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EDITED BY John C. Parish
Associate Editor of the State Historical Society of Iowa
| Volume I |
November 1920 |
No. 5 |
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Copyright 1920 by the State Historical Society of Iowa
(Transcribed by Gayle Harper)
THROUGH EUROPEAN EYES
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An exiled Italian traveler, an English master of the
Queen's household, a Swedish novelist, and a Scotch writer
known the world over, are among the many who have visited the
Iowa country and written their impressions. And since it is
well to "see ourselves as others see us", we are presenting
here the comments of Giacomo Constantino Beltrami, Charles
Augustus Murray, Fredrika Bremer, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
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| GIACOMO CONSTANTINO
BELTRAMI — 1823 |
Of these four, Beltrami was first upon the scene. In 1823 he
came into the Upper Mississippi Valley by the route best known
in those days—down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi. His
Latin imagination was stirred and in his writings he waxed
eloquent over the Mississippi River, even while he was
voyaging along that stretch of water lying between Cairo and
St. Louis which Charles Dickens later spoke of as "the hateful
Mississippi" and "a slimy monster hideous to behold".
William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, was a boat
companion as far as St. Louis, and Major Taliaferro, Indian
agent at Fort St. Anthony, accompanied Beltrami up the river
to that pioneer post. After brief sojourns at St. Louis and
Fort Edwards the travelers reached the rapids near the mouth
of the Des Moines River and began their observation of the
edge of the land that was to be Iowa, but whereon at the time
there was not a solitary white settlement. Beltrami's account
follows: (l)
(1) Beltrami's A Pilgrimage in Europe and
America, Vol. II, pp. 150-152.
"The next day we
ascended, though not without difficulty, these rapids, which
continue for the space of twenty-one miles, when we saw
another encampment of Saukis upon the eastern bank.
"Nine miles higher, on the western bank, are the ruins of the
old Fort Madison.
"The president of that name had
established an entrepôt of the most necessary articles for the
Indians, to be exchanged for their peltry. The object of the
government was not speculation, but, by its example, to fix
reasonable prices among the traders; for, in the United
States, everybody traffics except the government. Fearing,
however, the effect of any restraint on the trade of private
individuals, it has withdrawn its factories and agents, and
left the field open to the South West Company, which has been
joined by a rival company, and now monopolizes the commerce of
almost the whole savage region of the valleys of the
Mississippi and the Missouri. Its two principal centres of
operations are St. Louis and Michilimakinac, on lake Huron.
"At a short distance from this fort, on the same side, is
the river of the Bête Puante, and farther on, that of the
Yahowas, so called from the name of the savage tribes which
inhabited its banks. It is ninety-seven miles from Fort
Edward, and three hundred from St. Louis.
"The fields
were beginning to resume their verdure; the meadows, groves,
and forests were reviving at the return of spring. Never had I
seen nature more beautiful, more majestic, than in this vast
domain of silence and solitude. Never did the warbling of the
birds so expressively declare the renewal of their innocent
loves. Every object was as new to my imagination as to my eye.
"All around me breathed that melancholy, which, by turns
sweet and bitter, exercises so powerful an influence over
minds endowed with sensibility. How ardently, how often, did I
long to be alone!
"Wooded islands, disposed in
beautiful order by the hand of nature, continually varied the
picture: the course of the river, which had become calm and
smooth, reflected the dazzling rays of the sun like glass;
smiling hills formed a delightful contrast with the immense
prairies, which are like oceans, and the monotony of which is
relieved by isolated clusters of thick and massy trees. These
enchanting scenes lasted from the river Yahowa till we reached
a place which presents a distant and exquisitely blended view
of what is called Rocky Island, three hundred and seventy-two
miles from St. Louis, and one hundred and sixty from Fort
Edward. Fort Armstrong, at this spot, is constructed upon a
plateau, at an elevation of about fifty feet above the level
of the river, and rewards the spectator who ascends it with
the most magical variety of scenery. It takes its name from
Mr. Armstrong, who was secretary at war at the time of its
construction.
