Traditions of the North American Indians Volume III Part 10

At this precise point, there gushes forth, from beneath a huge and precipitous rock, a large spring of pure and clear water, cool and refreshing as the dark forest through which it glides, and which, after a sinuous course along the centre of the dell, receiving as it flows the contributions of numerous lesser springs and streams, communicates its waters to the foaming current of the Oswego. Whether this singular but beautiful region now presents the form in which it was first fashioned by the Master of Life, or has since received the shape and appearance it bears from the disruption of some mighty ma.s.s of waters, from frightful earthquakes, or some other great convulsion of nature--neither I nor my red brothers can say. Yet does it appear plain that no convulsive heavings of an earthquake could have left its outline or its surface so smooth or regular. No bursting of waters from the top of a mountain (a mountain too, having no capacious bosom for its reception) could have borne away such an immense body of earth as must have been scooped out from between the high and wide-spreading hills.

But, if this region was singular in its formation, it was not less so in the character and manners of the tribe by which it was peopled.

They claimed direct descent from the Great Spirit--the Creator of the world. Regarding themselves as his offspring, they deemed themselves the especial objects of his fatherly care. Deeply possessed with a sense of this superhuman relation, it will not be matter of surprise to my brothers that they should refer to it all the more important events of their lives, and that it should impart its influence even to the minuter circ.u.mstances of their daily intercourse both with strangers and with each other. From their belief of their relationship to the Good Spirit, they were a good people. Hence they were, according to their crude notions of religion, strictly a religious people; and, although they worshipped the supposed founder of their race, rather with the qualified adoration that one pays to a good father watching over, and guiding from his dwelling among the stars, the destinies of his earthly children; and, although they were insensible to the deep and humble devotion, and piety, which belong to the worshippers of the same Being in the land of the pale-faces; yet was their superst.i.tion free from much of the grossness in which the idolatry of the people of the wilderness is usually buried. Their idols and images were indeed numerous and of rude workmanship, but, like the images before whom kneel no small portion of the people of the land which was mine, they were professed to be worshipped only as the visible representations of invisible spirits. Human sacrifices were not known among them--for they rightly held that the Great Spirit was a kind and affectionate _Father_, and could not delight in the shedding of the blood of his children, or seeing them sacrificed on his peaceful altars. They had numerous fasts and feasts, but they were accompanied by no cruel rites. Those who presided over the religious ceremonies and observances of this simple people, united, as is usual among most, if not all unenlightened nations, the character and office of priest and prophet--of expounders of visions and dreams--and had the ordering of fasts in the acceptable manner, and at the proper time. They were few in number, and universally revered, beloved, and feared. Their influence and authority were felt in every cabin in the nation. No restraint being imposed upon them, as it is upon the priests in the City of the Rock, they had no inclination to impose any unnatural restraint upon others. a.s.sailed by no external temptations to indulgence themselves, their prohibitions were limited to the very few gratifications that are inconsistent with the habits of Indian life. Avarice was a pa.s.sion of which neither they nor their tribe had, as yet, felt the influence. All things were in common; and individual appropriation of property was unknown. The "strong waters" of the white man, the fire which hath eaten into the bowels of the race of the red man, had not yet diffused their poison, and drunkenness was a vice of which these people did not understand the meaning. A moral influence over the minds of their tribe was the only distinction to which the priests of Onondaga had aspired. This influence they sought to attain, not by inflicting penance upon the people, but by pretending to immediate intercourse and communication with the Great Spirit. Reverencing that Spirit, these good sons of the forest could not forbear to respect the channels through which his wise and benevolent communications were made.

