Diary in America, Series One

The indifference of the proprietors of public conveyances in America as to the safety of their passengers, can only be accounted for by the extreme indifference of the passengers themselves, and the independent feeling shewn by every class, who, whatever may be their profession, will never acknowledge themselves to be what we term the servants of the public. Here was an instance. The coach we were put into was defective in two of its wheels, and could only be repaired at Louisburg, about a hundred miles distant. Instead of sending it on to that town empty, as would have been done by our coach proprietors, and providing another (as they had plenty), for the passengers; instead of this, in order to save the extra trouble and expense, they risked the lives of the passengers on a road with a precipice on one side of it for at least four-fifths of the way. One of the wheels would not hold the grease, and creaked most ominously during the whole journey; and we were obliged to stop and pour water on it continually. The box and irons of the other were loose, and before we were half way it came off, and we were obliged to stop and get out. But the Americans are never at a loss when they are in a fix. The passengers borrowed an axe; in a short time wedges were cut from one of the trees at the road-side, and the wheel was so well repaired that it lasted us the remainder of our journey.

Our road for some time lay through the valley of Kenawha, through which runs the river of that name—a strong, clear stream. It is hemmed in by mountains on each side of it; and here, perhaps, is presented the most curious varieties of mineral produce that ever were combined in one locality. The river runs over a bed of horizontal calcareous strata, and by perforating this strata about forty or fifty feet below the level of the river, you arrive at salt-springs, the waters of which are pumped up by small steam-engines, and boiled down into salt in buildings erected on the river’s banks. The mountains which hem in the river are one mass of coal; a gallery is opened at that part of the foot of the mountain most convenient to the buildings, and the coal is thrown down by shoots or small railways. Here you have coal for your fuel; salt water under fresh; and as soon as the salt is put into the barrels (which are also made from the mountain timber), the river is all ready to transplant them down to Ohio. But there is another great curiosity in this valley: these beds of coal have produced springs, as they are termed, of carburetted hydrogen gas, which run along the banks of the river close to the water’s-edge. The negroes take advantage of these springs when they come down at night to wash clothes; they set fire to the springs, which yield them sufficient light for their work. The one which I examined was dry, and the gas bubbled up through the sand. By kicking the sand about, so as to make communications after I had lighted the gas, I obtained a very large flame, which I left burning.

The heat, as we ascended, was excessive, and the passengers availed themselves of every spring, with the exception of those just described, that they fell in with on the route. We drank of every variety of water excepting pure water—sometimes iron, sometimes sulphur; and, indeed, every kind of chalybeate, for every rill was impregnated in some way or another. At last, it occurred to me that there were such things as chemical affinities, and that there was no saying what changes might take place by the admixture of such a variety of metals and gases, so drank no more. I did not like, however, to interfere with the happiness of others, so I did not communicate my ideas to my fellow-passengers, who continued drinking during the whole day; and as I afterwards found out, did not sleep very well that night; they were, moreover, very sparing in the use of them the next day.

There are a great variety of springs already discovered on these mountains, and probably there will be a great many more. Already they have the blue, the white, and the red sulphur springs; the sweet and the salt; the warm and the hot, all of which have their several virtues; but the greatest virtue of all these mineral springs is, as in England and every where else, that they occasion people to live regularly, to be moderate in the use of wine, and to dwell in a pure and wholesome air. They always remind me of the eastern story of the Dervish, who, being sent for by a king who had injured his health by continual indulgence, gave him a racket-ball, which he informed the king possessed wonderful medicinal virtues; with this ball his majesty was to play at racket two or three hours every day with his courtiers. The exercise it induced, which was the only medicinal virtue the ball possessed, restored the king to health. So it is with all watering places; it is not so much the use of the water, as the abstinence from what is pernicious, together with exercise and early hours, which effect the majority of cures.

We arrived first at the blue sulphur springs, and I remained there for one day to get rid of the dust of travelling. They have a very excellent hotel there, with a ball room, which is open till eleven o’clock every night; the scenery is very pretty, and the company was good—as indeed is the company at all these springs, for they are too distant, and the travelling too expensive for every body to get there. But the blue sulphur are not fashionable, and the consequence was, we were not crowded, and were very comfortable. People who cannot get accommodated at the white sulphur, remain here until they can, the distance between those being only twenty-two miles.

The only springs which are fashionable are the white sulphur, and as these springs are a feature in American society, I shall describe them more particularly.

They are situated in a small valley, many hundred feet above the level of the sea, and are of about fifteen or twenty acres in area, surrounded by small hills, covered with foliage to their summits: at one end of the Valley is the hotel, with the large dining-room for all the visitors. Close to the hotel, but in another building, in the ballroom, and a little below the hotel on the other side, is the spring itself; but beautiful as is the whole scenery, the great charm of this watering place is, the way in which those live who visit it. The rises of the hills which surround the valley are covered with little cottages, log-houses, and other picturesque buildings, sometimes in rows, and ornamented with verandahs, without a second storey above; or kitchen below. Some are very elegant and more commodious than the rest, having been built by gentlemen who have the right given to them by the company to whom the springs belong, of occupying themselves when there, but not of preventing others from taking possession of them in their absence. The dinners and other meals are, generally speaking, bad; not that there is not a plentiful supply, but that it is so difficult to supply seven hundred people sitting down in one room. In the morning, they all turn out from their little burrows, meet in the public walks, and go down to the spring before breakfast; during the forenoon, when it is too warm, they remain at home; after dinner, they ride out or pay visits, and then end the day, either at the ball-room or in little societies among one another. There is no want of handsome equipages, many four in hand (Virginny long tails) and every accommodation for these equipages. The crowd is very great, and it is astonishing what inconvenience people will submit to, rather than not be accommodated somehow or another. Every cabin is like a rabbit burrow. In the one next to where I was lodged, in a room about fourteen feet square, and partitioned off as well as it could be, there slept a gentleman and his wife, his sister and brother, and a female servant. I am not sure that the nigger was not under the bed—at all events, the young sister told me that it was not at all pleasant.