"The eastern bank at the mouth of Rocky
River was lined with an encampment of Indians, called Foxes.
Their features, dress, weapons, customs, and language, are
similar to those of the Saukis, whose allies they are, in
peace and war. On the western shore of the Mississippi, a
semicircular hill, clothed with trees and underwood, encloses
a fertile spot carefully cultivated by the garrison, and
formed into fields and kitchen gardens. The fort saluted us on
our arrival with four discharges of cannon, and the Indians
paid us the same compliment with their muskets. The echo,
which repeated them a thousand times, was most striking from
its contrast with the deep repose of these deserts."
A
day was spent with the polite "gentlemen of the garrison" and
in visiting the Sac Indians on the Illinois shore. As the
voyagers proceeded northward, they passed a Fox village on the
western bank. At one point Beltrami went ashore and succeeded
in shooting a rattlesnake. He visited Galena and then passed
on to "the mines of Dubuques".(2)
(2) Beltrami's A
Pilgrimage in Europe and America, Vol. II, pp. 163-165.
"A Canadian of that name was the friend of a tribe of the
Foxes, who have a kind of village here. In 1788, these Indians
granted him permission to work the mines. His establishment
flourished; but the fatal sisters cut the thread of his days
and of his fortune.
"He had no children. The attachment
of the Indians was confined to him; and, to get rid as soon as
possible of the importunities of those who wanted to succeed
him, they burnt his furnaces, warehouses, and dwelling-house;
and by this energetic measure, expressed the determination of
the red people to have no other whites among them than such as
they liked.
"The Indians still keep exclusive
possession of these- mines, and with such jealousy, that I was
obliged to have recourse to the all-powerful whiskey to obtain
permission to see them.
"They melt the lead into holes
which they dig in the rock, to reduce it into pigs. They
exchange it with the traders for articles of the greatest
necessity; but they carry it themselves to the other side of
the river, which they will not suffer them to pass.
Notwithstanding these precautions, the mines are so valuable,
and the Americans so enterprising, that I much question
whether the Indians will long retain possession of them.
"Dubuque's reposes, with royal state, in a leaden chest
contained in a mausoleum of wood, which the Indians erected to
him upon the summit of a small hill that overlooks their camps
and commands the river.
"This man was become their
idol, because he possessed, or pretended to possess, an
antidote to the bite of the rattle-snake. Nothing but artifice
and delusion can render the red people friendly to the whites;
for, both from instinct, and from feelings transmitted from
father to son, they cordially despise and hate them. "
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| CHARLES AUGUSTUS
MURRAY—1835 |
A dozen years later the Honorable Charles Augustus Murray, who
announced his English blood in every line of his charming
"Travels in North America ", came up the Mississippi.
According to Thwaites, Murray was a "grandson of Lord Dunmore,
last colonial governor of Virginia, and himself master of the
Queen's household". At the foot of the rapids which Beltrami
had noted, he found a white settlement. He comments as
follows: (3)
(3) Murray's Travel in North America, Vol. II,
pp. 96-97.
"This village of Keokuk is the lowest and
most blackguard place that I have yet visited: its population
is composed chiefly of the watermen who assist in loading and
unloading the keel boats, and in towing them up when the
rapids are too strong for the steam-engines. They are a coarse
and ferocious caricature of the London bargemen, and their
chief occupation seems to consist in drinking, fighting, and
gambling. One fellow who was half drunk, (or in western
language 'corned') was relating with great satisfaction how he
had hid himself in a wood that skirted the road, and (in time
of peace) had shot an unsuspecting and inoffensive Indian who
was passing with a wild turkey over his shoulder: he concluded
by saying that he had thrown the body into a thicket, and had
taken the bird home for his own dinner. He seemed quite proud
of this exploit, and said that he would as soon shoot an
Indian as a fox or an otter. I thought he was only making an
idle boast; but some of the bystanders assured me it was a
well-known fact, and yet he had never been either tried or
punished. This murderer is called a Christian, and his victim
a heathen I It must, however, be remembered, that the feelings
of the border settlers in the West were frequently exasperated
by the robberies, cruelties, and outrages of neighboring
Indians; their childhood was terrified by tales of the
scalping-knife, sometimes but too well founded, and they have
thus been brought to consider the Indian rather as a wild
beast than as a fellow-creature."