Not only did these priests of the Manitou direct the devotions of the people, and convey to them the responses of the same mighty Being in times of peril, but won their love and confidence by professing to heal their maladies. Identified with them in their ordinary pursuits, they were, on common occasions, distinguished from them in exterior decoration only by a bone which they wore on the left arm, like a bracelet, just above the wrist, and by the method of arranging their hair. On their bracelets were carved, in rude outline, the representations of certain beasts; and on that of the eldest of the prophets were other cabalistic inscriptions, of which none but the wearers themselves could penetrate the meaning. Their hair, instead of hanging loosely over their foreheads and shoulders, as was usual with their tribe, in common with the other red men of the forest, was collected into a roll at the top of the head, and tied round with a string of red wampum, its extremities being suffered to fall on either side, as nature or accident might dispose it. When they would intercede with the Great Spirit, or know his will by divination, they a.s.sumed other dresses; the skins of bears or buffaloes, or mantles curiously woven of feathers. They usually dwelt together on a sort of consecrated ground, set apart for their special accommodation, and which was as unlike the rest of the valley, as the valley itself was unlike the ordinary conformation of the earth. The allotted ground, or s.p.a.ce set apart for their use, was called _The Prophets' Plain_, and was situated on a projecting declivity of the western side of this beautiful glen, whose banks, although they presented, as they opened and widened to the north, a regular outline, were, nevertheless, varied in their actual surface by occasional deviations and sinuosities, arising as well from the unexplainable curvatures of its original structure, as from the narrow, deep ravines, that had been worn by the autumn floods and perennial streamlets from the adjacent hills. In like manner the surface of the bed of the valley was subject to frequent inequalities, produced, perhaps, by the nature of the soil on which it rested. It was formed of a soft stone and a hard stone.

Where the latter prevailed, the surface was usually more elevated and undulating than where the former was found; and of that description was the spot appropriated to the prophets of Onondaga. It was situated about half a day's journey up the valley from the lake, and was sufficiently elevated above the circ.u.mjacent level to command a view of the broad bosom of the Ontario over the tops of the forest. Along its outer extremity glided the beautiful stream of the glen. Upon one side of the plain, where it was united to the hills, were the cabins of the prophets.

The whole range of the valley, including its bed, and steep lofty sides, was overspread with a dark and umbrageous forest. With this circ.u.mstance, the few scattered patches appropriated to the cultivation of maize, and "the openings," as they are denominated in the western world, present a problem of no very easy solution. They are unique in the vegetable kingdom, being midway between the nakedness of a prairie and the thick gloom of a wilderness. The few scattered trees that grow upon them are uniformly oak. They are separated from each other at unequal distances, but are rarely less than sixty yards apart. They do not shoot up to a lofty height, and dest.i.tute of branches like the tenants of the thick woods, but bow their heads, and spread their arms, as if conscious of their dependence upon the precarious charity of a long-cultivated country.

Beneath them grows a coa.r.s.e thin gra.s.s; but they are never enc.u.mbered with the shrubs and underwood that usually form very serious obstacles in the way of the forest traveller. The Prophets' Plain was the only exception. Along the junction of the plain with the western hill, its margin was thickly set with stunted pines, hemlocks, cedars, and, beneath, tangled briars. No one ventured to penetrate these sacred recesses, for there were extended, near the inner border, the few scattered wigwams of the prophets. Such was the character and description of the plain where the religious ceremonies of the Onondagas were performed, and where their council fires were lighted.

In the interval of eighteen seasons, that had rolled away since the erection of the fortress at Oswego, the character of the red men of the valley had undergone a great and disastrous change.

From the most peaceable, inoffensive, and happy, of all the sons of the forest, they had become the most dissolute, quarrelsome, and drunken. They were constantly seen about the villages of the whites begging, bartering every thing they possessed, and performing every drudgery, however servile or degrading, for the strong waters of the pale-face. The free and lofty spirit that once animated the nation was gone; a spirit which, though it had not been often aroused to action, was yet susceptible of the highest efforts of Indian heroism. Their encounters with the neighbouring tribes had not been frequent, yet, when they did take place, the Onondagas had displayed a spirit of intrepid daring, of craft, of patience, and of hardihood in suffering, that had seldom been surpa.s.sed among the nations of the forest. But now the spirit of the tribe was broken, and they were no longer numbered among the fierce resenters of wrong. The Oneidas trespa.s.sed upon their hunting-grounds and slaughtered their people, yet their warriors were too debased and abject to avenge the insult, or wipe away the memory of their wrongs with blood. They were, evidently, hastening to ruin. Their numbers were rapidly diminishing, as well from the usual effects of intoxication as from the exposures and accidents to which they were subjected from its influence; and, more than all, from the constant quarrels and murders which daily took place among them. In a few more years, if the course they then pursued had been continued, the whole tribe must have become utterly extinct; their name existing but in the recollection of the story-teller, and the green turf alone marking the lands they once inhabited. It fortunately happened, however, at the period alluded to, that the prophets, together with a few of the elder chiefs, who had stood aloof from the contaminating influence of the white men, were enabled to arouse the almost extinguished energy of the people, so far as to a.s.semble them round a council-fire, that was lighted at early dawn one frosty morning, in the Moon of Falling Leaves, on the Prophets' Plain.

The whole tribe was called together. A solemn gravity, even beyond the ordinary measure of Indian deliberation, sat upon the countenance of each chief and prophet, indicating that matters of high importance were impending. These sat in a circle around the great fire, their eyes cast upon the earth, and all silent as a grove of oaks in a calm morning. Without the circle of chiefs and prophets stood promiscuously grouped the remainder of the tribe--men, women, and children--all discovering more than common anxiety to learn the reason of the extraordinary call.

But let me not antic.i.p.ate the circ.u.mstances that attended, nor the events that followed, the _Warning_ of Tekarrah[A], as recited by Wonnehush, chief of the Onondagas.

[Footnote A: Tekarrah, i.e. [Greek: angelos], messenger, of the Great Spirit.]

From a remote corner of the camp, this aged man intimated an intention to speak. A deep silence pervaded the whole crowd, and every eye was fixed upon him. After a short pause, he slowly rose, and cast an anxious eye around the room in which the fire was lighted. But his eye, although it retained proof of its former power and l.u.s.tre, had now become dim with age. His furrowed brow, his whitened locks, and bended form, once as straight as the arrow that sped from his youthful bow, evinced the ravages which time had made on his n.o.ble form. Yet his voice was still strong and clear. At length, adjusting the folds of his blanket, he stretched forth his withered arm, and, with the dignity of one from the Land of Souls, and with all the eloquence of his race, thus addressed the wandering inmates of the camp:--

Brothers, shall Wonnehush tell you a lie? No! Let the white man, whose heart is the heart of a fawn, and whose ways are the ways of the serpent, let him speak with a forked tongue. It is for him that lives in great towns, and buys his bread by selling strong waters, to poison the red men--it is for him to deal in lies. The red man hunts the buffalo, and traps the beaver in the woods that were given him by the Great Spirit. He crosses the big mountain, and enters the deep valleys beyond it, and no man dares to stop his path. He has a great heart, and scorns to tell a lie. Hear, then, the words of Wonnehush!

Brothers, I am an oak of the forest. The snows of a hundred winters have fallen on my branches. Once the tree was covered with green leaves, but they have dropped at my side, and the sap, which once made the tree strong and flourishing, has left the trunk, and the moisture has decayed from my roots.

Brothers, I am an aged, a very aged man. I can no longer bend the bow of my youth, and my tomahawk falls short of its death-mark. But my ears have been open, and my tongue can repeat to you the traditions of the valley. Listen to the chief of Onondaga, and believe the words he will tell you, for he never spoke other than the truth. He never in youth had a forked tongue, or a faint heart, and why should he bear them now?

Brothers, the flowers of the prairie have blossomed and faded, and the leaves of the forest budded and withered, more than fifty times since the canoes of the white men entered the mouth of the Rapid River. My tribe was then spread from the lake to the mountain, and the smoke of their cabins curled over the tops of the hemlocks, from Skeneateles to Oneida. The Great Spirit was their kind father. He looked into their wigwams, and saw they were happy. They hunted the fat bear, the stately moose, and the delicious deer, through wide forests, and speared the juicy fish of many waters. Their hearts were very stout, and their arms were very long. In war, who were so brave as the Onondagas?--The scalps of their enemies were strung as thick upon their belt-girdles as the stars in the path of the Master of Life.

Their wives were good and affectionate, their sons strong and brave, and their daughters sweet-tempered and beautiful. They were happy, for they were virtuous, and favoured by the Great Spirit, for they did all they could to deserve his love.

