town, I was much interested in observing the different color, and character, and costume of the crowds congregated together. Here you meet the grave, stately Moor from Barbary, and his old enemy the Spaniard, each with his distinctive countenance, bearing, and attire. The Jew and the Greek jostle each other, and busily ply their different avocations in peace and amity; complete religious toleration being enjoyed by all. Here you see the dark-eyed Spanish senorita with her mantilla and her fan; there the contrabandista, ready for any deed of darkness and daring. Genoese and Africans, English soldiers in their red coats, and jolly tars in their blue jackets, meet you at every turn. What affected me most deeply were gangs of English convicts at work on the fortifications, or marching in droves to or from their cells, with the dress and stigma of infamy upon them. The sight made the heart sick. Sad proof that sin is its own punishment! Nor must I forget to mention the natives of the Rock, called "Scorpions," a singular looking race, no better than they should be, if all said about them is true. Indeed, the whole population seemed a medley of the most motley description; the town being peopled, they tell us, by stragglers and strangers from Patagonia to Poland. We first made our way, with what speed we could, to the post-office, to send our first dispatches home, with the good news that hitherto all had gone on pros perously with us. We then called on. the Wesleyan missionaries, whose labors among the soldiers have been much blessed. After visiting their chapel and schools, an excellent public library, and other objects of interest and utility, we commenced to climb the rock. Our party being good pedestrians, this we attempted on foot. The heat and the toil were great, but amply were we repaid. The steep, rough, winding ascent led us past the exterior walls of the old Moorish castle. The Great Tower is of prodigious solidity, and is now used as a powder magazine. Its venerable walls suffered much in the famous siege, being greatly exposed to the fire of the Spanish batteries. Within the castle are barracks. Here we obtained a guide to facilitate our way, and point out the wonders of this marvelous fortress. Up and still up the zig-zag paths we toiled, and found battery frowning above battery at every turn. By an excavated passage we at length reached "Willis's Batteries," so often referred to in the history of the siege. The view here is terrific. Precipices above and below, absolutely perpendicular, all along which you see extended black lines of openings, like the mouths of so many caves, and the muzzles of cannon peering out, ready to pour out their destructive fire, at any moment or any emergence. The excavated galleries are truly astonishing. When the Duke de Crillon, who commanded the combined MARTIN'S CAVE. forces of France and Spain at the famous siege, was conducted over these galleries after the general peace, addressing his suite, he said, "These works are worthy of the Romans." We proceeded along the Windsor-galleries, which, like the others, are full of openings for guns; and after many turnings and windings we reached St. George's Hall, the most famed of these extraordinary excavations. This chamber, cut out of the solid rock, and fitted up with heavy guns as a strong battery, is at the eastern angle of the rock, and is so capacious that grand entertainments have been given here. Lord Nelson was, on one occasion, feasted by the authorities of Gibraltar in St. George's Hall. We visited, also, Cornwallis's Hall, a spacious chamber of the same kind, but less elegant than the former; and at length, having emerged into open day by another line of galleries, we set ourselves, in right good earnest, to climb to the signal station. This we did find a toilsome and trying pilgrimage. The path was circuitous, stony, and rugged, the more so the higher we ascended, and by this time the heat and fatigue were almost overpowering. Onward and upward we wended our way, till at length we reached the summit. Here, in a comfortable little parlor of the flag-sergeant, we rested and recruited our strength, and then stepped out to gaze on a scene of surpassing magnificence. We were on the summit of one of the three principal points on the ridge of the rock. A small parapet wall surrounds this station; over this wall you look down perpen All dicularly some twelve or thirteen hundred feet, into the Mediterranean rolling beneath you. around, the prospect by sea and land is as exquisite as it is extensive. The bay looks most beautiful; curling with the breeze in one place, smooth as a mirror in another, and studded all over with ships and sails of every sort and size. To the east you have a long