This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
Domingo Sarmiento, the Argentine exile traveling down the Mississippi River by steamboat in 1847, had been impressed by all that he had seen—America's cities and its small towns, the industry of American people, and the varied landscape, but he longed to visit a grand American place of worship in order to complete his understanding of Americans.
His wish was about to be granted. Sixty miles upriver from New Orleans, he could already see in the distance a cupola that reminded him of the dome of St. Peter's in Rome. A fellow passenger told him the dome was St. Charles. "At last," he wrote, "I was to see in the United States a basilica of classical architecture and dimensions worthy of the Christian cult."
Sarmiento was even more impressed when a coach-and-four, complete with uniformed lackeys, met him at the levee to transport him to St. Charles.
Close up, the edifice exceeded his every expectation. It would be the envy of many European princes, he thought, and concluded that no civil or religious monument in the United States, except the Capitol at Washington, surpassed St. Charles in dimension or in taste.
Sarmiento noted the white marble foundation rising to form a base for twelve fluted columns supporting a grand pediment. On both sides of the façade rose four tiers of windows between the basement and the architrave. Under the portico, a mammoth statue of Washington guarded the entrance to a spacious rotunda paved with marble underneath the great cupola.
Alas, the St. Charles, even though it outdid St. Peter's and anything Argentina could offer, was not a basilica, but the hotel at which Sarmiento was to stay while in New Orleans. That did not prevent one of Sarmiento's aristocratic fellow travelers from a religious moment. Walking together down the street-like corridor leading to a hundred rooms, Sarmiento's companion declared " I have been converted through the intercession of St. Charles. I now believe in the Republic. I believe in democracy. I believe in everything."
Domingo Sarmiento was more than satisfied, too. He now understood that in America, traveling was a religious activity.
Rock Island Lines is supported by grants from the Illinois Humanities Council, the Illinois Arts Council—a state agency—and by Augustana College, Rock Island.
