lived contentedly together for a long time, though the former from time to time asked for more land, which was readily obtained, and thus they gradually proceeded higher up the Mahicanittuck, until the Indians began to believe that they would soon want all their country, which in the end proved true."

Chapter III. consists of the Indian relations of the conduct of the Europeans toward them, and is not less precious than the previous passage. Both are copied from the Historical Account of the Indian Nations, by the Rev. Mr. Heckewelder, from whose work this and the foregoing chapter have been extracted:

:

They are, in general, very minute in these recitals, and proceed with a great degree of order and regularity. They begin with the Virginians, whom they call the Long Knives, and who were the first European settlers in this part of the American continent. It was we,' say the Lenape, Mohicans, and their kindred tribes, 'who so kindly received them on their first arrival into our country. We took them by the hand, and bid them welcome to sit down by our side, and live with us as brothers; but how did they requite our kindness? They at first asked only for a little land on which to raise bread for themselves and their families, and pasture for their cattle, which we freely gave them. They soon wanted more, which we also gave them. They saw the game in the woods, which the Great Spirit had given us for our subsistence, and they wanted that too. They penetrated into the woods, in quest of game, they discovered spots of land which pleased them; that land they also wanted, and because we were loth to part with it, as we saw they had already more than they had need of, they took it from us by force and drove us to a great distance from our ancient homes.' By and by the Dutchemaan arrived at Manahachtánienk, (here they relate with all its details what has been said in the preceding chapter.) The great man wanted only a little, little land, on which to raise greens for his soup, just as much as a bullock's hide would cover. Here we first might have observed their deceitful spirit. The bullock's hide was cut up into little strips, and did not cover, indeed, but encircled a very large piece of land, which we foolishly granted to them. They were to raise greens on it, instead of which they planted great guns; afterwards they built strong houses, made themselves masters of the island, then went up the river to our enemies, the Mengwe, made a league with them, persuaded us by their wicked arts to lay down our arms, and at last drove us entirely out of the country.

"When the Yengeese [an Indian corruption of the word English, whence probably the nickname Yankees] arrived at Machtitschwanne, they looked about every where for good spots of land, and when they found one they immediately and without ceremony possessed themselves of it; we were astonished, but still we let them go on, not thinking it worth while to contend for a little land. But when at last they came to our favorite spots, those which lay most convenient to our fisheries, then bloody wars ensued we would have been contented that the white people and we should have lived quietly beside each other; but these white men encroached so fast upon us, that we saw at once we should lose all, if we did not resist them. The wars that we carried on against each other were long and cruel. We were enraged when we saw the white people put our friends and relatives whom they had taken prisoners on board of their ships, and carry them off to sea, whether to drown or sell them as slaves, in the country from which they came, we knew not; but certain it is that none of them have ever returned or even been heard of. At last they got possession of the whole of the country which the Great Spirit had given us. One of our tribes was forced to wander far beyond Quebec; others dispersed in small bodies, and sought places of refuge where they could; some came to Pennsylvania; others went far to the westward and mingled with other tribes.

"To many of those, Pennsylvania was a last, delightful asylum. But here, again, the Europeans disturbed them, and forced them to emigrate, although they had been most kindly and hospitably received. On which ever side of the Lenapewihittuck, [the Delaware river] the white people landed, they were welcomed as brothers by our ancestors, who gave them lands to live on, and even hunted for them, and furnished them with meat out of the woods. Such was our conduct to the white men, [the Swedes and Dutch] who inhabited this country, until our elder brother, the great and good Miquon [William Penn,] came and brought us words of peace and good will. We believed his words, and his memory is still held in veneration among us. But it was not long before our joy was turned into sorrow our brother Miquon died, and those of his good counsellors who were of his mind, and knew what had passed

between him and our ancestors, were no longer listened to; the strangers [land traders and speculators] who had taken their places, no longer spoke to us of sitting down by the side of each other as brothers of one family; they forgot that friendship which their great man had established with us, and was to last to the end of time; they now only strove to get all our land from us by fraud or by force, and when we attempted to remind them of what our good brother had said, they became angry, and sent word to our enemies the Mengwe, to meet them at a great council which they were to hold with us at Lohauwake, where they should take us by the hair of our heads, and shake us well. The Mengwe came, the council was held, and in the presence of the white men, who did not contradict them, they told us that we were women, and that they had made us such; that we had no right to any land, because it was all theirs; that we must be gone; and that as a great favor they permitted us to go and settle further into the country, at the place which they themselves pointed out at Wyoming."

