There'll be the very devil to pay, that's
a fact. I expect the blacks will butcher the Southern whites, and
the Northerners will have to turn out and butcher them again; and
all this shoot, hang, cut, stab, and burn business will sweeten our
folks' temper, as raw meat does that of a dog--it fairly makes me
sick to think on it. The explosion may clear the air again, and all
be tranquil once more, but it's an even chance if it don't leave us
the three steamboat options: to be blown sky high, to be scalded to
death, or drowned."
"If this sad picture you have drawn be indeed true to nature, how
does your country," said I, "appear so attractive, as to draw to it
so large a portion of our population?"
"It ain't its attraction," said the Clockmaker; "it's nothin' but its
power of suction; it is a great whirlpool--a great vortex--it drags
all the straw and chips, and floatin' sticks, drift-wood and trash
into it. The small crafts are sucked in, and whirl round and round
like a squirrel in a cage--they'll never come out. Bigger ones pass
through at certain times of tide, and can come in and out with good
pilotage, as they do at Hell Gate up the Sound."
"You astonish me," said I, "beyond measure; both your previous
conversations with me, and the concurrent testimony of all my friends
who have visited the States, give a different view of it.
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