Part 20

At the falls the river is only about fifteen feet wide, though its average width is from twenty-five to thirty. The water tumbles over a ledge of about ten feet, at the bottom of which is a fine hole, while on the surface sheets of foam are whirled round and round upon the tormented eddies, for the stream has considerable volume and power.

We stepped cautiously along the ledge, Piscator ahead, and holding his flies ready for a cast, which was most artistically made, not without a glance of triumph at me, then preparing to do the same with the humble angle-worm. The "flies" fall--I see the glance of half a dozen golden sides darting at them; but by this time my own cast is made, and I am fully occupied with the struggles of a fine trout.

My companion's success was again far short of mine, and seeing him looking at my trout lying beside me, I said: "Try the worms, good Piscator--here they are. This is not the right time of day for them to take the flies in this river, I judge."

Improving the door of escape thus opened to him, he took off the flies and used worms with immediate and brilliant success, which brought back the smile to his face; and he would now and then as calmly brush away the distracting swarm of flies from his face, as if they had been mere innocent motes. But later that evening came a temporary triumph for Piscator. The hole at the falls was soon exhausted, and we moved down to glean the ripples. It was nearly sunset, and here the pertinacious Piscator determined to try the flies again. He cast with three, and instantly struck two half-pound trout, which, after a spirited play, he safely landed. Rarely have I seen a prouder look of triumph than that which glowed on his face as he bade me "look there!" when he landed them.

"Very fine, Piscator--a capital feat! but I fear it was an accident. You will not get any more that way."

"We shall see, sir," said he, and commenced whipping the water again, but to no avail, while I continued throwing them out with great rapidity.

I abstained from watching him, for I had no desire to spoil his evening sport by taunting him to continue his experiment. I soon observed him throwing out the fish with great spirit again. I merely shouted to him across the stream--"the angle-worm once more, Piscator?"

"Yes!" with a laugh.

As the sun went down the black gnats began to make themselves felt in their smarting myriads, and we forthwith beat a hasty retreat to the shantee.

We had taken about ten pounds of trout; and the first procedure, after reaching the camp, was to build a "smudge," or smoke-fire, to drive away these abominable gnats, which fortunately take flight with the first whiff of smoke, and the next was to prepare the fish for dinner, though not till all had been carefully dressed by the guide, and placed in the cold current of the little spring near, that they might keep sound. Now came the rousing fire, and soon some splendid trout were piled upon dishes of fresh pealed elm bark before us. They were very skillfully cooked, and no epicure ever enjoyed a feast more thoroughly than we did our well-flavored and delicious trout, in that rude shantee.

The feast being over, then to recline back upon the fresh couch of soft spruce boughs, and, with a cigar in mouth, watch the gathering night-shades brooding lower and more low upon the thick wild forest in front, far into the depths of which the leaping flames of our crackling fire go, darting now and then with a revealing tongue of quick light, and listening to the owl make hoarse answer to the wolf afar off--to think of wild passages in a life of adventure years ago amidst surroundings such as this; with the additional spice of peril from savages and treacherous foes, and then, as the hushed life subsides into a stiller mood, see the faces of loved ones come to you through the darkness, with a smile from out your distant home, and while it sinks sweetly on your heart, subside into happy and dream-peopled slumber! "This is bliss!" the bliss of the shantee to the wearied sportsman! a bliss unattainable by the toiler, and still more by the lounger of the city.

We were on foot with the sun next morning, and after another feast, which we appreciated with unpalled appetites, we set off for some deep spring holes nearly a mile above the falls. The morning set cloudy, and rain fell piteously for several hours. But if this change detracted from our sport, it at least served to give zest to the evening's shelter and repose.

I never felt more delightfully than I did when I sat down to a fine dinner that evening in the old tavern, and very much of this pleasurable feeling of entire comfort I attributed to the prompt use of the cold bath, on reaching our temporary home, wet, weary, and shivering with cold. This, with a change of clothes, restored me to a healthy glow of warmth, ready to enjoy whatever our host might provide.

