OCR Text |
Show 112 Early Western Travels [ VoL *<* In the season of flood the settlers, in their log- cabins along the banks, are often startled from their deep by the deep, sullen crash of a " land- slip," as such removals are called. The scenery of the Mississippi, below its confluence [ 83] with die Missouri, is, as has been remarked, too sublime for beauty; and yet there is not a little of the picturesque in the views which meet the eye along the banks. Towns and settlements of greater or less extent appear at frequent intervals; and then the lowly log- hut of the pioneer is not to be passed without notice, standing beneath the tall, branchless columns of the girdled forest- trees, with its luxuriant maize- fields sweeping away in the rear. One of these humble habitations of the wilderness we reached, I remember, one evening near twilight; and while our boat was delayed at the woodyard, I strolled up from the shore to the gateway, and entered easily into confabulation with a pretty, slatternly- looking female, with a brood of mushroom, flaxen-haired urchins at her apron- string, and an infant at the breast very quietly receiving his supper. On inquiry I learned that eighteen years had seen the good woman a denizen of the wilderness; that all the responsibilities appertained unto herself, and that her " man " was proprietor of some thousand acres of bottom in the vicinity. Subsequently I was informed that the worthy woodcutter could be valued at not less than one hundred thousand! yet, en verite, reader mine, I do asseverate that my latent sympathies were not slightly roused at the first introduction, because of the seeming poverty of the dirty cabin and its dirtier mistress! St. Louis. |