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And many a Moon in beauty newly born
Pierced the red sunset with her silver horn,
Or, from the east, across her azure field
Rolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed shield.

Yet Winnepurkit came not. On the mat
Of the scorned wife her dusky rival sat,
And he, the while, in Western woods afar-
Urged the long chase, or trod the path of war.

Dry up thy tears, young daughter of a chief!
Waste not on him the sacredness of grief,
Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine own,
His lips of scorning, and his heart of stone.

What heeds the warrior of a hundred fights,
The storm-worn watcher through long hunting nights,
Cold, crafty, proud, of woman's weak distress,
Her home-bound grief and pining loneliness?

VII.-THE DEPARTURE.

THE wild March rains had fallen fast and long
The snowy mountains of the North among,
Making each vale a water-course-each hill
Bright with the cascade of some new made rill.

Gnawed by the sunbeams, softened by the rain,
Heaved underneath by the swollen current's strain,
The ice-bridge yielded, and the Merrimack
Bore the huge ruin crashing down its track.

On that strong turbid water, a small boat
Guided by one weak hand was seen to float,
Evil the fate which loosed it from the shore,
Too early voyager with too frail an oar !

Down the vexed centre of that rushing tide,
The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either side,
The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view
With arrowy swiftness sped that light canoe.

The trapper moistening his moose's meat

On the wet bank by Uncanoonuc's feet,

Saw the swift boat flash down the troubled streamSlept he, or waked he ?-was it truth or dream?

The straining eye bent fearfully before,

The small hand clenching on the useless oar,

The bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the water-
He knew them all-wo for the Sachem's daughter!

Sick and aweary of her lonely life,
Heedless of peril, the still faithful wife

Had left her mother's grave, her father's door,
To seek the wigwam of her chief once more.

Down the white rapids like a sere leaf whirled,
On the sharp rocks and piled up ices hurled,
Empty and broken, circled the canoe

In the vexed pool below-but where was Weetamoo?

SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN.

The Dark Eye has left us,

The Spring-bird has flown;
On the pathway of spirits

She wanders alone.

The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore
Mat wonck kunna-monee !*-we hear it no more!

Oh, dark water Spirit!
We cast on thy wave

These furs which may never
Hang over her grave;

Bear down to the lost one the robes which she wore ;
Mat wonck kunna-monee !-We see her no more!

Of the strange land she walks in

No Powah has told :

It may burn with the sunshine,

Or freeze with the cold.

Let us give to our lost one the robes which she wore,
Mat wonck kunna-monee !-We see her no more!

The path she is treading
Shall soon be our own;
Each gliding in shadow

Unseen and alone!—

In vain shall we call on the souls gone before-
Mat wonck kunna-monee !-they hear us no more!

Oh mighty Sowanna !†
Thy gateways unfold,

From thy wigwam of sunset
Lift curtains of gold!

Take home the poor spirit whose journey is o'er-
Mat wonck kunna-monee !-We see her no more!

So sang the children of the Leaves beside
The broad, dark river's coldly-flowing tide,
Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and swell
On the high wind their voices rose and fell.
Nature's wild music-sounds of wind-swept trees,
The scream of birds, the wailing of the breeze,
The roar of waters, steady, deep and strong,
Mingled and murmured in that farewell song.

"Mat wonck kunna-monee.'

We shall see thee or her no more.-Vide Roger

Williams' "Key to the Indian language."

"The Great South West God." See R. Williams' "Observations, &c."

THE TRAVELS AND WRITINGS OF HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT.

THE rapidity with which new names are constantly appearing upon our fast thickening roll of literary and scientific men must ultimately overlay many whose original reputation was due chiefly to the fact that they were among the pioneers of our early literature; and that their writings were acceptable to our countrymen when the general literary taste was unformed and crude. Among these pioneers, however, there is a class of writers who contributing to the materials rather than the form of literature, must ever be identified by their labors with the progress of letters among us. The man who builds a painted shingle palace in some new settlement, is for the time being one of the most noted in the hamlet; but as such ornamental tenements increase with the thrift of place, we recur to those who located the first log cabins in the "clearing," as the real fathers of the village; and we cherish the traces of their adventurous though clumsy labors with far more interest than we regard the ambitious "improvements" of their comfortably established successors. Nay! when we are brought in a way to realize the difficulties which the former class had to contend with in effecting a lodgment in the wilderness, we are disposed to enroll them as a class by themselves; or ticket their names and put them away as belonging to a set of worthies, who have done the land such service in their day, that not even "the march of mind" is to disturb their honorable repose by awaking new inquiry as to their merits judged by more modern standards of thought and action.