DR. L. J. FRAZEE

Dr. Lewis Jacob Frazee, author of a little volume of travels of considerable charm, was born at Germantown, Kentucky, August 23, 1819. He was prepared for college at the Maysville Academy, celebrated as the school at which young U. S. Grant spent one year. He was graduated from Georgetown College, Georgetown, Kentucky, in the class of 1837; and four years later he graduated in the medical department of the University of Louisville. On April 9, 1844, Dr. Frazee left Maysville, Kentucky, for a long sojourn in Europe, spending most of his time in Paris studying subjects then untaught in this country. He also visited England and the continent before returning home. These travels Dr. Frazee related in a book of nearly three hundred pages, entitled _The Medical Student in Europe_ (Maysville, Kentucky, 1849), which is now an exceedingly rare work. The style is natural and clear and exhibits genuine literary flavor. He settled at Louisville in 1851. His only other publication was _The Mineral Waters of Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1872), a brochure. Dr. Frazee took a keen interest in the Filson Club of Louisville, and one of his finest papers was read before that organization: _An Analysis of the Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie_. He was sometime professor in the medical school of the University of Louisville, and in the Kentucky School of Medicine; and he edited _The Transylvania Medical Journal_ for several years. Old age found the good doctor surrendering his practice and professorships to establish the Louisville Dental Depot, designed to furnish the local dentists with supplies. He died at Louisville, Kentucky, August 12, 1905, eleven days before his eighty-sixth birthday.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Courier-Journal_ (Louisville, Kentucky, August 13, 1905); letters from Dr. Thos. E. Pickett, the Maysville historian, to the present writer.

HAVRE

[From _The Medical Student in Europe_ (Maysville, Kentucky, 1849)]

Havre is a place of about 25,000 inhabitants, has fine docks, which are accessible in high tide, and a considerable amount of shipping. Many of the streets are narrow and crooked, with narrow sidewalks and in many cases none at all. The houses are stuccoed, and generally present rather a sombre aspect. Three-fourths of the women we saw in Havre wore no bonnets, but simply a cap. Some of them were mounted upon donkeys, with a large market basket swung down each side of the animal; these of course were the peasants. My attention was attracted by the large sumpter horses here, which draw singly from eight to ten bales of cotton, apparently with considerable ease.

On the day after we arrived at Havre we ascended the hill which rises at one extremity of the city. The various little winding pathways up the hill, have on each side massive stone walls, with now and then a gateway leading to a private residence almost buried in a thicket of shrubbery and flowers. Upon the hill are situated some most delightful and elegant mansions, with grounds beautifully ornamented with shade trees, shrubbery, flowers and handsome walks. These salubrious retreats have a double charm when compared with the thronged, narrow, and noisy streets of the city below. Beyond these _Villas_ were fields of grass and grain undivided by fences, with here and there a farm house surrounded by a clump of trees.

In Havre we found delightful cherries and strawberries, as well as a variety of vegetables; the oysters and fish here though in abundance are of rather an inferior quality, the oysters are very small and of a decided copperish taste. At breakfast, which we took at any hour in the morning that we thought proper, we ordered such articles as suited our fancy, generally however a cup of coffee, a beef steak, eggs, an omelet or something of this sort. We dined about five in the evening upon soups, a variety of meats and vegetables, well prepared, and a dessert of strawberries and other fruits, nuts, etc. The meats and vegetables were not placed upon the table, but each dish was passed around separately--the table being cleared and clean plates placed for each course. We were compelled to eat slowly or wait for some time upon others.

This would not suit one of our western men who is for doing everything in a minute, but the plan certainly has its advantages--one, of promoting digestion by giving time for the mastication of the food, and another, of no small moment for an epicure, that of having things fresh from the oven. My own objection to the plan was, that I never knew how much of an article to eat, as I did not know what would next be introduced. Such an objection fails, of course, in many of the hotels where the bill of fare is stereotyped, and where with more precision than an almanac-maker you can foretell every change that will take place during the ensuing year. Our table was well supplied with wine, which is used as regularly at dinner as milk by our Kentucky farmers. When our bill was made out, each item was charged separately, so much for breakfast, mentioning what it consisted of--so much for dinner--so much per day for a room, so much for each candle we used, and so on. A French landlord in making out your bill goes decidedly into minutiae.

