The State of Tennessee.—Steam-boats on the Mississippi.—Flat-boats.

We had now passed the western extremity of Kentucky, and had the state of Tennessee on our left. The eastern banks of the Mississippi, viz. on the Tennessee side, are throughout lower than the western or Missouri shores; presenting a series of marshes from which cypress trees and canebrack seem just emerging, lining them for hundreds of miles to the southward. Farther eastward, towards the rivers Tennessee and Cumberland, the soil is overgrown with sugar-maples, sycamore trees, walnuts, and honey-locusts; the mountains with white and live oak and hickory. The eastern part of the state resembles North Carolina. The middle part is by far the best. Cotton and tobacco are staple articles. Rice is cultivated with success. Hemp is not considered of the same quality as the Kentuckian, the climate being too warm. The tropical fruits, such as figs, thrive well; chesnuts are superior to those of the other states. Melons, peaches, and apples, are abundant. Tennessee is considered altogether a rich and fertile land. The inhabitants are liberal, noble hearted, and noted for their good conduct towards strangers. Several foreigners settled in the state, have attained a high degree of wealth and prosperity. There is no state in the Union where slavery has had less pernicious effects upon the character of the people. The inhabitants are mostly descendants of emigrants from North Carolina, and their hospitality is without bounds. This state extends, in an oblong square, from the shores of the Mississippi towards Virginia and North Carolina, in 35° to 36° 30' north latitude, and 4° 26' to 13° 5' west longitude. It is bounded on the east by Virginia and North Carolina; on the south by Georgia, Albania, and Mississippi; on the west by the river Mississippi, and on the north by Kentucky, comprising altogether 40,000 square miles. East Tennessee partakes more of the sandy character of North Carolina. West Tennessee of the marshes of the Mississippi valley. Its principal rivers are the Cumberland and Tennessee, with the Mississippi on the west, where however, with the exception of some very small settlements, there are no improvements of any kind. The canal proposed by Governor Troup, of Georgia, to Governor Carrott, of Tennessee, which is to bring this state into immediate connection with the Atlantic, will have a very beneficial effect, these two rivers being navigable for steam-boats only during three months in the year, and New Orleans being the only market for Tennessee. Notwithstanding its straitened commerce, the state is rapidly improving, and several of its towns, though not large are yet very elegant. The chief wealth of the state, however, consists in the plantations, and the farmer and planter live in a style, which at least in point of eating, cannot be exceeded by the wealthiest nobleman in any country. Among the towns of the state, Nashville holds the first rank. This town occupies a commanding situation, on a solid cliff of rocks on the south side of the Cumberland, 200 feet above the level of the banks. The river is navigable here during three months in the year for steam-boats of 300 tons burthen. Besides the court-house, three churches, two banks, including a branch bank of the United States, three printing offices, and a great number of wholesale and retail merchants, there is the seat of the district court for the western part of Tennessee. Several literary institutions, such as Cumberland college, a ladies’ school, and reading-room with a public library, are evident proofs of a liberal spirit. This spirit is combined with unbounded hospitality. There is a number of houses, such as those of Governor Carrott, Major General Jackson, &c., where every respectable stranger is welcome, and may be sure of meeting with a select company. The surrounding country is beautiful, cotton plantations lining the banks of the river, and extending in every direction hither. The wealthier inhabitants generally retire during the summer months, from the stifling heats prevailing on the barren rocks upon which Nashville stands. Knoxville in east Tennessee, with 400 houses and 2,500 inhabitants, is of less importance; it is the seat of the supreme district court for east Tennessee, and has a bank, a college, and two churches. The country about Knoxville is far inferior to that round Nashville. The capital of Tennessee, Murfreesborough, has 1500 inhabitants, with a state-house, a bank, two printing-offices, &c. It communicates by water with Nashville, through Stonecreek. The situation seems not to be very judiciously chosen for a chief town. This was the state of things four years ago, when I passed through the place; but doubtless it has since proportionably increased. Our company being on this occasion of a less mixed, and a less troublesome character, we sailed down the majestic father of rivers, with minds well disposed to acknowledge our obligations to Mr. Fulton, for his happy idea of applying the power of steam to navigation. The settlers of the Mississippi valley, are in duty bound to raise a monument to the memory of a man, who has effected in their mode of conveyance so adventurous, and so successful a change. Not ten years have elapsed since the inhabitants of the west were used to toil like beasts of burden, in order to ascend the stream for a distance of ten or fifteen miles a day; and when in 1802, some boats belonging to Mr. R., of Nashville, arrived from New Orleans in eighty-seven days, this passage was considered the ne plus ultra of quick travelling by water, and was instantly made known throughout