Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/236

226 performed by water, as indeed it of necessity must be.

I had no business whatever of my own at Steubenville, but in compliance with my friend’s request that I should accompany him in a visit to some of the salt-works in the neighbourhood, in which he was largely concerned, I had agreed to meet him on a certain day, at a certain hotel in this town.

I reached Steubenville about noon, and proceeded at once to the hotel where I expected to find my friend. He was not there, but, in his stead, I found a letter from him, in which he told me that he had met with an accident which would render his leaving home impossible for another week. This was rather annoying. I deliberated for a few minutes, uncertain whether to take the next Cincinnati boat and return immediately, or to wait patiently a whole week in a place in which I had no acquaintances and no occupation. I wanted recreation, the hotel seemed comfortable, and I soon decided to make it my head-quarters till my friend’s arrival, and to spend my leisure time in rambling about the neighbouring country.

Whoever has travelled in Ohio has seen one of the most exuberantly fertile regions of the great American continent; there indeed does the earth bring forth abundantly, not only corn and fruits, but it is rich in some of the most useful minerals, iron and coal.

There are no mountains in Ohio, but much high table land, rising to about a thousand feet above the level of the sea, and even these hills are covered with a fertile soil to their summits. The whole country is watered by navigable rivers of great beauty, which bear on their gentle currents the products of this highly-cultivated region.

But I am not about to give either a geographical or a statistical account of this State, though much might be told of it that is marvellous, when we consider that it was no longer ago than in 1788 that its first white settlers were a little party of emigrants from New England, and that, forty years after their arrival, towns and villages had sprung up amongst the smiling valleys and rich plains, while the growth of the population, now considerably more than a million and a-half, is such as has never been paralleled.

I was always fond of fishing, and after having spent two or three days on horseback, leaving the choice of road very much to my horse’s discretion, as the country was all new to me, and apparently equally beautiful whichever way I roamed, I borrowed a rod and line from my host, and set out towards a little stream, from which I had observed a man catching fish at a great rate the day before. My way lay through the edge of a forest—one of those magnificent forests of gigantic trees that stretch back from the river for miles, and which are now and then broken by a fertile prairie, or, as we should call it, a natural meadow.

I soon found the place I was in quest of—a narrow opening in the forest, through which ran a clear, rippling stream, not more than thirty or forty feet in breadth. Almost at the same spot in which I had seen him the preceding day, stood the same figure, with his rod in hand, and the rest of his tackle lying by his side on the short smooth turf. I also noticed that a book, which from its appearance I felt almost sure was the Bible, lay on a blue cotton handkerchief by the side of his fishing-basket. He looked up, and took a scrutinising survey of me from head to foot, as I approached, and was making my mental observations on him; his countenance was grave and even melancholy, but not forbidding, or in any degree unpleasant, so I ventured to address him, and, English fashion, made some common-place remark upon the state of the weather.

“You are from the old country, I guess,” said my new acquaintance.

“You guess right. But what makes you think so?”

“Because you told me it was a fine day. We Americans are so used to fine weather that we don’t think much of it. I guess you don’t get much of it in your country.”

Of course I defended our country from such an injurious imputation, while I generously admitted that we had not, either in summer or winter, anything like the bright clear atmosphere of America.

I had seen enough of New England and the New Englanders to enable me to recognise a Yankee as soon as I heard him speak, and I was well aware that this man was from one of the Eastern States; probably, thought I, he is a settler, who has migrated from some bleak rocky district, in hopes of bettering his fortunes in this land flowing with milk and honey.

There is nothing like a community of tastes for furnishing subjects of conversation, even between strangers; so, in five minutes from the time of our first meeting, we were deep in the mysteries of fly-fishing. My companion, who was evidently an experienced angler, caught at least two fish to my one, for he had greatly the advantage over me, inasmuch as he was thoroughly acquainted with the peculiarities of fish, of which I did not even know the names—for they, like the birds, the plants, and many other things pertaining to natural history, are different from those of England.

Though very grave, I did not find my companion either taciturn or reserved; on the contrary, he seemed ready to converse on any subject that was started. Once or twice, indeed, he answered me in a strange, abrupt manner, and instantly turned the conversation, as if what I said had offended him, or in some way given him pain, though I could not imagine how that could be.

After enjoying several hours’ good sport, I thought it time to return to my inn, but my companion would not hear of it.

“You must not go back to-night,” said he. “You must come home with me; the old woman will find you a bed, and I will show you my little farm, out in the bush, yonder. I guess you could not match it for beauty in your country.”

I felt no inclination to throw doubts on this point. Why should I? I like to see a man prefer his own country, as he would his own wife and his own children, to any other in the world; so I thanked him, and after making