Thus, says Mr. Buchanan, these good Indians, with a kind of melancholy pleasure, recite the long history of their sufferings:

"We and our kindred tribes," say they, "lived in peace and harmony with each other, before the white people came into this country; our council-house extended far to the north and far to the south. In the middle of it we would meet from all parts to smoke the pipe of peace together. When the white men arrived in the south, we received them as friends; we did the same when they arrived in the east. It was we, it was our forefathers, who made them welcome, and let them sit down by our side. The land they settled on was ours. We knew not but the Great Spirit had sent them to us for some good purpose, and therefore we thought they must be a good people. We were mistaken; for no sooner had they obtained a footing on our lands, than they began to pull our council-house down, [i.e. destroying, dispersing the community, preventing their further intercourse with each other, by settling between them on their land] first at one end and then at the other, and at last meeting each other at the centre, where the council fire was yet burning bright, they put it out, [i.e. murdering them or their people, where they assemble for pacific purposes, where treaties are held, &c.] and extinguished it with our own blood! [i.e. the blood flowing from the veins of some of our community] with the blood of those [i.e. alluding to the murder of the Conestogo Indians, who, though of another tribe, yet had joined them in welcoming the white people to their shores. In a narrative of this lamentable event, supposed to have been written by the late Dr. Franklin, it is said: 'On the first arrival of the English in Pennsylvania, messengers from this tribe came to welcome them with presents of venison, corn and skins, and the whole tribe entered into a treaty of friendship with the first proprietor, William Penn, which was to last as long as the sun should shine, or the waters run in the rivers',] who with us had received them! who had welcomed them in our land! Their blood ran in streams into our fire, and extinguished it so entirely, that not one spark was left us whereby to kindle a new fire; [this alludes to the last fire that was kindled by the Pennsylvanian government and themselves at Lancaster, where the last treaty was held with them in 1762, the year preceding this murder, which put an end to all business of the kind in the province of Pennsylvania] we were compelled to withdraw ourselves beyond the great swamp, [i.e. the Glades on the Allegheny mountains] and to fly to our good uncle the Delamattenos [i.e. the Huron or Wyandots, whom they call their uncle: these, though speaking a dialect of the Iroquois language, are in connexion with the Lenape] who kindly gave us a tract to live on. How long we shall be permitted to remain in this asylum, the Great Spirit only knows. The whites will not rest contented until they shall have destroyed the last of us, and made us disappear entirely from the face of the earth."

These extracts are sufficient to direct public attention to the volume before us. It is replete with information, at once new and interesting; while every page does honor to the benevolence of the writer. To destroy an unoffending people for the purpose of possessing their country, is little creditable to the professed Christian spirit, and pretended refinement of policy, of the nations concerned. It is not yet too late to repent, reform, and practise justice.

399

VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.

Tours to the British Mountains, with the descriptive Poems of Lowther, and Emont Vale. By Thomas Wilkinson. 12mo. pp. 320. Taylor and Hessey.

MOUNTAINS and their accompaniments are amongst the finest specimens of the sublime. It would be unbecoming a highly gifted being like man, to look with an eye of indifference on the wonderful works of creation, their variety, and their beauty; and mountains may be said to be among the most conspicuous and imperishable monuments of the Creator's power. Mountains, rocks, woods, and waters, are innocent objects in themselves, and are the productions of a Divine hand.

The author tells us, that, when circumstances allowed, he availed himself of the opportunity of exploring the recesses, and ascending the summits, of mountains. He made memorandums of his excursions, and they have now undergone an arrangement. Some, he says, collect spars and plants; others are in their element amid a flower-garden, or in the fields of antiquity; but mountains are his flower-garden, or museum; for they exhibit the oldest as well as the most magnificent specimens.

We remember that, some years since, Colonel Riddall, impressed with a similar taste, visited mountains in all parts of the world, and produced his great plan of the whole, with three valuable quarto volumes of illustrations. Mr. W. has, it seems, been treading in the same path; but his observations are confined to British mountains. The object is worthy of the highest talents, and the author has produced an amusing volume, less scientific, however, than the subject and the state of public curiosity required. It is a gossiping and sentimental, rather than an illustrative, work; but, in that sense, possesses considerable merit.