the Union. A passenger now performs the same voyage in five days, sitting all the while in a comfortable state-room, which in point of fitting-up vies with the most elegant parlours, writing letters, or reading the newspapers, and if tired of these occupations, paying visits to the ladies, if he be permitted to do so; or otherwise pacing the deck, where his less fortunate fellow passengers are hanging in hammocks—an indication to many of what may be their future state. There is certainly not any nation that can boast of a greater disposition for travelling, than Brother Jonathan; and there is again nobody more at home than he, whether in a tavern, or on board a vessel; as he is in the habit of considering a tavern, a vessel, or a steam-boat, as a kind of public property. Yet on board a vessel, or a steam-boat, he is very tractable. The great difference of fare between a cabin and a deck passage, from Louisville to New Orleans, being for the former forty dollars, and for the latter eight dollars, contributes to establish a distinction in this assemblage of people, placing those who are found too light in the upper house, and the more weighty in the lower. The first have to find themselves, the others are provided with every thing in a manner which shows that private institutions for the benefit of the public, are certainly more patronised here than in most other countries. If the pecuniary resources of the citizen of the United States do not reach a very low ebb, he will certainly choose the cabin, his pride forbidding him to mix with the rabble, though the expence may fall too heavy upon him. That economical refinement which the French evince on these occasions, is not to be seen in America. When I proceeded four months ago from Havre to Rouen, in the Duchess of Angouleme steam-boat, among the 100 passengers who were on board, more than fifty well-looking people were seen unpacking their bundles, and regaling themselves with their contents—bread, chicken, cutlets, wine, &c., &c., a frugality which will hardly be found to contribute to the improvement of a spirit of enterprise. The Americans would be ashamed of this kind of parsimony, which must ever impede all public undertakings. Owing to this cause, the American steam-boats are in point of elegance superior to those of other nations; and none but the English are able to compete with them. The furniture, carpets, beds, &c., are throughout elegant, and in good condition. Some of the new steam-boats are provided with small rooms, each containing two births, which passengers may use for their accommodation in shaving, dressing, &c. The general regulations are suspended above the side board in a gilt frame, and are as binding as a law. They prohibit speaking to the pilot during the passage—visiting the ladies’ state-room, without their consent—lying down upon the bed with shoes or boots on—smoking cigars in the state-room—and playing at cards after ten o’clock. The first transgression is punished with a fine; if repeated, the transgressor is sent ashore. The fare is excellent, and the breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, are provided with such a multiplicity of dishes, and even dainties, as would satisfy the most refined appetite. The beverage consists of rum, gin, brandy, claret, to be taken at pleasure during meals; but out of that time they are to be paid for. Distressing accidents will of course occasionally occur; the last of this kind was of a truly heart-rending nature: it happened four years ago, above Walnut-hills, in the steam-boat Tennessee. The night was tempestuous, the rain fell in torrents, and the captain, instead of landing and waiting until the weather cleared up, lost his senses, and ran on a sawyer[C]. The steam-boat was not sixty feet distant from the bank, which could not be distinguished, and she went down in a few seconds, together with 110 passengers, save a few who by accident reached the shore. Since that time, although steam-boats have sunk, no such loss of lives has occurred. This, however, is not to be compared with the hardships, the toils, the loss of health and life, to which the navigators of flat and keel-boats were formerly, and are still exposed, when going down the Mississippi. Nothing more uncouth than these flat-boats was ever sent forth from the hands of a carpenter. They are built of rude timber and planks, sixty feet in length, and twenty-five feet in breadth, and so unmanageable, that only the strong arm of a backwoodsman can keep them from running upon planters[[D], sawyers, wooden-islands, and all the Scyllas and Charybdes, that are to be met with on the voyage. We found numbers of them along the Ohio, detained by low water; and from St. Louis down to New Orleans, sometimes fifteen, twenty, and thirty together. Their uncouth appearance, the boisterous and fierce manners of their crews, the immense distance they have already proceeded, make them truly objects of interest. One of these flat-boats is from the Upper Ohio, laden with pine-boards, planks, rye, whisky, flour; close to it, another from the falls of the Ohio, with corn in the ear and bulk, apples, peaches; a third, with hemp, tobacco, and cotton. In the fourth you may find horses regularly stabled together; in the next, cattle from the mouth of the Missouri; a sixth will have hogs, poultry, turkeys; and in a seventh you see peeping out of the holes, the woolly heads of slaves transported from Virginia and Kentucky, to the human flesh mart at New Orleans. They have come thousands of miles, and still have to proceed a thousand more, before they arrive at their place of destination.