In the timber, the trees were festooned with bitter-sweet and with vines bearing wild grapes; in the open country, nothing but unmeasured stretches of waving grass caught the eye.[21] To one born and bred among the hills, this broad horizon and unbroken landscape must have been a revelation.  Weak as he was, Douglass drew in the fresh autumnal air with zest, and unconsciously borrowed from the face of nature a sense of unbounded capacity.  Years afterward, when he was famous, he testified, “I found my mind liberalized and my opinions enlarged, when I got on these broad prairies, with only the heavens to bound my vision, instead of having them circumscribed by the little ridges that surrounded the valley where I was born."[22] But of all this he was unconscious, when he alighted from the stage in Jacksonville.  He was simply a wayworn lad, without a friend in the town and with only one dollar and twenty-five cents in his pocket.[23]

Jacksonville was then hardly more than a crowded village of log cabins on the outposts of civilized Illinois.[24] Comfort was not among the first concerns of those who had come to subdue the wilderness.  Comfort implied leisure to enjoy, and leisure was like Heaven,—­to be attained only after a wearisome earthly pilgrimage.  Jacksonville had been scourged by the cholera during the summer; and those who had escaped the disease had fled the town for fear of it.[25] By this time, however, the epidemic had spent itself, and the refugees had returned.  All told, the town had a population of about one thousand souls, among whom were no less than eleven lawyers, or at least those who called themselves such.[26]

A day’s lodging at the Tavern ate up the remainder of the wanderer’s funds, so that he was forced to sell a few school books that he had brought with him.  Meanwhile he left no stone unturned to find employment to his liking.  One of his first acquaintances was Murray McConnell, a lawyer, who advised him to go to Pekin, farther up the Illinois River, and open a law office.  The young man replied that he had no license to practice law and no law books.  He was assured that a license was a matter of no consequence, since anyone could practice before a justice of the peace, and he could procure one at his leisure.  As for books, McConnell, with true Western generosity, offered to loan such as would be of immediate use.  So again Douglass took up his travels.  At Meredosia, the nearest landing on the river, he waited a week for the boat upstream.  There was no other available route to Pekin.  Then came the exasperating intelligence, that the only boat which plied between these points had blown up at Alton.  After settling accounts with the tavern-keeper, he found that he had but fifty cents left.[27]

There was now but one thing to do, since hard manual labor was out of the question:  he would teach school.  But where?  Meredosia was a forlorn, thriftless place, and he had no money to travel.  Fortunately, a kind-hearted farmer befriended him, lodging him at his house over night and taking him next morning to Exeter, where there was a prospect of securing a school.  Disappointment again awaited him; but Winchester, ten miles away, was said to need a teacher.  Taking his coat on his arm—­he had left his trunk at Meredosia—­he set off on foot for Winchester.[28]