The visit to Ben Lomond furnishes a fair specimen of his

manner :

"When I came opposite Ben Lomond, I took a boat and sailed over the lake, but could not meet with a guide: the day being fine, the people were engaged in their hayharvest. From the shore we beheld, far up the mountain, something white, in motion, and concluded it to be a party. I now conceived the idea of making my way directly up the breast of the mountain, and not winding round, as is usually the case. I left the shore alone: I lightened myself of a portion of my clothes, which I hid in the heath, and thus became a light-robed mountaineer. Fearing neither spoliation below, nor starvation on high, I set off. Two hours and a half, or two hours and twenty minutes, I was told, was a usual time for the ascent. I could not learn that it had been climbed in a less time than two hours. However, having much before me to do to-day, I made the most of my time, and reached the summit in an hour and thirty-eight minutes. When I arrived, a light cloud encircled the brow of Ben Lomond: several clouds were passing below me over the deep valleys, but so thin, that the lakes, the rivers, and sunshine, were discernible through them, which gave things in the lower regions a magical mysterious appearance. At length, the mountain cleared, and the clouds passed away, save from the points of two or three of the loftiest surrounding peaks, which gave a grandeur to the scene, and suggested the idea of the smoke from volcanoes. How interesting, even though alone, was it to stand in the midst of such a sublime scene! Perhaps the reader may be somewhat surprised, when informed, that on the top of Ben Lomond I received a few lines addressed to me, though I saw no man. The fact was, I found on the summit of the mountain, a paper fastened to the ground, addressed to the finder,

importing that two gentlemen, one from Edinburgh, the other from Glasgow, had visited it the day before: they requested to have it returned, specifying by whom and when found the request was borne in mind, and the paper in my pocket-book, till I fell in with a friend of one of my brother mountaineers. In about half an hour, the party seen from the shore arrived; a genteel company, consisting of twelve persons, (six of either sex,) two guides, a black servant, and a pony with provisions. Their arrival in the upper regions was truly welcome to a stranger, for from them I obtained the names of lakes, mountains, and distant objects. The sky became perfectly clear, and it was to me a scene of astonishment. Five considerable lakes winded through different valleys,-Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, Loch Chon, Loch Ard, and Loch Foert. Visible, parts of the counties of Ayr, Lanark, Stirling, Dumbarton, Perth, Renfrew, Lothian, Inverness, and Argyle. Might be seen, the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, Dumbarton, and Monteith. But, above all, the tremendous assemblage of mountains ! To compare them to any thing below, would diminish their magnificence: but we are inclined not to forget our own species, when it may be brought forward to advantage. Shall I not say, they seemed like mighty giants, emulously vying with each other in pressing forward to approach Ben Lomond? Their looks indeed were terrible, and their strongly-marked and prominent features designated the family to which they belonged. Descended in an hour and two minutes. Total of the time employed in the expedition, three hours and seventeen minutes: after which, six little fellows rowed me merrily over Loch Lomond."

His next ascent was up the Cobbler, and is thus described :

"We now took up our abode at Arroquhar; from whence we have a view of a high mountain, whose remarkable summit gives the mountain its name of The Cobbler. Some people imagine the figure of an old man mending shoes: I could imagine no such thing. Had I been for creating, I should have fancied the gigantic figure of a hooded nun: but, altogether, it has most the appearance of the ruins of some ancient castle. I felt a wish to visit the reputed Cobbler: I inquired of the people about Arroquhar, but found none that had been there, except an old man now almost blind. It rained, and a cloud covered the object of my wishes: but, remembering that sunshine and clouds supplant each other in quick succession, I set off, and reached the top of the mountain in about two hours. I rested, and the mists went and came, till they finally departed. It was now an entertaining but awful scene. At the two corners of the mountain rise two perpendicular rocks, perhaps between fifty and a hundred yards high: several lesser rocks appear along the heights between, among which rises something of a connecting wall, made by art; and, if with no military intent, it might be for hindering sheep, when they stray so high, from going down the front of the steep. Down that steep, however, for a little I unwisely descended; but, with much difficulty and some danger, I got back quietly again on my hands and knees. I had now spirits, and experienced feelings that I do not remember to have known before: perhaps, the summits of mountains, with such an atmosphere as the present, gave birth to what I felt. I do not wonder that hermits sometimes choose the tops of mountains for their solitary habitations. If I could have been supplied with provisions and fine weather, I should have liked to tarry a month in my exalted situation.

66

'I seemed now arrived at the highest points of the earth, which appeared to support the foundation of the sky. A solid grey cloud, of even elevation, seemed but a few yards above my head. From where I now stood, I beheld a remarkable scene. The sky was covered with a cloud, which rested on the tops of the highest mountains; the valleys below were distinctly seen to an immense distance, which gave me the idea of an astonishing pavilion with innumerable apartments,-the cloud the roof, and the mountains the supporters ; woods, fields, roads, hedges, plains, villages, men, beasts, the ocean and the sky-all that I had been accustomed to-made no part of this scene.

'I changed my position, and beheld the waving course of Loch Long, like a beautiful river winding to the sea; while a conical rock of great height arose at its mouth. A calm sea, like an expanse of silver, stretched as far as the eye could follow it. Valleys in different directions sloped down into narrow nothings; sometimes their sides were studded with rocks, sometimes spread with verdure, and sometimes covered with purple

heath.

"I wandered to a little distance, and beheld Loch Sloy. The Mac Farlanes were knights of Loch Sloy; their motto, We will guard this Loch. In the progress of time, human institutions arise, surrounded by distinctions and power, but the hand of Time throws them down: they disappear and are forgotten. I can imagine the knights

of Loch Sloy marching in armour on the summits of these mountains; or standing by Loch Sloy, their martial figures reflected in their lake: but the pageantry is passed like the breeze that sighs on the mountains, and other habits and other men have succeeded: -all things change, but that Being which is unchangeable and eternal!"

His visit to Ben Nevis will close our extracts; and many of our readers will think we have devoted more space to them than they deserve:

"Fort William stands in the centre of Lochaber, which we entered when we crossed Loch Leven. But of all the objects around me, Ben Nevis most attracted my attention. There are three passions or propensities with which mankind are assailed, which are more or less injurious to society; to wit, pride, vanity, and ambition. Pride is the most disgusting, vanity is the most despicable, and ambition the most dangerous to mankind. I wish to judge impartially, even in my own cause; therefore, to ambition I must plead guilty. I have an ambition to trample on the heads of the highest mountains in Great Britain; and Ben Nevis is the highest. My desire was strong to ascend it. I sought for a guide, but found none fond of the expedition: I therefore set off alone. Necessary precaution seldom accompanies rashness, and I was soon humbled by the discovery that I was on the wrong side of the river Nevis. But what are rivers in the way of great achievements? However, having once made an erroneous advance, I began carefully to reconnoitre the difficulties I had to encounter. The Nevis, though no inconsiderable stream, did not appear deep, and had a fine pebbly bottom; so I put off my shoes and stockings, and in I plunged. But the stream was so excessively cold, it damped my ardour, and I looked to the shore from whence I came : but remembering, when Cæsar invaded Britain, that his troops might not turn home again he burned his ships, so I threw my shoes to the further shore, and on I rushed through the waters of

starvation.

"Ben Nevis is a vast heap of rock, not appearing from below to terminate in a pyra mid, but broad, bold, and majestic. Its summit commands a prospect of wondrous extent: a considerable part of the Highlands, the Orkney Isles, with those of the Hebrides, and some of the mountains of Ireland, are within the compass of observation. The base of Ben Nevis is covered with soil; grass, shrubs, and trees, climb up its sides to a considerable height: but its lofty summit is composed of grey rocks that seem to leave vegetation below. The north side of the mountain may be said to be hung with terrors. Perpendicular and projecting rocks, gulphy glens and awful precipices, gloomy and tremendous caverns, the vast repositories of snow from age to age; these, with blue mists gauzing the grey rocks of the mountain, and terrible cataracts thundering from Ben Nevis, made altogether a scene sublimely dreadful. This stupendous mountain belongs to Captain Cameron, after the manner of the country called Glen Nevis. He is a descendant of the Barclays of Urie, by the female side, and invited us kindly to his house. I congratulated him on being the possessor of the highest ground in Great Britain. How interesting to stand on the highest mountain, in the most celebrated island in the world, beholding above a vast extent of sky; and below, the earth and a multitude of mountains, extending far and wide; the sky stretching and descending till it meets the boundaries of the earth and the ocean, while the earth and the ocean appear to rise in the remotest distance to receive it! How awful to behold the vast objects that compose this stupendous scene, all surrounding a solitary individual in impressive silence! I think the silence still adds to the solemnity. If clouds should gather from below, and thunder burst from the sides of the mountain, the scene, I believe, would hardly be more sublime. I walk backwards and forwards, and again exclaim, "How glorious it is to look upwards, and to see nothing above us but the sun -to behold nothing between us and the sky!" Then, with what self-complacency we look down on the august figures of sublime mountains, standing around us with their naked foreheads and noble countenances, like the great officers of state in the courts of the most illustrious monarchs; while, far beneath these elevated personages, the waving forests, the lowly valleys, and the humble dwellings of men, sink into insignificance ! Comparing afterwards my ascent to Ben Nevis with that of an accomplished friend, (William Smith, Member for Norwich,) I found his arrival on its summit attended with very peculiar circumstances, far more extraordinary than those of mine. On the crown of the mountain there is a hollow, from whence issued something of a vapour; in the midst of which appeared dimly a human figure in motion. My friend held up his hands (I suppose in something of astonishment); and the figure replied, in holding up its hands also. The reader will perceive, that the man in the mist was the shadow of the Crit, Guz. Vol. 1. No. 5.

3 F