At Keokuk
three-fourths of the cargo was transferred to a keel boat to
lighten the load so that the boat could ascend the rapids.
Murray continues:
"The rapids are about fourteen miles
long, and at the top of them is a military post or cantonment
called Fort des Moines.(4) This site appears to me to have
been chosen with singularly bad judgment; it is low,
unhealthy, and quite unimportant in a military point of view:
moreover, if it had been placed at the lower, instead of the
upper end of the rapids, an immense and useless expense would
have been spared to the government, inasmuch as the freightage
of every article conveyed thither is now doubled. The freight
on board the steamer, from which I made these observations,
was twenty- five cents per hundred weight from St. Louis to
Keokuk, being one hundred and seventy miles, and from St.
Louis to the fort, being only fourteen miles farther, it was
fifty cents.
(4) Murray's Travel in North America, Vol. II,
pp. 98-100.
"I landed at Fort des Moines only for a few
minutes, and had but just time to remark the pale and sickly
countenances of such soldiers as were loitering about the
beach; indeed, I was told by a young man who was sutler at
this post, that when he had left it a few weeks before, there
was only one officer on duty out of seven or eight, who were
stationed there. The number of desertions from this post was
said to be greater than from any other in the United States.
The reason is probably this: the dragoons who are posted there
and at Fort Leavenworth, were formed out of a corps, called
during the last Indian war ‘The Rangers;’ they have been
recruited chiefly in the Eastern States, where young men of
some property and enterprise were induced to join, by the
flattering picture drawn of the service, and by the
advantageous opportunity promised of seeing the ‘far West.’
They were taught to expect an easy life in a country abounding
with game, and that the only hardships to which they would be
exposed, would be in the exciting novelty of a yearly tour or
circuit made during the spring and summer, among the wild
tribes on the Missouri, Arkansas, Platte, &c.; but on arriving
at their respective stations, they found a very different
state of things: they were obliged to build their own
barracks, store-rooms, stables, &c.; to haul and cut wood, and
to perform a hundred other menial or mechanical offices, so
repugnant to the prejudices of an American. If we take into
consideration the facilities of escape in a steamboat, by
which a deserter may place himself in a few days in the
recesses of Canada, Texas, or the mines, and at the same time
bear in mind the feebleness with which the American military
laws and customs follow or punish deserters, we shall only
wonder that the ranks can be kept as full as they are. "
Murray made little comment on Fort Armstrong but the lead
mines of Galena and Dubuque interested him greatly. Since
Beltrami's trip the whites had crossed to the west bank of the
river and had begun a vigorous young mining settlement at
Dubuque.
"I reached Dubuque without accident, and
proceeded to the only tavern of which it can boast. (5) The
landlord, whom I had met in the steamer, on ascending the
Mississippi, promised me a bed to myself; a luxury that is by
no means easily obtained by travelers in the West. The
barroom, which was indeed the only public sitting-room, was
crowded with a parcel of blackguard noisy miners, from whom
the most experienced and notorious blasphemers in Portsmouth
or Wapping might have taken a lesson; and I felt more than
ever annoyed by that absurd custom, so prevalent in America,
of forcing travelers of quiet and respectable habits into the
society of ruffians, by giving them no alternative but sitting
in the bar-room or walking the street.
(5) Murray's Travel
in North America, Vol. II, pp. 151-157.
