BY THOMAS L. KANE.
PHILADELPHIA:
KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, SANSOM STREET.
1850.
A few years ago, ascending the Upper Mississippi in the Autumn, whenits waters were low, I was compelled to travel by land past the regionof the Rapids. My road lay through the Half-Breed Tract, a fine sectionof Iowa, which the unsettled state of its land-titles had appropriatedas a sanctuary for coiners, horse thieves, and other outlaws. I hadleft my steamer at Keokuk, at the foot of the Lower Fall, to hire acarriage, and to contend for some fragments of a dirty meal with theswarming flies, the only scavengers of the locality. From this placeto where the deep water of the river returns, my eye wearied to seeeverywhere sordid, vagabond and idle settlers; and a country marred,without being improved, by their careless hands.
I was descending the last hillside upon my journey, when a landscape indelightful contrast broke upon my view. Half encircled by a bend of theriver, a beautiful city lay glittering in the fresh morning sun; itsbright new dwellings, set in cool green gardens, ranging up around astately dome-shaped hill, which was crowned by a noble marble edifice,whose high tapering spire was radiant with white and gold. The cityappeared to cover several miles; and beyond it, in the back ground,there rolled off a fair country, chequered by the careful lines offruitful husbandry. The unmistakable marks of industry, enterprise andeducated wealth, everywhere, made the scene one of singular and moststriking beauty.
It was a natural impulse to visit this inviting region. I procured askiff, and rowing across the river, landed at the chief wharf of thecity. No one met me there. I looked, and saw no one. I could hear noone move; though the quiet everywhere was such that I heard the fliesbuzz, and the water-ripples break against the shallow of the beach. Iwalked through the solitary streets. The town lay as in a dream, undersome deadening spell of loneliness, from which I almost feared to wakeit. For plainly it had not slept long. There was no grass growing up inthe paved ways. Rains had not entirely washed away the prints of dustyfootsteps.
Yet I went about unchecked. I went into empty workshops, ropewalks andsmithies. The spinner's wheel was idle; the carpenter had gone from hiswork-bench and shavings, his unfinished sash and casing. Fresh barkwas in the tanner's vat, and the fresh-chopped lightwood stood piledagainst the baker's oven. The blacksmith's shop was cold; but his coalheap and ladling pool and crooked water horn were all there, as if hehad just gone off for a holiday. No work people anywhere looked to knowmy errand. If I went into the gardens, clinking the wicket-latch loudlyafter me, to pull the marygolds, heart's-ease and lady-slippers, anddraw a drink with the water sodden well-bucket and its noisy chain;or, knocking off with my stick the tall heavy-headed dahlias andsunflowers, hunted over the beds for cucumbers and love-apples,—noone called out to me from any opened window, or dog sprang forward tobark an alarm. I could have supposed the people hidden in the houses,but the doors were unfastened; and when at last I timidly entered them,I found dead ashes white upon the hearths, and had to tread a tiptoe,as if walking down the aisle of a country church, to avoid rousingirreverent echoes from the naked floors.
On the outskirts of the town was the city graveyard. But there was norecor