THEODORE O'HARA

Theodore O'Hara, author of the greatest martial elegy in American literature, was born at Danville, Kentucky, February 11, 1820. He was the son of Kane O'Hara, an Irish political exile, and a noted educator in his day and generation. O'Hara's boyhood days were spent at Danville, but his family settled at Frankfort when he was a young man. He was fitted for college by his father, and his preparation was so far advanced that he was enabled to join the senior class of St. Joseph's College, a Roman Catholic institution at Bardstown, Kentucky. Upon his graduation O'Hara was offered the chair of Greek, but he declined it in order to study law. In 1845 he held a position in the United States Treasury department at Washington; and a few years later he proved himself a gallant soldier upon battlefields in Mexico, being brevetted major for meritorious service. After the war O'Hara practiced law at Washington for some time; and he went to Cuba with the Lopez expedition of 1850. After his return to the United States he edited the Mobile, Alabama, _Register_ for a time; and he was later editor of the Frankfort, Kentucky, _Yeoman_. O'Hara was a public speaker of great ability, and his address upon William Taylor Barry, the Kentucky statesman and diplomat, is one of the climaxes of Southern oratory. During the Civil War he was colonel of the twelfth Alabama regiment. After the war Colonel O'Hara went to Columbus, Georgia, and became a cotton broker. He died near Guerrytown, Alabama, June 6, 1867. Seven years later his dust was returned to Kentucky, and re-interred in the State cemetery at Frankfort. If collected Colonel O'Hara's poems, addresses, political and literary essays, and editorials would make an imposing volume. His real fame rests upon his famous martial elegy, _The Bivouac of the Dead_, which he wrote at Frankfort in the summer of 1847, to remember young Henry Clay, Colonel McKee, Captain Willis, and the other brave fellows who fell in the war with Mexico. When their remains were returned to Frankfort and buried in the cemetery on the hill, Colonel O'Hara, their old companion in arms, wrote his stately in memoriam for them. He did not read it over them, as Ranck and the others have written, but he did publish it in _The Kentucky Yeoman_, a Democratic paper of Frankfort. _The Bivouac of the Dead_ is the greatest single poem ever written by a Kentucky hand, is matchless, superb, and is read in the remotest corners of the world. Its opening lines have been cut deep within memorial shafts in many military cemeteries. Colonel O'Hara sleeps to-day on the outer circle of his comrades, one with them in death as in life, with the lofty military monument, which Kentucky has erected to commemorate her sons slain in the battles of the republic, casting its long shadows across his grave. His elegy in honor of Daniel Boone was written at the "old pioneer's" grave in the Frankfort cemetery before his now much-mutilated monument was erected. It was originally printed in _The Kentucky Yeoman_ for December 19, 1850. Two other poems purporting to be his have been discovered, but there must be others sealed over and forgotten in the scattered and broken files of Southern newspapers and periodicals. So the poet has come down to us, like he who wrote _The Burial of Sir John Moore_, with one slender sheaf under his arm. But it is enough, enough for both of them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. George W. Ranck's little books: _O'Hara and His Elegies_ (Baltimore, 1875); _The Bivouac of the Dead and Its Author_ (1898; 1909); Daniel E. O'Sullivan's paper in _The Southern Bivouac_ (Louisville, January, 1887); Robert Burns Wilson's fine tribute in _The Century Magazine_ (May, 1890). The late Mrs. Susan B. Dixon, the Henderson historian, left a MS. life of O'Hara that is to be issued shortly.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

[From _O'Hara and His Elegies_, by George W. Ranck (Baltimore, 1875)]

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on life's parade shall meet The brave and daring few. On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead.

No answer of the foe's advance Now swells upon the wind; No troubled thought at midnight haunts Of loved ones left behind; No vision of the morrow's strife The warrior's dream alarms; No braying horn nor screaming fife At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust; Their plumed heads are bowed; Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, Is now their martial shroud; And plenteous funeral-tears have washed The red stains from each brow, And their proud forms, in battle gashed, Are free from anguish now.

The neighing steed, the flashing blade, The trumpet's stirring blast; The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout, are past; No war's wild note, nor glory's peal, Shall thrill with fierce delight Those breasts that nevermore shall feel The rapture of the fight.

Like the dread northern hurricane That sweeps his broad plateau, Flushed with the triumph yet to gain, Came down the serried foe.[9] Our heroes felt the shock, and leapt To meet them on the plain; And long the pitying sky hath wept Above our gallant slain.

Sons of our consecrated ground Ye must not slumber there, Where stranger steps and tongues resound Along the headless air. Your own proud land's heroic soil Shall be your fitter grave: She claims from war his richest spoil-- The ashes of her brave.