"It may be said
that I am illiberal in censuring the customs of a country, by
reference to those of a small infant village; but the custom
to which I allude, is not confined to villages; it is common
to most towns in the West, and is partially applicable to the
hotels in the eastern cities. They may have dining rooms of
enormous extent, tables groaning under hundreds of dishes; but
of comfort, quiet, and privacy, they know but little. It is
doubtless true, that the bar of a small village tavern in
England may be crowded with guests little, if at all, more
refined or orderly than those Dubuque's miners, but I never
found a tavern in England so small or mean, that I could not
have the comfort of a little room to myself, where I might
read, write, or follow my own pursuits without annoyance.
"I sat by the fireside watching the strange and
rough-looking characters who successively entered to drink a
glass of the nauseous dilution of alcohol variously colored,
according as they asked for brandy, whisky, or rum, when a
voice from the door inquiring of the landlord, whether
accommodations for the night were to be had, struck my ear as
familiar to me. I rose to look at the speaker, and our
astonishment was mutual, when I recognized Dr. M. of the
United States army, who is a relative of its
commander-in-chief. He is a very pleasant gentlemanly man,
from the state of New York, whose acquaintance I had made in
my trip to Fort Leavenworth, to which place he was now on his
return. After an exchange of the first expressions of pleasure
and surprise, I assisted him in getting up his baggage from
the canoe in which he had come down the river, and in
dispatching a supper that was set before him. We then returned
to the bar; and after talking over some of our adventures
since we parted, requested to be shown to our dormitory. This
was a large room, occupying the whole of the first floor, and
containing about eight or nine beds; the doctor selected one
in the center of the wall opposite the door; I chose one next
to him, and the nearest to me was given to an officer who
accompanied the doctor. The other beds contained two or three
persons, according to the number of guests requiring
accommodation.
"The doctor, his friend, and I,
resolutely refused to admit any partner into our beds; and,
notwithstanding the noise and oaths still prevalent in the
bar, we fell asleep. I was awakened by voices close to my
bed-side, and turned round to listen to the following
dialogue:—
Doctor (to a drunken fellow who was taking
off his coat and waistcoat close to the doctor's bed).—
'Halloo! where the devil are you coming to?'
Drunkard.—'To bed, to be sure!'
Doctor.—'Where?'
Drunkard.—'Why, with you.'
Doctor (raising his
voice angrily).—'I'll be d—d if you come into this bed!'
Drunkard (walking off with an air of dignity).—'Well, you
need not be so d—d particular;—I'm as particular as you, I
assure you!'
"Three other tipsy fellows staggered into
the room, soon after midnight, and slept somewhere: they went
off again before daylight without paying for their lodging,
and the landlord did not even know that they had entered his
house.
"It certainly appears at first sight to be a
strange anomaly in human nature, that at Dubuque's, Galena,
and other rising towns on the Mississippi, containing in
proportion to their size as profligate, turbulent, and
abandoned a population as any in the world, theft is almost
unknown; and though dirks are frequently drawn, and pistols
fired in savage and drunken brawls, by ruffians who regard
neither the laws of God nor man, I do not believe that an
instance of larceny or housebreaking has occurred. So easily
are money and food here obtained by labour, that it seems
scarcely worth a man's while to steal. Thus, the solution of
the apparent anomaly is to be found in this, that theft is a
naughty child, of which idleness is the father and want the
mother.
"I spent the following day in examining the
mines near Dubuque's, which are not generally so rich in lead
as those hitherto found on the opposite shore, towards Galena.
However, the whole country in the neighborhood contains
mineral, and I have no doubt that diggings at a little
distance from the town will be productive of great profits; at
all events, it will be, in my opinion, a greater and more
populous town than Galena ever will become.
