon enquiry, however, we found that it was already let. The day was bright and beautiful, and my father proposed crossing the river to Hoboken, the scene of the turtle-eating expedition. We did so accordingly: himself, D——, Mr. ——, and I. Steamers go across every five minutes, conveying passengers on foot and horseback, gigs, carriages, carts, any thing and every thing. The day was lovely—the broad bright river was gemmed with a thousand sails. Away to the right it stretched between richly-wooded banks, placid and blue as a lake; to the left, in the rocky doorway of the narrows, two or three ships stood revealed against the cloudless sky. We reached the opposite coast, and walked. It was nearly three miles from where we landed to the scene of the "spoon-exercise." The whole of our route lay through a beautiful wild plantation, or rather strip of wood, I should say, for 'tis nature's own gardening which crowns the high bank of the river; through which trellis-work of varied foliage we caught exquisite glimpses of the glorious waters, the glittering city, and the opposite banks, decked out in all the loveliest contrast of sunshine and shade. As we stood in our leafy colonnade looking out upon this fair scene, the rippling water made sweet music far down below us, striking with its tiny silver waves the smooth sand and dark-coloured rocks from which they were ebbing. Many of the trees were quite new to me, and delighted me with their graceful forms and vivid foliage. The broad-leaved catalpa, and the hickory with its bright coral-coloured berries. Many lovely lowly things, too, grew by our pathside, which we gathered as we passed, to bring away, but which withered in our hands ere we returned. Gorgeous butterflies were zigzagging through the air, and for the first time I longed to imprison them. In pursuing one, I ran into the midst of a slip of clover land, but presently jumped out again, on hearing the swarms of grasshoppers round me. Mr. ——caught one; it was larger and thicker than the English grasshopper, and of a dim mottled brown colour, like the plumage of our common moth; but presently, on his opening his hand to let it escape, it spread out a pair of dark purple wings, tipped with pale primrose colour, and flew away a beautiful butterfly, such as the one I had been seduced by. The slips of grass ground on the left of our path were the only things that annoyed me: they were ragged, and rank, and high—they wanted mowing; and if they had been mowed soft, and thick, and smooth, like an English lawn, how gloriously the lights and shadows of this lovely sky would fall through the green roof of this wood upon them! There is nothing in nature that, to my fancy, receives light and shade with as rich an effect as sloping lawn land. Oh! England, England! how I have seen your fresh emerald mantle deepen and brighten in a summer's day. About a hundred yards from the place where they dined on Tuesday, with no floor but the damp earth, no roof but the dripping trees, stands a sort of café; a long, low, pretty Italianish-looking building. The wood is cleared away in front of it, and it commands a lovely view of the Hudson and its opposite shores: and here they might have been sheltered and comfortable, but I suppose it was not yet the appointed day of the month with them for eating their dinner within walls; and, rather than infringe on an established rule, they preferred catching a cold apiece. The place where they met in the open air is extremely beautiful, except, of course, on a rainy day. The shore is lower just here; and though there are trees enough to make shade all round, and a thick screen of wood and young undergrowth behind, the front is open to the river, which makes a bend just below, forming a lake-like bay, round which again the coast rises into rocky walls covered with rich foliage. Upon one of these promontories, in the midst of a high open knoll, surrounded and overhung by higher grounds covered with wood, stood the dwelling of the owner of the land, high above the river, overlooking its downward course to the sea, perched like an eagle's aërie, half-way between heaven and the level earth, but beautifully encircled with waving forests, a shade in summer and a shelter in winter. My father, D——, and my bonnet sat down in the shade. Mr. ——and I clambered upon some pieces of rock at the water's edge, whence we looked out over river and land—a fair sight. "Oh!" I exclaimed, pointing to the highlands on our left, through whose rich foliage the rifted granite looked cold and grey, "what a place for a scramble! there must be lovely walks there." "Ay," returned my companion, "and a few rattle-snakes too."[13] We found D——, my father, and my bonnet buffeting with a swarm of musquitoes; this is a great nuisance. We turned our steps homeward. I picked up a nut enclosed like a walnut in a green case. I opened it; it was not ripe; but in construction exactly like a walnut, with the same bitter filmy skin over the fruit, which is sweet and oily, and like a walnut in flavour also. Mr. ——told me it was called a marrow-nut. The tree on which it grew had foliage of the acacia kind. We had to rush to meet the steam-boat, which was just going across. The whole walk reminded me of that part of Oatlands which, from its wild and tangled woodland, they call America.

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There must have been something surpassingly beautiful in our surroundings, for even Mr. ——, into whose composition I suspect much of the poetical element does not enter, began expatiating on the happiness of the original possessors of these fair lands and waters, the Indians—the Red Children of the soil, who followed the chase through these lovely wildernesses, and drove their light canoes over these broad streams—"great nature's happy commoners,"—till the predestined curse came on them, till the white sails of the invaders threw their shadow over these seas, and the work of extermination began in these wild fastnesses of freedom. The destruction of the original inhabitants of a country by its discoverers, always attended, as it is, with injustice and cruelty, appears to me one of the most mysterious dispensations of Providence.

The chasing, enslaving, and destroying creatures, whose existence, however inferior, is as justly theirs as that of the most refined European is his; who for the most part, too, receive their enemies with open-handed hospitality, until taught treachery by being betrayed, and cruelty by fear; the driving the child of the soil off it, or, what is fifty times worse, chaining him to till it; all the various forms of desolation which have ever followed the landing of civilised men upon uncivilised shores; in short, the theory and practice of discovery and conquest, as recorded in all history, is a very singular and painful subject of contemplation.

'Tis true that cultivation and civilisation, the arts and sciences that render life useful, the knowledge that ennobles, the adornments that refine existence, above all, the religion that is the most sacred trust and dear reward, all these, like pure sunshine and healthful airs following a hurricane, succeed the devastation of the invader; but the sufferings of those who are swept away are not the less; and though I believe that good alone is God's result, it seems a fearful proof of the evil wherewith this earth is cursed, that good cannot progress but over such a path. No one beholding the prosperous and promising state of this fine country, could wish it again untenanted of its enterprising and industrious possessors; yet even while looking with admiration at all that they have achieved, with expectation amounting to certainty to all that they will yet accomplish, 'tis difficult to refrain from bestowing some thoughts of pity and of sadness upon those whose homes have been overturned, whose language has passed away, and whose feet are daily driven further from those territories of which they were once sole and sovereign lords. How strange it is to think, that less than one hundred years ago, these shores, resounding with the voice of populous cities—these waters, laden with the commerce of the wide world—were silent wildernesses, where sprang and fell the forest leaves, where ebbed and flowed the ocean tides from day to day, and from year to year, in uninterrupted stillness; where the great sun, who looked on the vast empires of the East, its mouldering kingdoms, its lordly palaces, its ancient temples, its swarming cities, came and looked down upon the still dwelling of utter loneliness, where nature sat enthroned in everlasting beauty, undisturbed by the far off din of worlds "beyond the flood."[14]

Came home rather tired: my father asked Mr. ——to dine with us, but he could not. After dinner, sat working till ten o'clock, when——came to take leave of us. He is going off to-morrow morning to Philadelphia, but will be back for our Tuesday's dinner. The people here are all up and about very early in the morning. I went out at half-past eight, and found all Broadway abroad.