Brothers, the white man came over the Great Lake, and settled down upon all the best spots of the land, as the wild-duck lights upon the lake which contains his favourite food. Soon his brothers joined him, and, to protect their coward hearts from the red men, they built a fort at Oswego. To that vile spot they enticed our young men, and our women, to bring them the spoils of the water and the land--the fish, venison, and skins--and gave them wampum and the fire-eater in exchange. When they had swallowed the strong waters of the pale-faces, they became as beasts, and fell about the earth like trees shivered by lightnings, or prostrated by the tempest. When they arose from the earth, it was to quarrel with each other. The ground was wet, and the waters red, with the blood of Onandagas slain by the hands of their brothers. They sought the deer, and the bear, and the moose, and the wolf, no more, or, if they sought, their hands were so enfeebled by the strong waters that the quest was fruitless, and the maize which was planted was suffered to be choked with weeds. Instead of the n.o.ble pastimes of war and the chace, they loitered around the cabins of the white men; and, instead of the tongue which had been given them by their father, the Great Spirit, and with which they had spoken for many, many ages, they learned the tongue of the stranger. The words and wise sayings of the prophets had no longer a charm for them, and the traditions which once flowed from their lips to patient, and pleased, and attentive, hearers, were neglected for the lying tales of the stranger. The knees of the once swift runner shook like a reed in the wind. The heart of the once fearless warrior had become softer than woman's. The blood of his enemies no more reddened his tomahawk; his shout of onset was heard no more among the hills of the Iroquois.

He became a prey to the cunning hatred of the strangers, whose anger was kindled against him because he was the son of the Great Spirit.

And they mixed the poisonous juices of herbs with the strong waters they gave him, that his death might be sure. Is it strange that our people have disappeared from the plain, as the dew in the morning or the snows of the Planting-Moon before the beams of the noontide sun?

Brothers, more than thirty years have pa.s.sed since a council-fire was kindled on the Prophets' Plain, in the Moon of Early Frost. It was a great fire, for there were a.s.sembled all the people of the valley. In the middle of the a.s.sembly stood the priests, next the chiefs and warriors of Wonnehush, and without them the aged men and women, and the children, and the wives of the warriors. Then the priests began the dance and the howl, wherewith they commence their invocations to the Great Spirit. Suddenly there appeared in the midst of the people a stranger who was a head taller than the tallest man of the nation. His form was n.o.ble and majestic beyond any thing ever seen by our people.

His eye had the brightness of the sunbeam, and his manner was graceful as the waving of a field of corn. Upon the border of his mantle were strange figures; and his belt of wampum glittered like the girdle of the heavens. He was one upon whom no Onondaga eye had ever before looked--a stranger in the valley--perhaps a warrior sent hither by one of the fierce tribes of the land to insult, by some reproach, for their effeminacy and weakness, the terror and sin-stricken Onondagas.

At length he rose to speak, and every sound was hushed, not only in the Indian camp, but in surrounding nature. Not a bird chirped; not a leaf was heard to rustle among the trees of the plain; the beasts of the forests were still; the busy bee desisted from its hum; even the winds were hushed and silent while the stranger delivered his solemn warning.

"I am," said he, "Tekarrah, the messenger of the Great Spirit.

Onondagas, listen to my words! I am come from your father, that same Spirit, to speak the words of truth in your ears, and to tell you that he is exceedingly angry with you. You have exchanged your broad and rich lands for useless toys; you have taken the maize and the meat from the mouths of your starving children, to purchase from the strangers the strong waters which have made your warriors as timid as the deer you once hunted through the forests. You have thrown away the tongue which was given you by your Great Father, and have taken that of your destroyers. You have forgotten the deeds of your fathers, which made them feared and honoured from the Falls of the Mohawk to Lake Huron. The Great Spirit has spoken to you in his thunders, and by the mouth of his priests, but you have heard neither; and, though his blessings were showered thick upon you, you have been like adders, and stung the hand which dispensed them.

"Onondagas! hear the warning words of the Great Spirit. If you will return to your cabins, and forget the things that were taught you, and unlearn the tongue of the white man, to use again the language of your fathers--if, instead of the rifle, you will shoot with the bow, and cause the arrow to whistle instead of the bullet--if you will cease to give the spoils of the chace and the produce of your fields for beads and strong waters--if you will chase the Oneidas from your hunting-grounds, and again occupy them yourselves--then will the Great Spirit forgive you, and once more take you to his bosom. But, if you will not hearken to his voice, nor to the voice of his prophets, listen to the words of vengeance.