"The next
day being Sunday, I attended religious service, which was
performed in a small low room, scarcely capable of containing
a hundred persons The minister was a pale, ascetic, sallow-
looking man and delivered a lecture dull and somber as his
countenance. However, it was pleasant to see even this small
assemblage, who thought of divine worship in such a place as
Dubuque's. In the evening, there was more drunkenness and
noise than usual about the bar, and one young man was pointed
out to me as 'the bully' par excellence. He was a tall stout
fellow on whose countenance the evil passions had already set
their indelible seal. He was said to be a great boxer, and had
stabbed two or three men with his dirk during the last ten
days. He had two companions with him, who acted, I suppose, as
myrmidons in his brawls. When he first entered, I was sitting
in the bar reading; he desired me, in a harsh imperative tone,
to move out of the way, as he wanted to get something to
drink. There was plenty of room for him to go round my chair,
without disturbing me; so I told him to go round if he wished
a dram. He looked somewhat surprised, but he went round, and I
resumed my book. Then it was that the landlord whispered to me
the particulars respecting him as given above. I confess, I
almost wished that he would insult me, that I might try to
break his head with my good cudgel which was at hand; so
incensed and disgusted was I at finding myself in the company
of such a villain. However, he soon after left the room, and
gave me no chance either of cracking his crown, or, what is
much more probable, of getting five or six inches of his dirk
into my body.
"I could not resist laughing at the
absurdity of one of his companions, who was very drunk, and
finding that his head was burning from the quantity of whisky
that he had swallowed, an idea came into it that would never
have entered the brain of any man except an Irishman, or a
Kentuckian: he fancied that his hat was hot, and occasioned
the sensation above mentioned; accordingly, he would not be
satisfied till the landlord put it into a tub of cold water,
and filled it; he then desired it might be soaked there till
morning, and left the house contented and bare-headed.
"I was obliged to remain here yet another day, as no steamboat
appeared. At length the Warrior touched, and took us off to
Galena. We stopped a short time at a large smelting
establishment a mile or two below the town: on a high bluff
which overlooks it is the tomb of Dubuque's, a Spanish miner
from whom the place derives its name. The spot is marked by a
cross, and I clambered up to see it. With a disregard of
sepulchral sanctity, which I have before noticed as being too
prevalent in America, I found that it had been broken down in
one or two places; I picked up the skull and some other bones.
The grave had been built of brick, and had on one side a stone
slab, bearing a simple Latin inscription, announcing that the
tenant had come from the Spanish mines, and giving the usual
data respecting his age, birth, death, &c. The view from this
bold high bluff is very fine, but unfortunately the day on
which I visited it was cloudy. "
The Swedish novelist, Fredrika Bremer, made a trip to America
in 1849 and spent nearly two years in this country. Her
impressions, embodied in letters written at the time, were
published in Sweden and also in an English translation in New
York under the title The Homes of the New World. In the fall
of 1850 she took a steamer from Buffalo to Detroit, and
reached Chicago by rail. From here she went by steamer to
Milwaukee and then traveled by stage across Wisconsin and
south to Galena, Illinois. In a letter written from this town
she gave the following hearsay account of the inhabitants of
the land on the other side of the Mississippi:
"I heard an
interesting account from a married couple whom I received in
my room, and who are just now come from the wilderness beyond
the Mississippi, of the so-called Squatters, a kind of white
people who constitute a portion of the first colonists of the
Western country. They settle themselves down here and there in
the wilderness, cultivate the earth, and cultivate freedom,
but will not become acquainted with any other kind of
cultivation. They pay no taxes, and will not acknowledge
either law or church. They live in families, have no social
life, but are extremely peaceable, and no way guilty of any
violation of law. All that they desire is to be at peace, and
to have free elbow-room. They live very amicably with the
Indians, not so well with the American whites. When these
latter come with their schools, their churches, and their
shops, then the Squatters withdraw themselves further and
still further into the wilderness, in order to be able, as
they say, to live in innocence and freedom. The whole of the
Western country beyond the Mississippi and as far as the
Pacific Ocean, is said to be inhabited by patches with these
Squatters, or tillers of the land, the origin of whom is said
to be as much unknown as that of the Clay-eaters of South
Carolina and Georgia. Their way of life has also a
resemblance. The Squatters, however, evince more power and
impulse of labor; the Clay-eaters subject the life of nature.
The Squatters are the representatives of the wilderness, and
stand as such in stiff opposition to cultivation."
Later, however, when Miss Bremer had crossed the river and
traveled in the land of the "squatters", she wrote her own
impressions: (7)
(7) Bremer’s The Homes of the New World,
Vol. II, pp. 81-83
"The journey across the Iowa prairie
in a half covered wagon was very pleasant. The weather was as
warm as a summer's day, and the sun shone above a fertile,
billowy plain, which extended far, far into the distance.
Three fourths of the land of Iowa are said to be of this
billowy prairie land. The country did not appear to be
cultivated, but looked extremely beautiful and home-like, an
immense pasture-meadow. The scenery of the Mississippi is of a
bright, cheerful character.
In the afternoon we reached
the little town of Keokuk, on a high bank by the river. We ate
a good dinner at a good inn; tea was served for soup, which is
a general practice at dinners in the Western inns. It was not
till late in the evening that the vessel came by which we were
to continue our journey, and in the mean time I set off alone
on a journey of discovery. I left behind me the young city of
the Mississippi, which has a good situation, and followed a
path which led up the hill along the river side. The sun was
descending, and clouds of a pale crimson tint covered the
western heavens. The air was mild and calm, the whole scene
expansive, bright, and calm, an idyllian landscape on a large
scale.
"Small houses, at short distances from each
other, studded this hill by the river side; they were neatly
built of wood, of good proportions, and with that
appropriateness and cleverness which distinguishes the work of
the Americans. They were each one like the other, and seemed
to be the habitations of workpeople. Most of the doors stood
open, probably to admit the mild evening air. I availed myself
of this circumstance to gain a sight of the interior, and fell
into discourse with two of the good women of the houses. They
were, as I had imagined, the dwellings of artisans who had
work in the town. There was no luxury in these small
habitations, but every thing was so neat and orderly, so
ornamental, and there was such a holiday calm over every
thing, from the mistress of the family down to the very
furniture, that it did one good to see it. It was also Sunday
evening, and the peace of the Sabbath rested within the home
as well as over the country.
"When I returned to my
herberg in the town it was quite dusk; but it had, in the mean
time, been noised abroad that some sort of Scandinavian animal
was to be seen at the inn, and it was now requested to come
and show itself.
"I went down, accordingly, into the
large saloon, and found a great number of people there,
principally of the male sex, who increased more and more until
there was a regular throng, and I had to shake hands with many
most extraordinary figures. But one often sees such here in
the West. The men work hard, and are careless regarding their
toilet; they do not give themselves time to attend to it; but
their unkemmed outsides are no type of that which is within,
as I frequently observed this evening. I also made a somewhat
closer acquaintance, to my real pleasure, with a little
company of more refined people; I say refined intentionally,
not better, because those phrases, better and worse, are
always indefinite, and less suitable in this country than in
any other; I mean well-bred and well-dressed ladies and
gentlemen, the aristocracy of Keokuk. Not being myself of a
reserved disposition, I like the American open, frank, and
friendly manner. It is easy to become acquainted, and it is
very soon evident whether there is reciprocity of feeling or
not."
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| ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON—1879 |
It was nearly thirty years later that Robert Louis Stevenson
visited Iowa. In 1879 he crossed the ocean in an emigrant
ship, and started across the continent toward San Francisco in
an emigrant train, loaded down with a valise, a knapsack, and—
in the bag of his railway rug—six fat volumes of Bancroft's
History of the United States. He left the following record of
a day of travel between Burlington and Council Bluffs. (8)
(8) Stevenson's Across the Plains (Scribner Edition, 1912),
pp. 24-28.
