The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-02-03


companions of my boyhood, we wrestled
jumped, laughed ran and sported, while
the ball few rapidly round the circle
the gloomy church yard, which when
truant boy, I had so often shudderingly
passed, when the pale moon glimmered
athwart the marbles which crowded the
sacred enclosure, and, to my affrighted
imagination, appeared to people the
dreary place with the tenants of that
world from which no traveller returns
the hills l had often crossed-the noun
tains among which II had SO often roved
in pursuit of such game as they afford.
cd: all passed in review; and 1 even
thought with rapture on the huge rock
which was shaded with the branches of
my favorite walnut tree, and where hap.
Ply as the squirrel which barked over
my head, l had spent many an hour
cracking the nuts which every wind
made to rattle down around me.
The various countries and scenes
through which had passed since 1 first
became wanderer from the land of my
childhood, now that my imagination
pictured those wanderings as drawing to
close, rose in all their various shades
before me, and pains and pleasures of
my peregrinations were again presented
in bold relief by the powerful effect of
memory. Over the civilized plains of
Europe, and the semi barbarous regions
of Asia had roved 1 had seen the
aurora-borealis dance over the regions of
eternal frost-the sun in vain attempt
to dissolve the chains which an artic
winter had formed I had felt it's
ferved heat where equinoctial skies shed
their facilitating and pernicous influence.
had traversed the plains of Orinoco,
and the banks of the La Plata: l had
climbed the Cordilleras, and, with the
enthusiasm of youth, beheld the setting
sun gild those bright Isles of the Pacl-
fic, which are sprinkled in such profu
sion over the surface of its broad blue
waters, and whose inhabitants are as
guileless and unsuspecting as their skies
are bright and cloudlcss. I had seen
the St. Lawrence rolling its majestic
stream, collected from a thousand lakes,
to the ocean-and I was then floating
on the bosom of the father of the rivers,
which rising among the frozen lakes and
interminabic forests Of the north, dis.
charge its turbid waters into the Mexi.
can Gulf, amidst the orange groves and
sugar plantations of the South while
after years of absence had elapsed, 1
was about to visit the parental roof,
with the intention of bringing my wan.
behring's to close, and spend the remain.
der of my days in quiet contentment
and peaceful happiness. Nor was my
interview with the stranger of such
mysterious character and appearance
forgotten. His apparent connection
with the Pirates, who if report stated
correctly, frequented the Islands which
lie off the Mississippi, and whose inhu-
man atrocities formed common topic
of conversation at New Orleans, l felt
to be ominous to the result of our voy-
age and although his words afforded
ray of hope to me, I wished I had not
seen him.
Such were my feelings, as in vain
wooed the god of sleep for temporary
oblivion to my pcrturbed ideas and it
was not until the watch had been
changed the last time that fell asleep,
from which l did not wake in the morn
ing until the vessel was already several
miles on her voyage. When went up
on deck the vessel was floating along the
current between the high woods which
covered both banks of the river
Scarcely breath of wind was to be
fels-the sails hung idly against the
mast, and we depended on the current
alone to speed us to the ocean. If ever
there was country over which the
genius of desolation might be said to
hold undisputed dominion, it is the reg.
ion around the mouth of the Mississippi.
Below Plaquemines it is one dreary and
desolate marsh, covered with canes and
reeds, and sinking gradually to the dead
level of the Gulf. For miles before we
Al