range of fearful precipices; to the west, a steep descent, with the town, the Alameda-a pleasant promenade, the New Mole, dockyards, barracks, batteries, magazines, strong bastions along the sea-line, elegant villas, and neat gardens, clustering at the base and on the sides of the mountain. Looking across the Strait, the African coast, not far distant, adds to the interest of the scene. You see Mons Abyla, the corre sponding pillar of Hercules. In favorable circumstances, Mount Atlas may also be seen; while the blue waters of the Mediterranean stretch before you as far as the eye can reach. Hercules, thy pillars stand, Cloud-capp'd Atlas towers at hand. We descended by a long steep flight of steps, connected with a defensive wall extending to the very summit of the rock, built by the Emperor Charles V., and bearing his name. Formerly, at a given signal, one thousand armed men, at a few minutes' warning, could be stationed on these steps. Happily, as a matter of safety, this is no longer necessary; and we trust the day approaches when nations shall require these muniments of war no more. I felt some difficulty in descending the steep, narrow steps; but the scene was enchanting. Across the bay, about five miles from the rock, stood the Spanish town Algesiras, a picturesque object, imbosomed in the amphitheater of beautiful undulating hills which skirt the bay as far as the eye could reach. At this town the Spaniards, in 1781, built their floating batteries, with which they vainly hoped to wrest Gibraltar from the British. General Elliot stood unmoved, like the rock itself, holding the key of the garrison in his hand, determ ined no one should enter there without his permission. He calmly watched all the preparations of the enemy; allowed the Spanish gun-boats, one after another, to take their position, loaded with warriors and with arms; then, when all was ready, he gave the command, and red-hot shot, since called" Elliot's pills," fell like hail among the Spaniards, and boat after boat blew up till all were destroyed. I saw the place on the King's Bastion where the general stood on that memorable day. For his services and success he was raised to the peerage, with the title of Lord Heathfield. St. Roque, too-where stood the camp of the Duke de Crillon, another famous place in the siege-stands conspicuous on a gentle eminence. Behind all, the Spanish mountains rise in lofty ranges, and give a charming finish to this romantic picture. A hill was pointed out in the distance, where the Queen of Spain caused her chair of state to be placed, and Vowed she would never leave it till the British were vanquished, and the rock was again her own. Alas! she was forced at length to retire. On reaching the low ground again, I wandered about, luxuriating in the historical associations that cluster round this singular spot. The Moors landed here on their first arrival in Spain, and kept possession for seven hundred years. In 1462 it was captured by the Spaniards. In 1704 the English first attacked and took it, and, as a valuable key to the Mediterranean, have kept it ever since. Whether, in a military point of view, it is worth all the immense expenditure of men and money it has cost, I pretend not to decide. By many this is doubted. It has no harbor; its guns cannot close the Straits to a hostile squadron; it maintains its importance chiefly from the prestige of the past. The smuggling, so extensively carried on at Gibraltar, is as disgraceful to England as it is injurious to Spain, and ought to be put down. I looked with much interest at the low sandy plain to the north; the neutral ground between the Spaniards and the British; their respective lines you see clearly marked out. Near this spot stands the neat somber burial-ground, with distinct plots marked off for the Jews, and different sects of professing Christians, as if, even in death, our sad divisions must still be perpetuated. At length we had ST. GEORGE'S HALL. to tear ourselves away. Though we had made the best use of our time, many of the wonders of the place we had to leave unvisited. IN SKETCHES OF CHICAGO. N the latter end of May, 1835, when the 'writer of these sketches was some twenty-three years younger than now, our family set out in a wagon, in the oldfashioned way, from Westfield, New York, to Erie, Pennsylvania, to take boat from thence to Chicago. In those days people made inquiries beforehand when steamboats left for the West, and just as a few years ago people flocked to New York at the leaving of a California packet, so the people flocked to Buffalo and other parts to take boat for Chicago. Our family went to Erie to head off the boat advertised to leave for the West from Buffalo. These boats were uncertain things, and