was used by the Indians from the earliest known date as a burial-place or cemetery. This ancient and sacred monument bore the name of Tawasentha, a name which they afterward uniformly applied to the stream.

ALBANY.

THE earliest Indian name applied to the site of this city is a question not satisfactorily settled. The Mohawks occupied the island, as a summer-camp, and raised corn there. A portage-path led from the Mohawk river, through a dry sandy plain to the Hudson river at this point. This foot-path passed through a pine forest, and was called Skenekteda - a term meaning a path through the pine forest. But when its eastern terminus on the Hudson river was meant, the penultimate syllable was changed to ea, denoting a river, with all its drift-materials, or valley: a sense which it has in the name of Cahoatatea. In the Mohawk language, ske carries the prepositional sense of through; nek is the name of a pine-tree; so that the name appears to describe the river or valley through or beyond the pine-trees. If the speaker stood on the Hudson, looking west, the name was almost equally applicable to the Mohawk river; and this change in the location of the word was actually made when the site of the eastern terminus was named by executive or legislative direction, in honor of the Duke of Albany.

A CHIPPEWA hunter with his dog had passed over a wide extent of country and found nothing. On ascending an eminence, being tired, he sat down on a small rock to rest. His dog had not even scented the track of an animal. 'Master,' said the dog to him, 'we have hunted these many days without finding any thing to eat. We are both tired and hungry. I have observed that white men keep animals in inclosures, and when they are hungry, kill a sheep, a hog, or a cow, without the fatigue of hunting them.'

'True,' replied the hunter, 'but the white man is a slave to his animals; he must raise food and build shelters for them during the winter, while we have only our traps to set or draw our bows, and we live an independent life.'

'We certainly are independent!' said the dog, while every rib in his body could be counted, and his master was equally famished; 'but methinks we pay for our freedom very dearly, in hunger and misery. To me it seems that you, my master, prefer liberty with want, to plenty with labor.'

MYEENGAN AND ANIMOOS; OR, THE WOLF AND THE DOG.

A HUNGRY Wolf met a dog one day in the woods, and said to him: 'How well you look! you seem to have had something to eat every day, while I am famished.' 'Fidelity,' answered the dog, 'is the cause of my being well fed; my master gives me something to eat almost every day, and when he does not, I know that he suffers the want of food as well as myself; and, therefore, I am not displeased.' 'I,' said the wolf, 'live a starving life. I am obliged to live by my wits, and a wretched life I have of it. The deer is too nimblefooted for me to catch him alone, and I seldom have friends enough to hunt in

packs, so that we may divide our party and waylay him. I should like to live the regular life you lead.' 'Come along,' said the dog wagging his tail, ‘and I will teach you how we live.' So they ran along together, and just at night-fall reached the dog's kennel. The wolf behaved very quietly and submissively. But being a rascal in his heart, he purposed to deceive. Before they reached the kennel he observed a flock of sheep going down to an inclosure. Affecting to assimilate with dog life, he laid down crouchingly in the kennel till midnight. Then getting up softly, he went to the inclosure of the sheep, and seizing one of the lambs by the neck, threw it over his shoulder, and ran off to the woods.

THE CRANE AND BEAVER.: AN ALLEGORY OF CIVILIZATION,

A CRANE one day took his bow and arrows, and went out to hunt. After walking a long time in the forest, and finding nothing to kill, he at last came into a valley, where he sat down to rest; not far from a beaver-pond. Taking his pipe from his smoking-pouch, he indulged himself in meditation, while the light fumes rose gracefully up to the clouds. An old beaver observing this from his position in the pond, walked out on the shore, and said to him: 'Nosa, you live a very easy life, while I am obliged to labor very hard to keep from starving.' 'True,' replied the crane, 'but remember that your ancestors always thought themselves wiser than the cranes, because they could gnaw down trees, and build houses and dams, where they could collect the trunks and limbs of trees, and live by eating the bark, while we were compelled to pick up a living hither and yon in the streams and marshes. The beaver king, when he came from the court of Manobosho, told his people that they should live in a fixed place, and dam up the streams to collect food. But you wear out your teeth and exhaust your strength in this regular labor, and are just as liable as we are to be tracked by the hunter, and shot by the arrows of Pauguk.' 'If I,' replied the beaver, 'spend much time and labor to get food and shelter for my family, there is a solid enjoyment in this; while the cranes are as proud as my ancestors were, and although living a little higher in the air, and flying up the valleys, scream with delight on finding a poor craw-fish, frog, or minnow along the shore, and then fly away to starve in their retreats, occasionally fluttering their crown feathers, or flapping their wings in the spirit of pride.'