"Thursday.—I suppose there must be a cycle
in the fatigue of traveling, for when I awoke next morning, I
was entirely renewed in spirits and ate a hearty breakfast of
porridge, with sweet milk, and coffee and hot cakes, at
Burlington upon the Mississippi. Another long day's ride
followed, with but one feature worthy of remark. At a place
called Creston, a drunken man got in. He was aggressively
friendly, but, according to English notions, not at all
unpresentable upon a train. For one stage he eluded the notice
of the officials; but just as we were beginning to move out of
the next station, Cromwell by name, by came the conductor.
There was a word or two of talk; and then the official had the
man by the shoulders, twitched him from his seat, marched him
through the car, and sent him dying on to the track. It was
done in three motions, as exact as a piece of drill. The train
was still moving slowly, although beginning to mend her pace,
and the drunkard got his feet without a fall. He carried a red
bundle, though not so red as his cheeks; and he shook this
menacingly in the air with one hand, while the other stole
behind him to the region of the kidneys. It was the first
indication that I had come among revolvers, and I observed it
with some emotion. The conductor stood on the steps with one
hand on his hip, looking back at him; and perhaps this
attitude imposed upon the creature, for he turned without
further ado, and went off staggering along the track towards
Cromwell, followed by a peal of laughter from the cars. They
were speaking English all about me, but I knew I was in a
foreign land.
"Twenty minutes before nine that night,
we were deposited at the Pacific Transfer Station near Council
Bluffs, on the eastern bank of the Missouri River. Here we
were to stay the night at a kind of caravanserai, set apart
for emigrants. But I gave way to a thirst for luxury,
separated myself from my companions, and marched with my
effects into the Union Pacific Hotel. A white clerk and a
colored gentleman whom, in my plain European way, I should
call the boots, were installed behind a counter like bank
tellers. They took my name, assigned me a number, and
proceeded to deal with my packages. And here came the tug of
war. I wished to give up my packages into safe keeping; but I
did not wish to go to bed. And this, it appeared, was
impossible in an American hotel.
"It was, of course,
some inane misunderstanding, and sprang from my unfamiliarity
with the language. For although two nations use the same words
and read the same books, intercourse is not conducted by the
dictionary. The business of life is not carried on by words,
but in set phrases, each with a special and almost a slang
signification. Some international obscurity prevailed between
me and the colored gentleman at Council Bluffs; so that what I
was asking, which seemed very natural to me, appeared to him a
monstrous exigency. He refused, and that with the plainness of
the West. This American manner of conducting matters of
business is, at first, highly unpalatable to the European.
When we approach a man in the way of his calling, and for
those services by which he earns his bread, we consider him
for the time being our hired servant. But in the American
opinion, two gentlemen meet and have a friendly talk with a
view to exchanging favours if they shall agree to please. I
know not which is the more convenient, nor even which is the
more truly courteous. The English stiffness unfortunately
tends to be continued after the particular transaction is at
an end, and thus favours class separations. But on the other
hand, these equalitarian plainnesses leave an open field for
the insolence of Jack-in-office.
"I was nettled by the
colored gentleman's refusal, and unbuttoned my wrath under the
similitude of ironical submission. I knew nothing, I said, of
the ways of American hotels; but I had no desire to give
trouble. If there was nothing for it but to get to bed
immediately, let him say the word, and though it was not my
habit, I should cheerfully obey.
"He burst into a shout
of laughter. 'Ah!' said he, 'you do not know about America.
They are fine people in America. Oh! you will like them very
well. But you mustn't get mad. I know what you want. You come
along with me.'
"And issuing from behind the counter,
and taking me by the arm like an odd acquaintance, he led me
to the bar of the hotel.
'There,' said he, pushing me
from him by the shoulder, 'go and have a drink!'
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