we gave ourselves plenty of time, and were in consequence obliged to wait two or three days in Erie. This town at that time was an old sixth-rate village, standing upon bluffs that were every day crumbling into the lake. It was near the place of Perry's victory, and at one of the wharves lay the "Queen Charlotte," one of the British vessels sunk in the lake in the war of 1812. She had been lately raised, and was now being refitted. Daily we looked for the steamboat. At last she hove in sight, and by the time we could muster to the pier she was ready to take us on board. It was the "Thomas Jefferson," a long three-masted, oldfashioned steamboat, whose old hulk now, no doubt, lies rotting on some weatherbeaten shore. We were soon off for the West in high spirits. The squalid hamlets, Cleveland, Detroit, etc., were visited, and on we went into the wild and dreary regions of the Straits of Mackinaw. At the village of Mackinaw we found a mixed set of French, Indians, soldiers, and traders living in a cozy dell beneath pine-clad hills, and overlooked by the fort on whose distant parapets we could see the sentinel treading his slow rounds. We had our first view of the Indians here. Through the picturesque straits we wound our way, and bidding these beauteous regions farewell we rode up the putrescent waters of the Green Bay. There was no wooding-place from Mackinaw to Milwaukie, and in consequence the boat was forced to run up the bay a hundred miles, and out again for a supply of wood. On the eighth day of June our good steamer which, without accident, unless we count the nauseous sea-sickness accident, had brought us thus far, cast her anchors in the lake off Chicago. There was no harbor then into which so large a boat could enter, and we were forced to lie there a day waiting till scows could be procured to take us to the shore. We landed at last strangers in a strange land; we were soon domiciled, and all of us at once entered upon city life. A great city that, however! Lake Michigan is skirted all around her western shores with black oak sand ridges. The lake once covered the country for at least ten miles in shore, and this old bed is low, and now and then sluggish streams, mere bayous, put into the lake upon whose banks are generally skirts of prairie. Where Chicago is situated one of these streams broke through the sand banks and then extending west three quarters of a mile, branches north and south. The prairie west is a low luvial over which no doubt the lake once flowed into the Mississippi. The prairie sets back to the Des Plaines River, without timber, and a tongue of this prairie borders the lake for three miles. The river setting in here is about two hundred feet wide, and twenty or more feet deep. The shores are so abrupt vessels can lie along the banks within a plank's length of the land. The south branch of this bayou (for it is nothing more) runs nearly parallel with the lake for over two miles, and then bends for a mile to the west, and ends abruptly at Bridgeport. The forks of the river are now about at the center of the city. In 1835 there was a clever village at the point at the forks, and another on the main branch of the river on the lake, and near the fort. They were squalid towns well filled with liquor shops, and each strived manfully for the mastery. Blue-coated soldiers still occupied the fort. Every morning the mellow tones of the bugle summoned men to the roll call, and every Sabbath men in stiff leather stocks sat in the pews of the Presbyterian Church. Three streets from the river, on Lasalle-street, there were plenty of trees and underbrush, and I often, in those days, gathered hazle-nuts across the street west of the First Baptist Church. Where the Rock Island Railroad depot stands was a dense hazle thicket where, even in that day, lynx and wild cats were found. South Water-street and Dearborn-street were the main business streets of the town. Lake-street was the great thoroughfare, and near the Tremont House it was no uncommon thing to see a fourhorse stage mired down. Joking men would put an old hat on a stick with a warning label "gone down!" and boards chalk-marked, "no bottom here!" would often meet the eye; and, indeed, there was a great deal of truth in this last warning! There were a few liquor groceries on Lake-street, and Thomas Church kept a dry-goods and grocery store on the south side of Lake, between Clarke and Dearborn-streets. Speaking of Thomas Church and hazlebushes makes me think of an incident. A great circus came to town. Billy Barlow was the chief songster. The fame of his songs reached us outsiders, whose want of money kept us from entering, and there was a dreadful desire among us boys to get inside. One Sunday afternoon I was