THE BLUE JAY AND WOODPECKER; AN ALLEGORY.

A WOODPECKER said one day to a blue jay, 'How do you get such a reputation? I should like to learn your art, for with every endeavor I find it hard to get a name, or to make a good living.' 'Ha, ha!' cried the blue jay, 'it is by making a noise with my voice that I prevail; people suppose that where there is such a verbal strain and torrent of sounds, there must be some sense. I always light on the topmost boughs; never sit long in a place; scream as loud as I can, and by continually flitting about, and showing my feathers, produce the idea that I am very wise, as well as a very active and valuable bird. While you always light on dry trees, where there is nothing to shade you, and toil with a sort of mechanical industry, making sounds that are not only

monotonous but not at all musical. The truth is,' continued the jay, 'I am a talker, a blusterer, a stormer; my father and mother were talkers, blusterers, and stormers. I take the ear of people, not like you with a peck, peck, peck! but by a flourish of sounds.' Heigho!' answered the woodpecker, 'I should never get a living by such a life. I am, as you see by the red paint on my head, a warrior; and the animals I hunt are so deeply down in the trunks of old trees that I am obliged to plunge in my war-like bill after them, and my daily pecking is my war-whoop.'

ANCHISES

TO APHRODITE.

COME, O my princess! lay thy cheek to mine,
Thine full and fair;

Unbind thy tresses; let them intertwine

With my dark, dew-damp hair.

Coiled up like serpents in their golden gloss,
Spring them upon my head from out their circled boss.

Thine arm lies o'er me like an angel's wing,

Whiter than snow.

My heart's wild strength holds thy heart fluttering,
And will not let it go.

My lips to thine, thy lips to mine are pressed,
As if in love's sweet labor only there were rest.

I drink thy breath—better than Lydian wine:
Through all my soul

I feel its influence, gentle yet divine,

And own its sweet control. ·

Thine eyes, like violets, draw their dews from heaven,
And glisten with the light of love received and given.

Oh! could'st thou always lie as thou dost now,
In one long dream,

With all thy midnight beauty round thy brow,
And this soft-coming gleam

Of light supernal lingering on thy bloom,

I'd cling to thee for aye, and cheat the famished tomb.

TO PIKE'S PEAK AND DENVER.

BY THOMAS W. KNOX.

READER, were you ever at Pike's Peak? If you have visited that auriferous and Indian-iferous region, where whiskey and white men, sure evidences of civilization, have but recently been introduced, you may read these pages to learn how the author's experience compares with your own. If you have unwisely staid at home when 'out west' is a land covered knee-deep with huge 'nuggets,' you may now, without leaving your sofa or easy-chair, journey with me seven hundred miles over the 'sea of grass and sand' between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains, to the Central Dorado of our continent. Packing up a few rough garments, among which woollen shirts form the most important item, we bid adieu to Lucy and the children, and betake ourselves to one of the several out-fitting points on the Missouri river. Omaha, St. Joseph, Atchison, Leavenworth and Kansas City, will each be represented by interested property-holders, as better than all the others combined. As St. Joseph is at present the terminus of the farthest and most direct western railroad, (the Hannibal and St. Joseph,) and can furnish every thing needed on a Pike Peak's trip, it has a slight advantage over its rivals. The question now is, not the common-place one, 'How do you do?' but 'How do you go?' As we would cross the plains in the shortest possible time, we book ourselves at the office of the 'Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company,' where we find the affable and genial Jo Roberson, ready to give any desired information. The coaches of this line make tri-weekly trips to and from Denver, and accomplish the distance in a little less than six days. They travel day and night, stopping for about an hour at each of the thirtytwo 'stations,' where the teams are changed, and the passengers furnished with 'wittles.' Novices generally dread the fatigue of this journey, and are solicitous about the sleeping question; but after a day out, nature asserts herself, and one finds his sleep as sound, sweet and refreshing, when sitting bolt upright in a rapidly-moving vehicle, as when wrapped in the drapery of his couch, and reclining on the softest of downy pillows. Commend me to the 'Central Overland' whenever I cross the plains.