Mr. Schoolcraft (we doubt whether he will thank us for the illustration), in a literary point of view, many years ago became identified in our minds with this memorable class of pioneer citizens and genuine "old settlers" on the Indian tract of literature. We saw his name indeed occasionally attached to some scrap of poetry, or giving circulation to some literary address; but it was as the geographical explorer or Indian linguist and collector that it came from the far West to these Atlantic shores with most weight and meaning. As the mere votary of taste and elegant

letters, if he were indeed really so, he seemed to us wonderfully out of place where he was. A man trifling with fowling-piece and trouting-rod where he ought to be hewing trees and burning "fallow," and getting his "location" ready for a crop, could not be more uselessly ornamental. But if these essays and poems were only a social diversion, and his real energies were devoted to developing, grasping, and subduing to the uses of science and literature, the abundant inert material around him, he was a very different character; a man who could estimate both the advantages and disadvantages of his position, and, without sighing over the bearing of the latter upon mere literary culture, seize upon the former to interweave his name with the very fibre of his country's literature. Whether accident or force of character, whether failure as a pretty poet and polite essayist, or predetermined intention to throw the real force of his powers into one sphere of literary labor may have determined the result we are unable to say; but Mr. S. stands now before the public equally peculiar and firmly based in his reputation as an author. "Schoolcraft's Indian Miscellany' " will be at some future day quoted and referred to alike by poet and historian, as a standard book of reference in every well selected library. His "Algic Researches," his "Oneota," his contributions to the North American and other Reviews, and his various books of travel among the Aborigines, must all ultimately take this form. For the usages, traditions, and peculiarities of the Red man, form alike the staple of interest and value in all; and while the present deficiency in our libraries must be supplied by some collection which shall be authority on these subjects, Schoolcraft is the only author who comprises the necessary varieties of information in the writings of one man.

The literary career of Mr. Schoolcraft dates from the year 1809, when he began to publish some essays upon Natural History, in the periodicals of the day. But he was first known as an author, by a little work entitled "Vitreology," which appeared in 1817.

V

The design of this treatise was to exhibit the application of Chemistry in the fusion of Siliceous and Alkaline bodies and the production of enamels, glasses, &c. In July of the ensuing year, we find from the sketches of his own wanderings in "Oneota," he was engaged in exploring the lead mines of the district of Missouri, and examining generally, the mineralogical and geological structure of that region of country. He at the same time explored the elevated and broken ranges of high lands, called the Ozark Mountains. While in Missouri, he drew up a description of the mines, which was published in New York, in 1819. This, Prof. Silliman says, in the American Journal of Science, is the first formal account of a mining district in the United States. Its publication procured for the author much literary notice. He was immediately made an honorary member of the New York Historical Society (of which Dr. HOSACK was at that time President), and a corresponding member of the New York Lyceum of Natural History. Mineralogy had then just begun to attract great attention in this country, and the large collections which Mr. S. had brought home from the other side of the Mississippi attracted the votaries of this science around him. Among these was DEWITT CLINTON, who became instantly interested in the western explorer, invited him to his table, gave him books and counsel, and by letters of introduction to eminent men in other parts of the Union, sent him forth on fresh rambles, under the best auspices.

In 1820, Mr. Schoolcraft accordingly repaired to Washington, with a plan for organizing the Western mines, a proposal which brought him under the notice of Mr. CALHOUN, who soon afterwards sent him to the North-west to join Governor CASS, and explore Lake Superior and the Upper Mississippi. Of this expedition, Mr. Schoolcraft drew up the narrative, which was eagerly read by the whole country. In 1821, came out his fourth publication, and this, illustrated with a sketch or two by INMAN, who already was giving promise of his present fame as an artist, was so rapidly sold and favorably noticed, that Mr. Schoolcraft was at once fairly enrolled upon the then meagre list of American authors. It is entitled "Travels in the central por

VOL. XVI.-NO. LXXXIV.

38

tion of the Mississippi Valley," and covers the intermediate ground of that which he had journalized upon in his two intermediate tours.

These themes were then new and full of interest to our countrymen, and the zeal with which Mr. S. had acquitted himself in bringing them before the public recommended him to the notice of President MONROE, by whom, in 1822, he was commissioned as Agent of Indian Affairs, on the extreme northwestern frontiers of our territory. His instructions were to proceed to Sault Ste. Marie, at the outlet of Lake Superior, and open an intercourse with the great family of the Chippewas, in that quarter, which had previously been exclusively in the British interest.

To establish these new Indian relations upon a proper basis, Mr. S. made repeated tours among the wild tribes of those then desolate regions. In 1825, we find him holding a convocation of various aboriginal nations at Prairie Du Chien, on the Upper Mississippi. In 1826, he holds another at Fond Du Lac, at the head of Lake Superior. In 1827, a third at Buttes de Mort, on Fox River, Wisconsin. His agency being now fully established, he accepted a seat in the territorial legislature of Michigan, which he retained for four years in succession; and during this time he formed and had incorporated the Michigan Historical Society, and delivered several public lectures at Detroit. It was during this influential period of his life that, guided alike by patriotism and good taste, Mr. Schoolcraft took a successful stand in that region of country against the absurd nomenclature which has elsewhere made such geographical confusion, by repeating over and over again, throughout the country, the names of places borrowed in the first instance from Europe, giving us any quantity of "Yorks," 66 Manchesters," and "Birminghams" in the wilderness. He submitted to the legislature a system of county and township names based upon the Indian Vocabularies, with which he was familiar, and found the historical names of "Pontiac," "Tecumseh," &c., at least as well received by his colleagues as are those of "Hannibal,"

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Scipio" and "Camillus" by the pedagogue-ridden people of this state.

In 1831, "The Algic Society," a literary and benevolent institution of Michigan, was organized through the exertions

of Mr. Schoolcraft, and before this body he delivered Philological lectures upon the aboriginal dialects, and a poem upon Indian character. The labors of this association were, we believe, at one time enriched by the aid of Major Whiting, and other cultivated officers of the army, at that time in garrison at Detroit. But the Indian disturbances between the northwest tribes, which broke out the same year, gave to all parties more serious occupation. Schoolcraft was directed by Government to accompany a military force sufficient to over-awe the Indians, and see what could be done to establish peace among them; an object which was ultimately effected after a toilsome march to the Sioux and Chippewa country. On his return from this expedition, Mr. S. came down the Mississippi to Fever River, and reached his post by the way of Fort Winnebago, Green Bay, &c., an account of which appeared subsequently in an American Periodical.

In 1832, the small-pox made its appearance among the western Indians. In carrying the vaccine matter among them, as became his official duty, Mr. S. did not forget the interests of geographical science. In visiting the most remote northern tribes of his agency, he seized the occasion to trace up the Mississippi above the point where Pike stopped in 1807, and Cass in 1820, to its actual source in Itasca Lake. His account of this "Expedition to Itasca Lake" was published by the Harpers in 1834. From it we learn that the longsought head of the river was discovered July 13th, 1832. At Meridian this day, Mr. Schoolcraft entered upon the Lake in his batteaux, and planted the United States flag upon its only island, just 149 years after La Salle had reached the mouth of the river (Schoolcraft's Island -Vide Nicollett's Hydros' Map and Report). The Blackhawk war broke out on the Border while Mr. S. was in the wilderness, but with his hardy associate, Lieut. Allen of the Infantry, he slipped through its dangers below St. Anthony's Falls, and reached home in safety. The general results of this expedition attracted much interest throughout the country, while the philological contributions upon the aboriginal dialects, which Mr Schoolcraft introduced in the appendix to his account of the discovery, procured him the notice of Du. Ponceau

and Gallatin, not to mention other less eminent philologians and ethnologists. In 1836, Mr. S. was appointed commissioner to negotiate with the Chippewas and Otawas, and succeeded in effecting a treaty by which these tribes ceded to the United States some nine millions of acres between Grand River of Lake Michigan and Chocolate River of Lake Superior (or Lake Algoma, as Mr. Schoolcraft terms the latter water). In the same year he effected other treaties with the Saginaw, the Swan Creek, and Black River bands. In January, 1837, he negotiated successfully another Indian treaty at Detroit, and in the following December still another at Flint River; while, in the same and following year, he took measures for the removal of the bands remaining in Ohio, and some of those who had ceded their possessions in Michigan. In 1839, the Department of War transferred to Mr. S. the additional duties of principal disbursing agent for the northern department, which agency had formerly been in the charge of a field-officer of the United States Army. "For these quadruple and highly responsible duties," says Mr. Schoolcraft in his appeal to the government, "all extra compensatien has been withheld till the present moment-a mere Agent's Salary being all that was ever received."

In 1841, Mr. Schoolcraft issued proposals for an Indian Cyclopedia, geographical, historical, philological, &c., only one number of which, we believe, ever appeared, owing to the difficulty of finding a publisher to carry on a work necessarily so expensive in character. In the next year, he visited England, France, Germany, Prussia and Holland, chiefly with the intention of attracting notice to his proposed great work, and with the hope of getting some European publishing-house to undertake it. While in England, he read several scientific papers before different learned bodies. Since his return, Mr. Schoolcraft has still made another tour to the west, for the sake of exploring the antiquities of some of the great mounds, regarding which he communicated a paper to the Royal Geographical Society of Denmark, of which, many years ago, he was made an honorary member. His chief literary labor since then, has been the task of editing his various MS. journals, relating to the history, poetry, traditions,

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