2G6 CHEWING TOBACCO. [CHAP. XL. 



Tehuantepec, 135 miles in length, was alluded to as the favorite 

 scheme ; and the expediency of forcing Mexico to cede a right of 

 way was spoken of as if the success of their campaign was certain. 



It is the fashion for travelers in the New World to dwell so 

 much on the chewing of tobacco, that I may naturally be ex 

 pected to say something of this practice. There is enough of it 

 1&amp;lt;&amp;gt; bo very annoying in steamboats and railway-cars, but far less 

 so as we journey northward ; and T never saw, even in the south, 

 :uiy chewing of the weed in drawing-rooms, although we were 

 told in South Carolina that some old gentlemen still indulged in 

 I his habit. That it is comparatively rare in the New England 

 stales, was attested by an anecdote related to me of a captain 

 \\lio commands one of the steamers on Lake Champlain, who 

 prided himself on the whiteness of his deck, intended to be kept 

 as a promenade. Observing a southerner occasionally polluting 

 its clean iloor, he ordered a boy to follow him up and down with 

 a s\v;ib, to the infinite diversion of the passengers, and the no 

 small indignation of the southerner, when at length he discovered 

 how his footsteps had been dodged. The governor of a peniten 

 tiary told me, that to deprive prisoners of tobacco was found to 

 be a very efficient punishment, and that its use was prohibited 

 in the New England madhouses, as being too exciting. 



From Boston we went to Ipswich, in Massachusetts, to visit 

 Mr. Oakes, the botanist, with whom we had spent many pleasant 

 days in the White Mountains.* lie set out with us on an ex 

 cursion to Wenham Lake, from which so much ice is annually 

 exported 1o England and other parts of the world. 



This lake lies about twenty miles to the northeast of Boston. 

 It has a small island in the middle of it, is about a mile long and 

 lorl y feet deep, arid is surrounded by hills of sand and gravel, from 

 forty to a hundred feel high. The water is always clear and pure, 

 and the bottom covered with white quartzose sand. It is fed by 

 springs, and receives no mud from any stream flowing into it ; 

 but at the lower extremity a small brook of transparent water 

 Hows out. In some parts, however, there must, I presume, be a 

 soft and muddy bottom, as it is inhabited by eels, as well as by 

 * See vol. i. p. 64. 