Another mode of travel is with a stout but light carriage, or ambulance, drawn by mules - these animals being far better than horses for service on the plains. If this mode is selected, you will camp out at night, and be obliged to keep careful watch over your animals, to prevent gentlemen with confused ideas of meum and tuum appropriating them to their own use and behoof. Many an emigrant, by neglecting this precaution, has waked in the morning and found his wagon minus motive-power, and himself feeling as much akin to an ass as any of the four-footed beasts of which he had been deprived. The pleasures of sleeping on the ground, with a blanket for a covering, will here be yours. After a day's travel you will find the bosom of Mother Earth a wel

come resting-place, and will fall asleep before you can count a hundred stars. In the morning, shake well your blanket before folding it, for the plains and Pike's Peak, like poverty, acquaint one with strange bed-fellows. On several occasions descendants of the celebrity that beguiled Mother Eve have shared my couch, and been with me in my slumbers. Wolves will come quite near — near enough to steal the boots of a sound sleeper-but they will offer no indignity to his person. As these animals have confused notions of the Eighth Commandment, it is well to secure all eatables before retiring for the night. If you do not, farewell to that ten-pound ham you threw under the wagon, and supposed would be 'all right' in the morning. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight,' and you now prize cold bacon better than ten hours ago.

In crossing the plains in this manner, you will be initiated into the mysteries of the cuisine-making bread, frying bacon and griddle-cakes, decocting tea and coffee, and washing the dishes. Sometimes you will find yourself destitute of water, an article generally considered indispensable in performing the last-mentioned operation. Never mind-plates can be washed (excuse the term) with a handful of dirt, and two or three wisps of grass, so clean that they can be used for mirrors; knives and forks by thrusting them into the ground a few times, and wiping them on the grass. What house-wife would have dreamed of such a cleansing process?

I have not done with the various styles of travel in the free-and-easy. west. There is the slow but sure method, where you pay a stipulated sum for the privilege of walking all the way behind an ox-wagon, boarding at and lodging under the aforesaid vehicle. The passenger has as good a bed as his blanket will make; and a leisurely, and, if not varied by an occasional fight, a somewhat monotonous trip of from forty to fifty-five days.

Then there is the mode independent; where you take your outfit in a hand-cart, or on your back, and trudge along at your own pace. You have an advantage over the express, for that is required to make time,' and you are not. You are better off than those who travel by ambulance, for their mules may be stolen while you can lie down at night, soliloquizing as did the ancient darkey Blessed am dem what haint got noffin, for dey shan't lose it.' You can look with scorn upon the ox-teams, for they must camp and 'noon' where there are grass and water, while you can snap your fingers at such necessities, and stop when and where you like.

Having completed our preparations, we leave St. Joseph, called 'St. Jo,' by the Westerners; and, like the Star of Empire, take our way westward. For a few miles we find the road rough and hilly, after which we strike the open prairie. It is of the kind known in the west as 'rolling,' differing from the almost dead level of Illinois, and a few other States, in having a succession of ridges from a quarter to half-a-mile apart. Bryant's lines are admirably descriptive of the view before us :

'PRAIRIES, gardens of the desert!

Lo! they stretch in airy undulations far away,
As if the ocean in his gentlest swell

Stood still, with all his rounded billows
Fixed and motionless forever.'