Though diverse, in position and form, they all have an uniform character. They are, for the most part, in rich soils, and in conspicuous situations. Those on the Ohio are covered with very large trees. But, in the prairie regions, where I have seen the greatest numbers, they are covered with tall grass, and generally near benches,-which indicate the former courses of the rivers, in the finest situations for present culture; and the greatest population clearly has been in those very positions, where the most dense future population will be. * * no mo The English, when they sneer at our country, speak of it as steril in moral interest. "It has," say they, (6 numents, no ruins, none of the massive remains of former ages; no castles, no mouldering abbeys, no baronial towers and dungeons; nothing to connect the imagination and the heart with the past; no recollections of former ages, to associate the past with the future." But I have been attempting sketches of the largest and most fertile valley in the world, larger, in fact, than half of Europe, all its remotest points being brought into proximity by a stream, which runs the length of that continent, and to which all but two or three of the rivers of Europe are but rivulets. Its forests make a respectable figure, even placed beside Blenheim park. We have lakes which could find a place for the Cumberland lakes in the hollow of one of their islands. We have prairies, which have struck me as among the sublimest prospects in nature. There we see the sun rising over a boundless plain, where the blue of the heavens, in all directions, touches and mingles with the verdure of the flowers. It is, to me, a view far more glorious than that on which the sun rises over a barren and angry waste of sea. The one is soft, cheerful, associated with life, and requires an easier effort of the imagination to travel beyond the eye. The other is grand, but dreary, desolate, and always ready to destroy. In the most pleasing positions of these prairies, we have our Indian mounds, which proudly rise above the plain. At first the eye mistakes them for hills; but, when it catches the regularity of their breast-works and ditches, it discovers, at once, that they are the labours of art and of men. When the evidence of the senses convinces us that human bones moulder in these masses; when you dig about them, and bring to light their domestic útensils; and are compelled to believe, that the busy tide of life once flowed here; when you see, at once, that these races were of a very different character from the present generation,-you begin to inquire if any tradition, if any, the faintest, records can throw any light upon these habitations of men of another age. Is there no scope, beside these mounds, for imagination, and for contemplation of the past? The men, their joys, their sorrows, their bones, are all buried together. But the grand features of nature remain. There is the beautiful prairie, over which they "strutted through life's poor play." The forests, the hills, the mounds, lift their heads in unalterable repose, and furnish the same sources of contemplation to us, that they did to those generations that have passed away. It is true, we have little reason to suppose, that they were the guilty dens of petty tyrants, who let loose their half savage vassals to burn, plunder, enslave, and despoil an adjoining den. There are no remains of the vast and useless monasteries, where ignorant and lazy monks dreamed over their lusts, or meditated their vile plans of acquisition and imposture. Here must have been a race of men, on these charming plains, that had every call from the scenes that surrounded them, to contented existence and tranquil meditation. Unfortunate, as men view the thing, they must have been. Innocent and peaceful they probably were; for, had they been reared amidst wars and quarrels, like the present Indians, they would, doubtless, have maintained their ground, and their posterity would have remained to this day. Beside them moulder the huge bones of their contemporary beasts, which must have been of thrice the size of the elephant. I cannot judge of the recollections excited by castles and towers that I have not seen. But I have seen all of grandeur, which our cities can display. I have seen, too, these lonely tombs of the desert,-seen them rise from these boundless and unpeopled plains. My imagination and my heart have been full of the past. The nothingness of the brief dream of human life has forced itself upon my mind. The unknown race, to which these bones belonged, had, I doubt not, as many projects of ambition, and hoped, as sanguinely, to have their names survive, as the great ones of the present day LESSON XXI. On the Barrows, or Monumental Mounds, in the prairies of the Western Rivers.-M. FLINT. THE sun's last rays were fading from the west, Now, one by one, emerging to the sight, The brighter stars assumed their seats on high; I lingered, by some soft enchantment bound, I saw the lesser mounds which round me rose; Ye mouldering relics of departed years, Your names have perished; not a trace remains, * Or did those fairy hopes of future bliss, Which simple nature to your bosoms gave, Find other worlds with fairer skies, than this, In whose bright climes the virtuous* and the brave Where the great hunter still pursues the chase, And, o'er the sunny mountains, tracks the deer; Or, it may be, that still ye linger near The sleeping ashes, once your dearest pride; If so, forgive the rude, unhallowed feet Which trod so thoughtless o'er your mighty dead. Age after age, still sunk in slumbers sweet. Farewell! and may you still, in peace, repose; LESSON XXII. The American Indian, as he was, and as he is.-C. SPRAGUE. NoT many generations ago, where you now sit, circled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole * Pron. ver'-tshu-ous. Now unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your heads, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer: gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, the council-fire glared on the wise and daring. they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe* along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song, all were here; and, when the tiger strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. Here, too, they worshipped; and from many a dark bosom went up a pure prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in every thing around. He beheld him in the star that sunk in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his mid-day throne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine, that defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid warbler, that never left its native grove; in the fearless eagle, whose untired pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his foot; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light, to whose mysterious Source he bent, in humble, though blind adoration. And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great continent, and blotted, forever, from its face a whole peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nature, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. Here and there, a stricken few remain; but how unlike their bold, untamed, untameable progenitors! The Indian, of falcon glance, and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone! and his degraded offspring crawl upon the soil where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man, when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck. |