"Before twelve moons shall have faded from the skies, your tribe shall have pa.s.sed away. Not an Onondaga shall be left to tell the proud story of the glory of his nation. The cabin of the pale-face shall be built on the burial spot of your fathers, and his herds and flocks shall feed on the consecrated ground of the priests. The white man shall say to his children--'Here once lived a people called the Onondagas. They once were the bravest of all the tribes of the land, but they became the most feeble and cowardly. It was the cunning of whites which wrought their ruin. We gave them strong waters--they tasted the poison--they loved it--and lo! we dwell upon their ashes.'"

Brothers, a sudden blast of wind shook the branches of the trees, a black cloud overspread the plain, and, although every eye seemed fixed upon the place where Tekarrah had stood, yet he was gone. He had come and vanished like one of those fiery b.a.l.l.s that we see on a summer's evening, travelling in the misty valleys.

Brothers, we returned to our cabins, and pondered upon his words. They sunk deep into our hearts, and our tribe profited by the warning. We forsook all trade with the white men, and forgot their tongue. We threw away the rifle which was heard no more in our woods, and made the bow and arrow, and the tomahawk, and the war-club, again our weapons. Again we were clothed with the skins of the animals we slew in the chace, and the meat we killed in the woods was applied as it should be, to feed our young ones. The snows of more than thirty winters have whitened our valley, since we have abstained from the strong waters of the pale-faces. Our nation have since grown like the oak, firm and strong-rooted, and the Oneidas dare no longer kindle their fires on our border. Our warriors have hearts as stout as our fathers in the olden time; our runners outstrip the wild cat for agility, and the roebuck for speed. Our people linger no more round the settlement at Oswego, but are happy and contented in the deep shades of the forest, with the coa.r.s.e but healthy enjoyments of Indian life. The Great Spirit again smiles upon his children, and they smoke in the calumet of peace. Our tribe is strong and warlike, in the full vigour of health, while the red men of other nations are perishing around us.

Brothers, hear me, for I am old, and your fathers were wont to hear the council of the elders. Remember the tale of Wonnehush; he tells you no lie. Carry his words to your tribes, and let the warning of Tekarrah be heard in every wigwam beyond the mountains.

Much has been said and written of the eloquence of the Indians, but it all conveys a very imperfect and inadequate idea of the beauty and excellence of their orations. They are untranslatable by whites, for we are without the nice perception of natural beauty and sublimity which the Indian possesses, and therefore cannot convey with accuracy and fulness his ideas of the external objects from which his figures and metaphors are drawn. If a bird flits before him, he discerns hues, and remarks circ.u.mstances in its notes and motions, which are imperceptible to the white man. The same acuteness which enabled an Indian scout to apprise his commander, and to apprise him correctly, that an "Indian, tall and very cowardly, with a new blanket, a short gun, and an old dog," had pa.s.sed[A] where the utmost industry of his employer could find no trace or footstep, is carried into every pursuit, and forms a part of every faculty and quality of the Indian.

But to return to his elocution.

[Footnote A: His stature he determined by the width of his stride, and his cowardice by his avoidance of remote dangers, and the wide circuit he took to escape contact with any one, his having a new blanket by the portion of nap left on the branches of the trees among which he pa.s.sed. His having a short gun he discovered by the mark left in the bark of the tree against which he had leaned the muzzle, and an old dog by the mumbling of a bone dropped in their path.]

That was a beautiful figure of Tec.u.mseh's to an American, who speaking of the President of the United States had used the expression "Your Great Father." "My great father!" exclaimed the indignant chief; "the _Sun_ is my father, and the earth is my mother, and I repose on her bosom."

When the Seminoles were defeated by General Jackson, their chief came into the presence of the victor with all the pride and firmness that belong to an Indian warrior. The conqueror demanded why he had surrendered so soon. "I have not surrendered soon," answered the chief; "I planted and harvested my corn on the right bank of the river of my people, while I fought the pale-faces on the left." This history of a warfare protracted to four months--for the period between the planting and harvesting of maize is of that or greater duration--was beautiful, though brief, but it was literally true. A gentleman present a.s.sured me that the dignity of his manner, as well as the matter of his speech, sent a thrill of awe to the bosom of every one of the a.s.sembly.

