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Show 198 Early Western Travels [ Vat 26 of farther mention, and two plain, towerless churches, unbosomed in a grove somewhat in the suburbs of the village. There is something singularly picturesque in the situation of these churches, and the structures themselves are not devoid of beauty and symmetrical proportion. At this place, also, is located the land- office for the district On the morning of my arrival at the village, early as was the hour, the place was thronged with disappointed applicants for land; a lean and hungry- looking race, by- the- by, as it has ever been my lot to look upon. Unfortunately, the office had the evening before, from some cause, been closed, and the unhappy speculators were forced to trudge away many a weary mile, through dust and sun, with their heavy specie dollars, to their homes again. I remember once to have been in the city of Bangor, " away down East in theS tate of Maine," when the public lands on the Penobscot River were first placed in the market. The land mania had for some months been running high, but could hardly be said yet to have reached a crisis. From all quarters of the Union speculators had been hurrying to the place; and day and night, for the week past, the steamers had been disgorging upon the city their ravenous freights. The important [ 176] day arrived. At an early hour every hotel, and street, and avenue was swarming with strangers; and, mingling with the current of living bodies, which now set steadily onward to the place of sale, I was carried resistlessly on by its force till it ceased. A confused murmur of voices ran through the assembled thousands; and amid the tumult, the ominous words " land - lumber - title- deed" and the like, could alone be distinguished. At length, near noon, the clear tones of the auctioneer were heard rising above the hum of the multitude: all was instantly hushed and still; and gaining an elevated site, before me was spread out a scene worthy a Hogarth's genius and pencil. Such a mass of working, agitated features, glaring with the fierce passion of avarice |