strolling over near the public square when a friend told me that pea bushes were in demand, and that I could sell those for money enough to get into the circus. I borrowed a hatchet, and cutting a nice lot of poles, Sunday as it was, went down town to sell them. I went to Mrs. C. (not the present Mrs. Pruyne C.) and of fered them for sale. She said she did not buy such things on Sunday. I threw away my poles. Mrs. C. did not break the Sabbath, and I did not get into the circus. The chief meu of the town of that day were the Kinzies, the Hubbards, Beaubiens, G. W. Dale, J. B. F. Russel, R. J. Hamilton, etc. The St. James Episcopal Church was commenced in 1836. There was a small Catholic chapel a block east of the Tremont House. The Presbyterians had a house about twenty by thirty in size, seated with school benches, which served as chief church and school-house, where this present writer made mischief in school hours, and sat with aching bones through long, dull Sabbath services. Besides these (I have since learned) the Methodists had a small room on the north side. These were the churches of that day. There was no regular service in any of them. The town supported three schools, and school-rooms were hired here and there for school purposes. The Presbyterian Church just mentioned was situated on the alley, west side of Clark, between Lake and Randolph-streets; in this the chief school of the town was kept. In 1836 I attended school on the west side, a few rods from the Point. The room was about ten by twelve. Mr. Wakeman was teacher. The highest classes read in the New Testament, this being the chief “Reader" in the school. In the winter of 1836 and 1837 the only school on the west side was kept by Mr. King in his own dwelling-house. The Indians had generally left the country, but the annual payment for 1836 was made in Chicago, and five thousand Indians assembled for allowances. The commissioner on pay-day held his office in an old frame house between Washington and Randolph-streets, four or five blocks from the river on the west side. It was a quarter of a mile on the prairie, away from any other house. Sentries marched hither and thither, forming a large semi-circle about the door. Many of Chicago's present prominent citizens were my schoolmates in that day. S. L. Brown, Francis Sherman, jr., Mrs. Ingles, and a host of others scattered over the west, Ballentine Curtis, Irving Granger, Scovills, and a half hundred others known through the country. But alas! others, and loved ones too, are laid VOL. XII.-30 How many of us of away in the grave. the old time hold in memory Charles A. Stowel, Harrison Jones, Francis X. Taylor, William Sweet, and others precious to memory? The surroundings of Chicago were somewhat different from the present time of railways and prodigious cities! Some forty miles to the north was a little burgh of four or five houses called Little Fort, which is now the charming Waukegan. Twelve miles north of the town, on the Milwaukie road, was a prominent tavern, kept by a Dutchman, where dancing and whisky drinking were the chief employments. This place was known far and near as Dutchman's Point. That Dutch tavernkeeper, John Plank by name, is now a presiding elder in the Rock River Conference. Go down on the pier and you will see, some twelve miles to the north, a point of land extending into the lake. That from the early day until 1854 was known as Grosse Point. Until 1854 there was no living thing there but the wolf, the deer, and here and there the lone wood-chopper in his hut. Every few days some small schooner would anchor off the point to take in a cargo of wood. A company of enterprising trustees of a college bought three hundred acres of land down there four years ago, and laid out a town, calling it, after John Evans, the president of the board, Evanston. Now a beautiful town, with three colleges and a seminary, inhabited by the well-to-do people of Chicago, greets the railway traveler as he speeds northward. Evanston will be known in history! One of the oldest citizens of Chicago, Mrs. E. Garrett, left at her death a property of over three hundred thousand dollars for the support of a Methodist Biblical Institute at this old Grosse Point place. Ninety miles to the westward an old quiet man ferried the traveler from the South to the lead mines of Galena, over the Rock River, and everywhere. Dixon's Ferry was a noted place. That is Dixon now. Juliet (now Joliet) and Ottawa were little villages to the southwest. Twelve miles south of Chicago there is a river very much like that at Chicago. Here early speculators laid out the city of Calumet. They built a toll bridge, and spent hundreds of dollars striving to drain a large morass. You could not go amiss |