One of the most beautiful Indian speeches on record is that of Logan, the Mingo chief. It is one of the most affecting narratives of individual sorrow that I ever read. It has been frequently quoted--nevertheless there may be some to whom it may be new, and I shall transcribe it for their use. It is the language of truth and nature clothed in its most beautiful form.

"In the year 1774, a robbery having been committed by some Indians upon the white settlers on the Ohio, the latter undertook, in a summary way, to punish the outrage. They surprised, at different times, several of the Indian hunting parties, with their women and children, and murdered many of them. Among these was the family of Logan, a celebrated chief, who had always distinguished himself as the friend of the whites. This ungrateful return provoked his vengeance, and in the war which ensued he highly signalized himself. In the autumn of that year, the Indians were defeated in a decisive battle, and sued for peace.

Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the suppliants.

But, in order that no distrust might arise in the treaty on account of the absence of so celebrated a warrior, he sent, by the hands of General Gibson, the following speech, to be delivered to Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia:--

"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and b.l.o.o.d.y war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they pa.s.sed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Crespal, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge; I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace; but do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear.

Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?--Not one."

III. THE LEGEND OF POMPERAUG.

Three suns, and no more, would it take the feet of a fleet Mohawk to journey to the spot which contains the dust of Pomperaug, the last man of his tribe. The spot where that chief drew his breath was a small and level valley, surrounded by lofty and thickly wooded hills, with a cool, clear, bright, little stream, rippling through its green and flowery meadows. When he first saw the light of the great star, this spot was not divested of its trees; my countrymen, from the distant regions over the great waters, came with their sharp axes and lithe arms, and swept away the loved retreats of the red inhabitants of the land. The beautiful trees which hung over the quiet little river of Pomperaug and his people, like a mother bending over her sleeping infant, fell before them like a field of corn bowed to the earth by a tempest of wind. And very soon was the tribe itself swept away by the same resistless torrent which divested their land of its sylvan adornments. The Great Sachem of the East, who dwelt on the lofty Haup, having engaged in a war with my brethren, the Pomperaugs took part with the king of the Pequods, and a large part of them shared in his destruction. The chief fell, pierced by the arrow of the Great King. His son, still a boy, with a remnant of his father's people, when the war was finished by the death of the warlike and cunning Sachem of Haup, returned to their native valley: and, submitting themselves to their conquerors, sat down by the beloved river, and, apparently were content to toil for the white man in the fields which had once been their own. Yet it was with a deep remembrance of their wrongs, and a determination, at a convenient opportunity, to take a deep and b.l.o.o.d.y revenge. The period had now arrived when the young chief had reached the age of manhood. He took, as was the custom of his fathers, the name of his tribe, and was accordingly called Pomperaug. A n.o.bler youth was never seen, either red or white. He was tall, and finely formed, with an eye that gleamed like the flashes of the diamond, and a brow, upon which were stamped the greatness of his mind, the lofty and honourable feelings which filled his soul. He was such a one as the Indian contemplates with delight, and gazes upon with idolatry. His foot was swift as that of the deer; his arrow was sure as the pursuit of the eagle; his sagacity penetrating as the light of the sun. The maidens of his own tribe looked upon him with eyes of love; and there were not a few among the maidens of my own colour who confessed that he was "beautiful, and n.o.ble in form, and worthy to be loved by red and white."

Such was Pomperaug. But his nation was pa.s.sing away, and but fifty of his own tribe now dwelt in the valley in which his fathers, numberless as the leaves upon the oaks under which they dwelt, had hunted for many ages. The day of their dominion was past. There was a spell over the dark warrior. The Great Spirit had sealed his doom. He had sent strange men to his sh.o.r.es--and a change had come over the face of the land. The thickly settled town--the lofty spire of the house where men a.s.sembled to worship the Great Being--the fields, green, and glowing with the deep verdure of spring--the slopes of the hills, made smooth with cultivation--had taken the place of the lofty forest, from which arose the cry of the red warrior, as he rushed on his foes, or the plash of his oar, as he swept his light canoe on his expeditions of war or love. The stranger had built his house upon the margin of his favourite streams, whence a portion of his daily food was procured; and he, whose soil it was, had fled from the profanation of his father's bones. One by one, like leaves in the Harvest-Moon, had they dropped from the vision of those around them. To-day, you saw a son of the forest with an eye like the eagle's, and a foot like the antelope's; to-morrow, he was gone, and gone without a token. The waters that lave the thirsty sands of the seash.o.r.e sink not more silently in their ebb than the Indians have disappeared from the vicinity of the abodes of white men. And in this same silent way floated down the stream of oblivion the Indians of the valley of Pomperaug. Perceiving that their doom was sealed, they patiently submitted to a fate which they could not avert.

