Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-10-17
A BEAUTIFUL STORY.
iif'. tI H's-t-tt River.

81 A BEAUTIFUL STORY.
What a Poet See: on the Mississippi
b. F. Taylor writes in the CHICAGO Journal:
The Missouri turks behind that heavy
curtain of TIMBER 1t is five miles of reedy
meadow, as rich as anything Father Nile
ever gave the Pharaohs, then two miles of
woods, and then the Mad River.
You strikeiout into what is rather adeep,
damp grove than a road-a grove throu III
the raDkest of grasses-and straight across
the plain. Millions of tall sunf1owers,
standing as thick as they can grow, border
the way, and enough of them thrust their
East Indian faces into the carriage to cover
you with their tawny dust till you resemble
the symbolical rat that is always under the
meal. The stems of the grass lust suggest
the old fashioned yellow fife, and make you
think you are surveying the field through
a couple of microscopes. Here and there a
dozen acres have been mown, and the wind
rows lie trailing about in the sun, but Moth
ing obliterates the wild, uDtamed look
there is in everything 3 the amphibious air
tinctly aG Missouri's capabilities. No
powders about you; no bluffs before you,
but one broad lap of uttermost fatness.-
Lonely trees, and mighty. cottonwoods
stand silently about. Great black oaken
shafts, with their leafy capitals, begin to
show grandly. .Elms spring into the air
with their graceful sculpture ofarehes.7
The road grows ruggeder; You go into
eclipse; the shadow of the woods comes
down as Homer's god of the silver bow
came-"like night"-and you wonder at the
magic of the earth that can thus perspire a
tree at every pore. If anybody thinks that
figure violent he can soothe it!
| Sprinklings of walnut, ash, elm and lin
den among the oaks and cottonwoods--the
| "a ta r
hat to-. They are the bassoon, clarion and
| trumpet pipes of a mighty organ. The
way is tangled with living things. Grape
vines are climbing, and, as you half fancy,
frolicking about. Sweet Williams and tribe
| after tribe of flowers fresh and beautiful,
| smile out at you from bush and briar.-
Goosberries, mulberries, raspberries tempt
| you in their season; messes, three-ply and
| all velvet, cushion the logs along the way
as if somebody had expected you. 1t is
the true barbaric magnificence of forest. A
crocodile crawling out of some oozy bed
| would not surprise you much, nor the
crash of one of Jobs sea-horses through
the jungle. There is nothing fiercer here
than troops of turkeys that the envious
| leaves conceal. ,.g .-a..f.
The woods are still, and you family hear
| rush of hurryirg waters, but clearly over
| it the hOarse rough snort of a steam-mill
on the river bank, that, day and night, with
short and feverish breath, rives out the ties
from the cottonwood for the railroad across
the continent. Look round again upon the
| great columns of this first temple, for no
! man shall behold them long. Here for cen
turies they have been silently growing to
| lie at last on the road-bed of the New
Worlds thoroughfare. Listen again ard
| you shall hear the tick of the axes that
like so. many solemn clocks, are timing the
minutes of the dying woods. At last the
hax. n cI,n frrrr tar.l n
out you come upon the rivers bank. .'-.
And that is, the Missouri, that narrow,
| half mile breadth of dirty water, tumbling
along to the Gulf. That the stream you
| have longed to see, even as saints the Jor-
dan. You have known the word missouri
since early childhood. You have traced its
course thousand times. with small fore
| finger, from the dim and mystic shadows
of the Rocky Mountains, as that broken
row of fine tooth combs upon your map
was named traced it down the clear white
| field of paper, that wriggle of ink they call
missouri" Pictured groups of shaggy
| fronted buffalo, clothed with taurine ter
rors, lowered at you on that map, far east
ward of the river. Peaked wigwams, like
so many stark and stiff night-caps, dotted
the blanks between the lines and parallels,
and pictorial bears stalked and unrebnked.
1t was beyond ''the Genesee country" be-
yOnd ssthe Ohio" beyond Lake Michigan.
| Yoai wondered how anybody could ever
have gotten there without dying, and, hav-
| ing died, how he could ever have come
| back to tell it. 1t was as inaccessible TO
your thought as the river that runs hard by
the great white throne. And now, fresh
| from that same home three days ago, you
| stand upon its brink. H'
You do not look across where the bold
and breezy hills of Nebraska relent, and
creep gently down in meadows green to
| z rtx n Of fIal
city of Decatur sitting there like an ex-
pectant queen awaiting her coronation, and
the red Indians squatting all about upon
the trail of her skirts. You do not see that
steamer creeping around. the bend with its
''cloud by day." You only see that Tiber-
ish1ooking water, the hue of strong meal
grueL turbulent with the current aud cat
] fish. What can your lavender-laid poets
of ''the blue Moselle'' and the ''arrowy
Rhone'; have to say of this monstrous out
| pouring of porridge. To sum it all up, it
was sharp disappointment l felt, as /
scrambled along the slippery bank and sat
down, damp as bulrush, to wait for a
boat. Lord Ullin's daughter would have
] Jared i'll in her fitting had she attempted
the passage of the river here, with her
''Oh, boatman, do not tarry, and I'll give
you silver pound to row me Ger the
| ferry" a.. ..t-- a..5
| 1t is high noon and no boat, and I sit dis
consolate-but why? At my feet is the
| great artery OF the continent came to see.
If | stoop I can lay my fingers upon its
pulse, and feel the beat. The stream is
! neither blue, crystal nor silver; it's no
Shenandoah, "daughter of the stars;" it
| is no Ohio, 1.-THE beautiful river" and yet
it is not without its grandeur. The lyrics
those sky-larks of poetry-have nothing
to do with it. 1t belongs to the stately,
sustained, far flowing epic. Nebraska has
not been born long enough herself to be a
mother. She has produced no Anglo Sax
on, full grown man. But it is honor
enough that she has cradled river that.
like the Missouri, rolls down the world (;
that drains almost five hundred and twen-
Il ty thousand square miles; that drops
down its foot mile, over the parallels of
latitude as if they were so many rounds of
y ladder; that receives all the great rivers
but one that slide down the eastern decliv-
ity of the Rocky Mountains; that has three
thousand and ninety miles of inde-
Il pendent existence; that has two thousand
J five hundred and forty miles of navigable
waters; that, allied to the Mississippi
4 stream, like comets train. four thousand
five hundred and sixty miles across the
planet to the gulf, and is furrowed by steam
three thousand nine hundred and fifty.
Winter drifts around its head-waterS, and
summer lies asleep at its mouth. 1t is the
snow of the Artic at one end, and the snow
OF the cOttOn-tield at the other. = 80
i Now, spread wide your atlas, and get as
far west as you can in the. New World
without wetting your feet. Trace back
the Columbia till it sharpens away into the
Lewis. the Clark and Multnomah, a grand
CT trident than Greek or Roman ever gave