We Stop At A Little Wharf, Where Waits A
Little Steamer Of Uncouth Construction; We Step In, A Steam-Whistle Breaks
The Silence Of That Dewy Dawn, And At A Very Rapid Rate We Run Between
High Wooded Bluff's, Down A Turbid Stream, Whirling In Rapid Eddies.
We
steam for three miles, and land at a clearing containing the small
settlement of Davenport.
We had come down the Mississippi, mightiest of
rivers! half a mile wide seventeen hundred miles from its mouth, and were
in the far West. Waggons with white tilts, thick-hided oxen with heavy
yokes, mettlesome steeds with high peaked saddles, picketed to stumps of
trees, lashing away the flies with their tails; emigrants on blue boxes,
wondering if this were the El Dorado of their dreams; arms, accoutrements,
and baggage surrounded the house or shed where we were to breakfast. Most
of our companions were bound for Nebraska, Oregon, and Utah, the most
distant districts of which they would scarcely reach with their slow-paced
animals for four months: exposed in the mean time to the attacks of the
Sioux, Comanches, and Blackfeet.
There, in a long wooden shed with blackened rafters and an earthen floor,
we breakfasted, at seven o'clock, on johnny-cake, squirrels, buffalo-hump,
dampers, and buckwheat, tea and corn spirit, with a crowd of emigrants,
hunters, and adventurers; and soon after re-embarked for Rock Island, our
little steamer with difficulty stemming the mighty tide of the Father of
Rivers. The machinery, such as it was, was very visible, the boiler
patched in several places, and steam escaped in different directions. I
asked the captain if he were not in the habit of "sitting upon the safety-
valve," but he stoutly denied the charge. The vernacular of this
neighbourhood was rather startling to an English ear. "Who's the alligator
to hum?" asked a broad-shouldered Kentuckian of his neighbour, pointing to
a frame shanty on the shore, which did not look to me like the abode of
that amphibious and carnivorous creature. "Well, old alligator, what's the
time o' day?" asked another man, bringing down a brawny paw, with a
resounding thump, upon the Herculean shoulders of the first querist,
thereby giving me the information that in the West alligator is a
designation of the genus homo; in fact, that it is customary for a man
to address his fellow-man as "old alligator," instead of "old fellow." At
eight we left Rock Island, and, turning my unwilling steps eastward from
the land of adventure and romance, we entered the cars for Chicago.
They were extremely crowded, and my friends, securing me the only
comfortable seat in one of them, were obliged to go into the next, much to
their indignation; but protestations were of no use. The engine-bell rang,
a fearful rush followed, which resulted in the passage down the centre
being filled with standing men; the conductor shouted "Go a-head," and we
were off for Lake Michigan in the "Lightning Express," warranted to go
sixty-seven miles an hour!
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