It was, therefore, without resistance that they received into the heart of their little territory a company of the people of my nation.

They were in number about thirty. Their governor, who was also their priest, was a man of great age, though possessed of all the mental and bodily vigour of youth. His years were more than three score and ten, and his hair as white as snow, yet his feet were sprightly as those of a young deer. His tall and broad form was still erect; his eye had lost none of its fire, nor his temper any of its energy; he was old in years, but young in the vigour of his soul.

This aged priest had brought to the valley of Pomperaug the remnant of a family of many souls. It was a maiden--the daughter of his only son who, with his wife, had slept many years in the house of death. Her name was Mary, and well might she be the object of all the earthly affections which still beat in the bosom of one whom death had made acquainted with sorrow, and who but for her had been alone.

Mary had now seen the harvest gathered in seventeen times. She was the most beautiful of all the maidens of the land. She was tall and slender, with a dark expressive eye, whose slow movements seemed full of soul and sincerity. Her hair was of a glossy black, parted upon a forehead of dazzling whiteness, and shading a cheek which vied in its blush with the pale rose of the wilds. And snow was not whiter than her stately neck, and rounded arm, and little hand.

They had been settled in the valley of Pomperaug but a few moons, when an application from the aged priest to purchase a portion of the young chief's lands brought him to the cabin of the former. It was a bright morning in autumn, and, while he was talking with the priest at the door, the lovely maiden, who had been gathering flowers, the late flowers of the season, in the adjacent woods, pa.s.sed by them, and entered the hut. The eye of the young chief followed her with the gaze of entrancement. His face shone as if he had seen a vision of more than earthly beauty, some bright spirit of the air. But this emotion was visible only for a moment. With the habitual self-command of those who are trained in the wilds, he turned again to the aged priest, and calmly pursued the subject which occasioned their meeting.

Pomperaug went away, but he carried the image of the beautiful maiden with him. He retired to his wigwam, but it did not please him--a vacant and dissatisfied feeling filled his bosom. He went to the top of the high rock, at the foot of which his hut was situated, and, seating himself upon the broad flat stone, cast his eyes over the river, upon which the beams of the morning were just beginning to cast their quivering light. The scene, once so pleasing, afforded him no joy. He turned away, and sent his long gaze over the checkered leaves of the forest, which spread like a sea over the beautiful valley. He was still dissatisfied. With a bound he sprang from the rock into the valley, and, alighting on his feet, s.n.a.t.c.hed his bow, and took the path which led into the forest. In a few moments he returned listless and vacant, and, seating himself upon the rock, brooded for many hours in silence.

The sun of the next morning had been but a few minutes abroad on the earth, when Pomperaug repaired to the house of the aged priest to finish the business of the preceding day. He had before signified his intention to part with his land on the terms offered him, but he now declined.

"Why will not the son of the chief, who fell in the Moon of Green Corn, give to the pale-face for the things he wants the lands he does not plough, the woods that are bare of game, the waters whose fish glide unharmed by his spear?" demanded the priest.

"Listen, father--hear a red man speak," answered the young chief.

"Mark yonder eagle--how joyous his flight among the clouds. The sky is his home, he loves it, and grief seizes his heart when he leaves it.

Will he barter it for the sea? No. Look into the river, and ask the fish that sports so happy in its clear bosom, if he will sell his birth-place, and he will, if he speak at all, answer No. Shall the red man sell for a few strings of beads, and a piece of red cloth, the spot that contains his father's bones? No. Yet, father, I will part with my forests, if thou wilt give me the beautiful singing-bird that is in thy nest."