And In A Hollow Near Us Lay The Huge City, So
Full Of Life, Its Busy Hum Rising To The Height Where I Stood; And 200
Feet Below, The Beautiful Cemetery, Where Its Dead Await The Morning Of
The Resurrection.
Yet, while contrasting the trees and atmosphere here
with the comparatively stunted, puny foliage of England, and the chilly
skies of a northern clime, I thought with Cowper respecting my own dear,
but far distant land -
"England, with all thy faults I love thee still - My country! -
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flower, for warmer France
With all her vines, nor for Ausonia's groves,
Her golden fruitage, or her myrtle bowers."
The change in the climate was great from that in which I had shivered a
week before, with a thermometer at 33° in the sun; yet I did not find it
oppressive here at 105° in the shade, owing to the excessive dryness of
the air. The sallow complexions of the New Englanders were also exchanged
for the fat ruddy faces of the people of Ohio, the "Buckeyes," as their
neighbours designate them. The town of Cincinnati, situated on the
navigable stream of the Ohio, 1600 miles from the sea, is one of the most
remarkable monuments of the progress of the West. A second Glasgow in
appearance, the houses built substantially of red brick, six stories high
- huge sign-boards outside each floor denoting the occupation of its owner
or lessee - heavily-laden drays rumbling along the streets - quays at which
steamboats of fairy architecture are ever lying - massive warehouses and
rich stores - the side walks a perfect throng of foot-passengers - the
roadways crowded with light carriages, horsemen with palmetto hats and
high-peaked saddles, galloping about on the magnificent horses of
Kentucky - an air of life, wealth, hustle, and progress - are some of the
characteristics of a city which stands upon ground where sixty years ago
an unarmed white man would have been tomahawked as he stood. The human
aspect is also curious. Palmetto hats, light blouses, and white trowsers
form the prevailing costume, even of the clergy, while Germans smoke
chibouks and luxuriate in their shirt-sleeves - southerners, with the
enervated look arising from residence in a hot climate, lounge about the
streets - dark-browed Mexicans, in sombreras and high slashed boots, dash
about on small active horses with Mamelouk bits - rovers and adventurers
from California and the Far West, with massive rings in their ears,
swagger about in a manner which shows their country and calling, and
females richly dressed are seen driving and walking about, from the fair-
complexioned European to the negress or mulatto. The windows of the stores
are arranged with articles of gaudy attire and heavy jewellery, suited to
the barbaric taste of many of their customers; but inside I was surprised
to find the richest and most elegant manufactures of Paris and London. A
bookseller's store, an aggregate of two or three of our largest, indicated
that the culture of the mind was not neglected.
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