The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-09-02
CHAPTER VIII.
The Land Of Sunset.
~enerate the Pilgrims cause,
Yet for the Indian dare TO plead =

His history but n tale Of wrong and vice.
His very name must be a blank."-.Sprasne.
TIE aanking hills were passed. Herman
stood at the foot of those mysterious towering
walls of rock, which the mythical Great Wolf
and Gray Bear paved up from the plain in their
horrid fight, in ages gone before Man came to
see and to record whose story, if tradition tries
to tell, che can but tell lie whose chronicles
geology can but stammeringly balfepell and
halfconjscture, from the half.effaced stone
heroglyphics rudely craven there and then, by
the convulsed uncertain hand of Nature in her
tbroes; and whose full history we can read only
in the other world and from the memories of
angels. Before him, at last, stood the Rocky
Mountains-say, rather, the mountains of rock
Heaped, piled, jumb!ed, and tumbled together,
and upon each other, the petrifed huddled Ii.
tans their oraggy loins grit about with fringy
frs, and their heads capped with eternal snow,
rat stood, and climbed on one another's shoul.
ders unanimously, lifting their white, splintered,
brisily chine, to beard the calm, clear sky above
them, which seemed to answer. in the silence.
a. with the voice of God, aye, even ye, shall
perish and crumble into dust yet l shall en-
dure"
The caravan began to climb. Herman could
not yet. Hastily dismounting, and ordering
Bernard, his French guide, to wait for him with
his horse, he entered one of those dim, weird,
and wild ravines, which burrow through the
ridges here and there. The sad wind sang and
played through it, as if on an E,lian harp, the
dirges of departed days and hopes-the wooing
hymns of yearnings and aspirations too sweet
AID high to be foregone-too vague, perhaps too
heavenly, to be ever salts f ed on earth. The
shady pine-boughs shivered with the startled
rustling of the nesting owls that haunted them.
At his feet lay, outstretched and still, black
pool, the remains Of what had been height
born torrent. 1t had danced in light. It had
done its work. 1t had died in darkness. Who
had missed or mourned for it? Not one. Far
up, and up, and up, through the narrow Jagged
rent above him, perhaps beyond his power to
climb, almost beyond his sight, the lonely misty
face ofthe overhanging mountain looked blank.
iy down upon him, like the pale ghost of earthly
gOdliness, little above our common walks, and
infinitely below heaven.
The solitude, the silence. the chill, the
vasiness, the everlastingness, benumbed him.
de courted it only the more, that perhaps
it might benumb his sorrow. He sought to
freeze and kill and bury in it the cease
less pain OF his own consciousness. No Iuooo-
ured bis puny human stature, in thought, with
the precipices-the stunted frs, even-about
him, and strove TO teach bis FESTIVE mind to say
within him, "What matter ifthis pigmy-this in
sect-suffers in its lttleday? The pang is scarce
iy come before it is past. The sigh gives place
to the death rattle, and the breast is breathless
The corpse is dust; the name forgotten. The
mountain stands. The earth rolls round. The
universe still marshals on its darling suns and
systems. God reioices. All is we'll"
All, HERMANN vsinl No man ever yet
self conscious man-drew peace and comfort out
of thoughts like these. One little human soul
is wider, longer, to itself, than space or time.
His sorrow came back aud looked him in the
face, as if with the face of his love, and said,
True, thou art little, and the earth is great !;
and yet-5ehold, | show thee 9 mystery--the
heart of any man is large enough to hold as
much as the whole full earth can, of Joy or woe
for himl"
He heard in the breathless hush of the air /"
the hiss Of Satan whispering despair to him, az
is his wont when he finds melancholy men
alone in desert places. He fell on his knees
and prayed and unseen angels came and
ministered unto his fasting spirit and his faith
came back, and locked him in the face, as with
the face of the Christ yet uncro wned, and said,
Could ye not watch with me one hour
What l do, thou knowest not now, but thou
shalt know hereafter. Follow me; and where
am, there shall also my servant be. He that
cometh to me shall never hunger" He came
forth again, with a countensnce shining as
Moussa's cheek, when down the mount he trod,
All glowing from the presence of his God"
Bernard saw the change in him, was sur
prised, and asked him what he had found
Peace" he could have answered but he
evaded the inquiry, and, snatching from him
the rein OF his own shaggy Indian pony, was in
the high-peaked saddle in an instant, and pre-.
pairing to give himself up, heart and soul, to
the wild delight of headlong ride on worthy
steed.
Little Manitou, so-called, was a scion of o
wild herd born of the further prairie; and hel
home-sickness seemed to have got into her head
She ran up the precipices like squirrel or 9
fy leaped the black centre-cleaving chasml
like goat, or brsced her little fetlock- fringet
nd al: La l.
with shower of gravel and pebbles, of flint
agate, and jasper, at her heels. Her spirit
soon infected him for generous horse ant
nder have much sympathy between them. a.
cheered her on with hand and voice, and viii
his eyes dancing, and his short round curl
pulled straight into jetty halo round bis fac
py the shrewish fingers of the mountain
oreezer, whose haunts he was invading, looket
iaughingly back over his shoulder at his COW
aroiy Csnadian, as, exploding with patois snt
Indignation, he toiled after him.
let there was not shade of brutal reckless
ness In his daring. His high-mettled littl,
s'eed was sure'footed and sagacious, and knew
her ground better than he; and his instinc
taught him that he promoted his own safety. a.
wen as his and her pleasure, best, by lettins
her take her own way and pace, neither frettec
nor disconnected by any interference on BIZ
part She appeared, indeed, to think it ues
uon not worth considering for moment
whether she kept him on her back or not bu
ne could trust to himself for that, and. with al
her pranks, he observed that she took care I,
take the very best care of herself. Ifhe did no