The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-09-22
THE RIVER ROAD.
A Mile Along White River by the Journal
Saunterer--A Ride Full of Beauty,


have Sunday breathing-place indianapolis
has five miles of as varied and beautiful
river scenery as in any part of Indiana;
''Tls woodland enchanted.
If you ask me- Where is IL?
only can answer,
Not TO choice Is 1t granted
BY sure path to visit"
By all fair right indianapolis should have
a well-sraveled and shaded avenue, following
the bends of the river from Michigan street.
six miles, to Broad Ripple. Strangers visit
ing the city are shown Meridian
street.-The common northern thorough
fare alike for gravel, grocers' and
milk-wagons, as well as elegant carriages
They see the stumps and statues of Wood
ruff Place, the unfinished State house, the
tinseled courthouse, fanked with the old
jail and market and rows of express wagons
They visit the tileworks, the public library,
take dusty drive to the Stockyards and In
dlanapolis is done, unless suggestive visits
are made, by way of shadeless and dusty
streets, to either Crown Hill Cemetery or the
Insane Asylum. To be sure there are other
GASES in this desert of monotony There are
as elegant school and church buildings as in
most cities, There are the Circle and Uni
versity Parks; there are Beecher's old church,
the Union Depot and the rambling high
school among historical and architectural
curiosities; there are Mr.. English's empty
church and hotel and immense opera
house = unique group facing
Circle park, unoccuped and awaiting 6 per
cent. on the investment standing monu-
ment of the philanthropy which, under one
roof and management, would dispense either
spiritual physical or mental pabulum.
But such drives as every city should have,
where good roads, we'll shaded. and traversing
scenery varied by river, field, bluff and
wood, Indianapolis has not.
- Na1vo ,,1lz Il. IL
ent roads permit, and one not to be despised,
for, in spite of any artificial help it is full
of beauty, and will linger in the memory.
Choose some autumn day like last Saturday.
zone of the
OF many Septembers,
When the pulses of air rest,
And all things lie dreaming,
In drowsy haze steaming."
You soon whirl up Meridian street, one of
the finest avenues in western cities, with its
ample yards and shade trees then past the
great rag-weed area that encircles the city
and keeps the people sneezing through Sep
TENDER, and you are at Fall creek. But here
are neither shade, flowers, shells nor birds
only areas OF gravel and sparse grass-a place
for washing carriages and depositing offal;
and you drive on.
If the Saunterer had his way he would
cross the cemetery, drive through the beech
and maple woods to Golden Hill, on the
White river and here make a pleasure
drive along the river to Broad Ripple village,
then up the bluffs to the island, and home
by the Fal-creek road But that cannot be
done; so the dusty pike must be followed
three miles north to the red bridge. This
is crossed and there is a choice of three
roads, one northwest to the toll-gate, a mile.
where it turns to the right and crosses the
Broad Ripple ford; or turn to the left and
drive through the beech woods, returning by
the five-mile bridge on the road west of Crown
Knit nf oil off tho brH
turn back into the river, and follow the
road made by the gravel teams one mile
up the river to Broad Ripple
ford. 1 do not know a pleasanter
mile in Indiana than this river drive from
red bridge to Broad Ripple ford. All along
the shore is the conocinum, or miami
mist" as the people of southern Ohio call
it-a blue composite flower very like the
Mexican ageratum of the door-yard, only
much finer. This is the leading blue, but is
set off by the heart-leaved and the New
England asters, while the great blue lobelia
and campanula vie with these in the darker
shades.
OF eupatorum there are three species; the
pure white species, the most abundant and
beautiful white flower now in Indiana woods;
the ague weed or "boneset," and the majestic
| trumpet weed, with its red flowers and lurid
two species of wild balsam the jewel
weeds, as they are well called,
| (impatiens pallida and fulva), which snap
! their seeds at you if you but look at them.
The blue gentians, both the fringed and the
| nehowered, grow in til. swamp with the
white starred grass of Parnassus. Brilliant
coreopsis and Burr margolds flash their yell
lows in the face, while the golden rods are
| found in half dozen species. There is no
end of climbing things-the wild balsam APP
| pie with its prickly pod, the star-fruited GU
| cumber and the wild hop either of which
1 1ol.ol IL Al1,x H.. -
and wild yam root; the poison ivy and the
! Virginia creeper, the latter now bright red
| and making the trees it climbs look aflame.
| These are among the twining things which
| soften the tree moses. An occasional sour
| gum-the most brilliant autumn tree-is
seen bright red, while naples and dog
| wood have put on the hueS OF autumn.
But these are only items of the general
| beauty. So is the ring-necked killdee, the
| lone pair of die-dappers and the lone fisher
man you see reflected in the water. Whole
| families of the map-turtle with the whole
| United States figured on their backs, wheel
| off into deeper water The bass cuts his fur
row in the river and the clam draws his line
| through the yielding sands. The clam-shells
| of a score of different species, varying in
color from brilliant reds and dark puppies,
! through all rainbow tints to purest white
are found by bushels heaped up around the
| stones where the muskrats have for months
patronized their "oyster restaurants Col
lecung the muscles the muskrat mounts log
or stone, sits on his launches and opens
the shell as neatly as a squirrel opens nut
occasionally discarding a shell too strong fei
| his incisors.
A basketful of the shells NAV be gathered,
the gatherer wondering, with Thoreau, how
such colors, reproducing in miniature all the
brilliance OF evening sky and autumn woods
were ever painted, and for what purpose,
down in the mud of the rivers. But enough.
Above the ford. in the swampy corner of the
cornfield is to be found the much desired
cattails, thousand or more, unsung, un
! nainted. and almost unknown. Residents OF
indianapolis bring them from Michigan and
Vermont, not knowing that our swamps are
| full of them.