There is a sort of major-domo here who regulates every department: his word is law, and his fiat immoveable, and he presumes not a little upon his power; a circumstance not to be surprised at, as he is as much courted and is as despotic as all the lady patronesses of Almacks rolled into one. He is called the Metternich of the mountains. No one is allowed accommodation at these springs who is not known, and generally speaking, only those favourites who travel in their private carriages. It is at this place that you feel how excessively aristocratical and exclusive the Americans would be, and indeed will be, in spite of their institutions. Spa, in its palmiest days, when princes had to sleep in their carriages at the doors of the hotels, was not more in vogue than are these white sulphur springs with the élite of the United States. And it is here, and here only, in the States, that you do meet with what may be fairly considered as select society, for at Washington there is a great mixture. Of course, all the celebrated belles of the different States are to be met with here, as well as all the large fortunes, nor is there a scarcity of pretty and wealthy widows. The president, Mrs Caton, the mother of Lady Wellesley, Lady Strafford, and Lady Caermarthen, the daughter of Carrol, of Carroltown, one of the real aristocracy of America, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and all the first old Virginian and Carolina families, many of them descendants of the old cavaliers, were at the springs when I arrived there; and I certainly must say that I never was at any watering-place in England where the company was so good and so select as at the Virginia springs in America.

I passed many pleasant days at this beautiful spot, and was almost as unwilling to leave it as I was to part with the Sioux Indians at St. Peters. Refinement and simplicity are equally charming. I was introduced to a very beautiful girl here, whom I should not have mentioned so particularly, had it not been that she was the first and only lady in America that I observed to whittle. She was sitting one fine morning on a wooden bench, surrounded by admirers, and as she carved away her seat with her pen-knife, so did she cut deep into the hearts of those who listened to her lively conversation.

There are, as may be supposed, a large number of negro servants here attending their masters and mistresses. I have often been amused, not only here, but during my residence in Kentucky, at the high-sounding Christian names which have been given to them. “Byron, tell Ada to come here directly.” “Now, Telemachus, if you don’t leave Calypso alone, you’ll get a taste of the cow-hide.”

Among others, attracted to the springs professionally, was a very clever German painter, who, like all Germans, had a very correct ear for music. He had painted a kitchen-dance in Old Virginia, and in the picture he had introduced all the well-known coloured people in the place; among the rest were the band of musicians, but I observed that one man was missing. “Why did you not put him in?” inquired I. “Why, Sir, I could not put him in; it was impossible; he never plays in tune. Why, if I put him in, Sir, he would spoil the harmony of my whole picture!”

I asked this artist how he got on in America. He replied, “But so-so: the Americans in general do not estimate genius. They come to me and ask what I want for my pictures, and I tell them. Then they say, ‘How long did it take you to paint it?’ I answer, ‘So many days.’ Well, then they calculate and say, ‘If it took you only so many days, you ask so many dollars a day for your work; you ask a great deal too much; you ought to be content with so much per day, and I will give you that.’ So that, thought I, invention and years of study go for nothing with these people. There is only one way to dispose of a picture in America, and that is, to raffle it; the Americans will then run the chance of getting it. If you do not like to part with your pictures in that way, you must paint portraits; people will purchase their own faces all over the world: the worst of it is, that in this country, they will purchase nothing else.”

During my stay here, I was told of one of the most remarkable instances that perhaps ever occurred, of the discovery of a fact by the party from whom it was of the utmost importance to conceal it—a very pretty interesting young widow. She had married a promising young man, to whom she was tenderly attached, and who, a few months after the marriage, unfortunately fell in a duel. Aware that the knowledge of the cause of her husband’s death would render the blow still more severe to her, (the ball having passed through the eye into his brain, and there being no evident gun-shot wound,) her relations informed her that he had been thrown from his horse, and killed by the fall. She believed them. She was living in the country, when, about nine months after her widowhood, her brother rode down to see her, and as soon as he arrived went into his room to shave and dress. The window of his room, which was on the ground-floor, looked out upon the garden, and it being summer time, it was open. He tore off a portion of an old newspaper to wipe his razor. The breeze caught it, and carried it away into the garden until it stopped at the feet of his sister, who happened to be walking. Mechanically she took up the fragment, and perceiving her husband’s name upon it, she read it. It contained a full account of the duel in which he lost his life! The shock she received was so great that it unsettled her mind for nearly two years. She had but just recovered, and for the first time re-appeared in public, when she was pointed out to me.

Returning to Guyandotte, one of the travellers wished to see the view from the Hawk’s Nest, or rather wished to be able to say that he had seen it. We passed the spot when it was quite dark, but he persisted in going there, and, to help his vision, borrowed one of the coach-lamps from the driver. He returned, and declared that with the assistance of the lamp he had had a very excellent view, down a precipice of several hundred feet. His bird’s-eye view by candle-light must have been very extensive. After all, it is but to be able to say that they had been, to such a place, or have seen such a thing, that, more than any real taste for it, induces the majority of the world to incur the trouble and fatigue of travelling.