So 'neath their parent turf they rest; Far from the gory field; Borne to a Spartan mother's breast On many a bloody shield. The sunshine of their native sky Smiles sadly on them here, And kindred hearts and eyes watch by The heroes' sepulchre.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! Dear as the blood you gave, No impious footsteps here shall tread The herbage of your grave; Nor shall your glory be forgot While fame her record keeps, Or honor points the hallowed spot Where valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless tone In deathless songs shall tell, When many a vanquished age hath flown, The story how ye fell. Nor wreck, nor change, or winter's blight, Nor time's remorseless doom, Shall dim one ray of holy light That gilds your glorious tomb.

THE OLD PIONEER

[From the same]

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! Knight-errant of the wood! Calmly beneath the green sod here He rests from field and flood; The war-whoop and the panther's screams No more his soul shall rouse, For well the aged hunter dreams Beside his good old spouse.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! Hushed now his rifle's peal; The dews of many a vanish'd year Are on his rusted steel; His horn and pouch lie mouldering Upon the cabin-door; The elk rests by the salted spring, Nor flees the fierce wild boar.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! Old Druid of the West! His offering was the fleet wild deer, His shrine the mountain's crest. Within his wildwood temple's space An empire's towers nod, Where erst, alone of all his race, He knelt to Nature's God.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! Columbus of the land! Who guided freedom's proud career Beyond the conquer'd strand; And gave her pilgrim sons a home No monarch's step profanes, Free as the chainless winds that roam Upon its boundless plains.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! The muffled drum resound! A warrior is slumb'ring here Beneath his battle-ground. For not alone with beast of prey The bloody strife he waged, Foremost where'er the deadly fray Of savage combat raged.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! A dirge for his old spouse! For her who blest his forest cheer, And kept his birchen house. Now soundly by her chieftain may The brave old dame sleep on, The red man's step is far away, The wolf's dread howl is gone.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! His pilgrimage is done; He hunts no more the grizzly bear About the setting sun. Weary at last of chase and life, He laid him here to rest, Nor recks he now what sport or strife Would tempt him further west.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! The patriarch of his tribe! He sleeps--no pompous pile marks where, No lines his deeds describe. They raised no stone above him here, Nor carved his deathless name-- An empire is his sepulchre, His epitaph is Fame.

SECOND LOVE

[From _The Southern Bivouac_ (Louisville, Kentucky, January, 1887)]

Thou art not my first love, I loved before we met, And the memory of that early dream Will linger round me yet; But thou, thou art my last love, The truest and the best. My heart but shed its early leaves To give thee all the rest.

A ROLLICKING RHYME

[From the same]

I'd lie for her, I'd sigh for her, I'd drink the river dry for her-- But d----d if I would die for her.

THE FAME OF WILLIAM T. BARRY

[From _Obituary Addresses_ (Frankfort, Kentucky, 1855)]

On his accession to the Presidency, General Jackson--with that discerning appreciation of the most available ability and worth in his party which characterized him--called Mr. Barry into his cabinet to the position of Postmaster General. Here, as one of the most distinguished of the council of Jackson, during the greater part of his incumbency, he is entitled to his full share of the fame of that glorious administration. His health, however, failing him under the wasting labors of the toilsome department over which he presided, he was forced to relinquish it before the administration terminated; and General Jackson, unwilling entirely to lose the benefit of his able services, appointed him, in 1835, Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to Spain, a post in which, while its dignity did not disparage his civil rank, it was hoped that the lightness of the duties, and the influence of a genial climate, might serve to renovate his impaired health. But it was otherwise ordained above. He had reached Liverpool on the way to his mission, when the great conqueror, at whose summons the strongest manhood, the noblest virtue, the proudest genius, and the brightest wisdom must surrender, arrested his earthly career on the 30th of August, 1835; and here is all that is left to us of the patriot, the orator, the hero, the statesman, the sage--the rest belongs to Heaven and to fame.

Such, fellow-citizens, is a most cursory and feeble memento of the life and public services of the illustrious man in whose memory Kentucky has decreed the solemn honors of this day. It is well for her that she has felt "the late remorse of love," and reclaimed these precious ashes to her heart, after they have slumbered so many years unsepultured in a foreign land; that no guilty consciousness of unworthy neglect may weigh upon her spirit, and depress her proud front with shame; that no reproaching echo of that eloquent voice that once so sweetly thrilled her, pealing back upon her soul amidst her prideful recollections of the past, may appal her in her feast of memory, and blast her revel of glory; that no avenging muse, standing among the shrines of her departed greatness, and searching in vain for that which should mark her remembrance of one she should so devoutly hallow, shall have reason to sing of her as she has sung:

"Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar; And Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore."