radical changes in political opinion, are as remarkable, | new philosophy sedulously sought to obliterate every though not quite so rapid, as the revolutions of fashion trace of its existence, by the abolition of institutions in the cut of a coat or the maxims of etiquette. Take which had prevailed for twenty centuries. The sabbath religion: its state and condition how surprisingly dif- was changed into the decade, and the surplus of five ferent at different times!! Let us go back somewhat days, which were thus left in the year, were called in more than a century. In the 46th number of Addison's the republican calendar the sans cullottidès! The contaSpectator of the date of April 1717, we have the fol-gion of infidelity spread far beyond the limits of the lowing letter illustrative of the state of things at that day.

"Sir, I am one of those unhappy men that are plagued with a gospel gossip, so common among the dissenters. Lectures in the morning, church meetings at noon and preparation sermons at night, take up so much of her time, it is very rare she knows what we have for dinner, unless when the preachers are to be at it. If at any time I have her company alone, she is a mere sermon pop-gun repeating and discharging texts, proofs and applications so perpetually, that the noise in my head will not let me sleep till towards morning. The misery of my case is great, and great numbers of such sufferers plead for your pity and speedy relief, otherwise we must expect in a little time to be lectured, preached and prayed into want, unless the happiness of being sooner talked to death prevent it. Yours, &c.

R. G."

new republic. It was smuggled into the American States, with the extravagancies of Jacobin principles, which received too ready an admission from the votaries of rational liberty among us. The effect was correspondent. The religious institutions of the land withered at the touch of that great pollution. Religion was not only neglected but mocked at and despised; and though the benign spirit of our institutions forbade persecution in its most odious forms, yet the bigotry of skepticism—not more tolerant than the bigotry of the fanatic, looked with contempt and contumely on the scanty few, who still were followers of the cross, and faithful to their divine master through good and evil repute. Again a change has come over the face of things. The reign of skepticism has been short, and religion has once more resumed her sway. The pendulum has made a complete vibration, and we are now, as in the days of Addison, in danger of falling into the opposite extreme of "gospel gossiping."

Who would not think that this letter was written in these our own times, which exhibit occasionally, at what are called "revivals," the same inveterate spirit I tremble to think that these mutations in human of church going and "gospel gossips?" And yet how affairs are destined sooner or later to sap our politinumerous have been the ebbs and flows of fanaticism cal institutions. The fluctuations of opinion on the and even of "pure religion and undefiled," since the subject of forms of government already begin to show day when Addison, the gifted champion of christianity, themselves among us. Not only are there those who, thought it necessary to chastise the excesses of its vo-weary of the Union, would willingly go back to the taries by his ingenious and amusing satire. I remember wretched system of independent states, or throw themwell the decorous solemnities of the church more than selves upon the protection of a feeble confederacy, but fifty years ago and the respectful deference which was there are others in whom fretfulness at the triumph of paid to all its ministers. I remember well the punc-political adversaries inspires a doubt of the success tuality with which upon my knees at the lap of a of our experiment in representative democracy, and sainted mother, my hands were lifted up, morning and prompts a secret sigh for institutions like those of the evening, to the giver of all good, in my little prayers. father land. These you may occasionally hear gloomily Then came the tempest of the French revolution. It suggesting that a people never can be happy under a swept away religion as with a besom.* It struck government like this, and that our rights would be more down the ancient monarchy with all its appendages, secure and our prosperity less interrupted under the and the ecclesiastical state, which clung to it like a pa- rule of Nicholas or Napoleon, or the gentle reign of the rasitical plant, went with it. But as sometimes hap- young Victoria. God forbid that our cycle should as to pens in the convulsions of a revolution, the destruc- this matter be very speedily accomplished. But the tion of abuses involved the eradication of much that versatility of public opinion leaves no room for much was sacred and most worthy of veneration. Reli- confidence in the permanence of our institutions. Of gion itself fell into disrepute, and the apostles of the this versatility, daily evidence is afforded. Take a single

It must not be forgotten, however, that the poison of infidelity was long circulating through Europe before its signal triumph in the French Revolution. To mention the names of Voltaire, D'Alembert, Condorcet and Jean Jaques Rousseau, and of Hume, Helvetius and other disciples of the same school, is scarcely necessary. But there is one not so generally known who far surpassed them all in the boldness of his blasphemies. I allude to the Baron D'Holbach, a German writer, of whom Voltaire thus speaks in a letter to D'Alembert: "I have just read 'Good Sense.' There is more than good sense in that work. It is terrible." And D'Alembert echoes back the remark: "I think as you do in regard to 'Good Sense,' which appears to me a much more terrible book than The System of Nature." What, reader, think you must be the character of that work, the hardihood and blasphemies of which were terrible even to Voltaire and D'Alembert? And yet, believe me, it is far worse than your imagination, even thus aided, can suggest. D'Holbach was

born at Heidelshiem in 1723 and died in 1789. He lived principally in Paris, and was a member of the academies of Petersburg, Berlin, &c.

instance. The sentiment has now become familiar that a slave population is the happiest in the world, and that the existence of slavery is neither a moral nor political evil. Compare this growing sentiment with the opinions of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison and George Wythe, and their disciples. Compare it with the sentiments boldly, though indiscreetly advanced, about five years ago in the General Assembly of Virginia; and we shall see at once how little confidence can be placed in the steadfastness of our principles. Whether wrong then or now, is immaterial to the matter in hand. The change itself establishes the position for which alone we contend. It sustains the charge of fickleness and versatility, and with fear of greater changes, perplexes and confounds us. The human mind, emancipated in this happy country from every fetter, riots in its liberty and runs into ex

longer they have lasted and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that the stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. If they find what they seek, and they seldom fail, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice and leave nothing but the naked reason; because prejudice with its reason has a motive to give action to that reason and an affection which will give it permanence. Prejudice is of ready application in emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice his duty becomes a part of his nature."-If I cannot concur in carrying these opinions to the extent to which Mr. Burke would carry them, there are yet some prejudices that I would anxiously cherish in the bosoms of the rising generation; I speak of our prejudices in favor of our free institutions and of that union which under heaven is their surest guarantee.

tremes. The trammels of prejudice having been thrown all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very conaside, we look to the benign light of reason alone to di-siderable degree, and, to take more shame to ourselves, rect our pursuit of truth. But unhappily the mists of we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the passion and the ignes fatui of theoretic notions, entice us from the paths of true wisdom, and we wander backwards and forwards in the trackless regions of boundless speculation. The inevitable consequence is, that all principles are unsettled and all opinions unstable. There is nothing sure, nothing sacred, nothing immutable among us. We have no axioms (in politics, at least,) which may not be contested, no postulates which may not be denied. The great problem yet to be solved by the statesmen of the country, is to give steadfastness to opinions and stability to principle; to correct that perpetual tendency to change which gives some fitness to the comparison of a republic to a vessel that is tossed upon the unquiet waves of the never resting ocean. This problem can only be solved through the agency of education; not in the learning of the schools alone, or in the acquisition of a wretched smattering in ancient tongues, but in the great lessons of wisdom and virtue also. We must, in this respect at least, take our model from the ancient philosophers. Our youth must be taught things as well as words. The schools of ethics must devote themselves less to the metaphysics of the science, than to the great and practical principles of true wisdom. The pulpit, instead of being confined to the mysteries of theology and the discussion of intricate points of doctrine, must condescend to instruct their flocks in the great duties of life. They must mingle with the lessons of christianity, the inculcation of the beauty of virtue and the temporal as well as eternal advantages of a pure and sublime morality. That, after all, is the only foundation upon which political philosophy can firmly rest. The principles of right and wrong are ingrained in the nature of things. They are as eternal and immutable as the heavens from which they emanate. What rests upon them will be steadfast and enduring, instead of undergoing that perpetual vacillation which is fated to every institution built upon the principles of "adulterated metaphysics."

ADAM O'BRIEN.

GARULUS.

About the year 18—, I left the valley of the Shenandoah, on an excursion over the Alleghany range of mountains, which I had never traversed before that I shall conclude my "rambles" by a short quotation time. It was early in the month of May, and the from Edmund Burke, though his political speculations broad and fertile lands of the garden of Virginia were are in very bad odor with us. In his splendid decla- putting on their rich verdure, and the forests had unmations in defence of antiquated error, there is never- folded their leaves, and the whole air was redolent with theless intermingled much profound wisdom, which our the blossoms of our flowering locust. As I ascended prejudices against him and his opinions ought not to the steep and rugged road from the mouth of Savage lead us to disregard. Though he may cherish too far to the Backbone, vegetation gradually disappeared, and the growth of our prejudices, it behooves us to take every bud was as closely locked up on the summit as in care that in attempting to eradicate them, we do not the middle of winter. The view, though unobstructed root out also our most valuable principles. Let us not by foliage, was not, however, as extensive as my fancy destroy the wheat in pulling up the tares. Let us be had suggested, and far less imposing than many mouncareful, while we disabuse the mind of pernicious pre-tain prospects with which I was familiar. On the right, judices, to fill their place with the sound and well re- however, you see, in your ascent, the vast cleft in the flected opinions of wise and virtuous men: let us "engage the mind in a steady course of wisdom and of virtue," and fill it with good principles "of ready application in the emergency," so that the man may not "be left hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved." "You see, sir," says Mr. Burke,* "that in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess that we are generally men of untaught feelings; that instead of casting away

Vol. III, 106, 107.

great Alleghany, through which, the Crab-tree and Deep creek pour their waters, forming with the rills that tumble from the mountain sides, the Savage river, which I had just passed. In the distance this cleft or gap looks as regular as the chop of the woodman's axe. It is the most stupendous chasm I have ever seen, and is one of the greatest curiosities of our mountain country. It is not universally known that the most western waters of old Cohongaronta (for that was one of the Indian names of the Potomac) rise on the western side of the great Backbone; so that the lofty ridge of the

Passing Kingwood, the county-town of Preston, evening brought me to Gandy's, far famed as being the worst house on the road. But unfortunately there is no missing it. He who luxuriates one night at Armstrong's, was always destined inevitably to all sorts of discomfort at Gandy's. It is situated at the eastern base of Laurel Hill, which seems to say to the wearied traveller, with more success and less presumption, than Canute to the ocean-" Thus far shalt thou go and no further." Accordingly I resigned myself to my fate and entered the uncomfortable "Place to rest at for travellers." As I walked into the apartment and drew my chair near the fire, my eye was attracted by an aged man, who was eating his very frugal meal at a table, almost as long as the side of the house, to which it seemed attached as a fixture. His back was to me, and though the scanty gray locks which were scattered on his scalp bore evidence of his great age, yet his brawny shoulders and muscular frame seemed to contradict their testimony. He wore a hunting shirt dyed with arnotto according to the fashion of the country, and his dress otherwise corresponded with this indication of his condition in life. The old lady who was giving him his supper was herself nearly eighty years of age, and was engaged in conversation when I entered. The first sentence I heard was from her lips.

"And how old are you now, sir?" said she.
"Ninety-three, madam," said he.
The answer startled me.

"Ninety-three," said I, "and where do you live?"
"In Kanawha, sir."

Alleghany does not in this spot divide the eastern and the western waters from each other. The dividing ridge is a small mountain which does not exceed five hundred feet in height, and forms by its semicircular shape a sort of cove, behind the great mountain, within which the waters gather that make the Savage river. They then pour themselves through the mighty gap which some convulsion has opened for them, the sides of which cannot be less than 2,000 feet in height. After dwelling for some time on this stupendous object, I descended into the glades, whose beautiful natural meadows, interspersed with small hillocks, covered with clumps of trees free from undergrowth, were in striking contrast to the rugged scenery of the frowning mountain. The soil is, however, cold, and the seasons as backward as on the highest pinnacle of the Alleghany. The consequence is, that population is very scanty, though the country is often covered with beautiful herds of cattle, which are driven from Hampshire, Hardy and other counties, in the spring, to range in those abundant pastures during the heats of summer. Pursuing my way through the continuous meadows to the little Yough, I found myself at sunset in comfortable quarters at old Armstrong's, with a good fire, which the cool evenings made agreeable; and strong coffee, good tea, exquisite venison and fine trout to regale me. Next morning I resumed my march with little hope of such another inn. In a dozen miles I left the glades, and ascended Briary or Cheat mountain, the view from which is not less magnificent than that from the Warm Spring rock. At its foot, on the western side, roll the waters of the Cheat, the largest branch of the Monongahela, bordered by some fertile low grounds, and forming where the road crosses the river a beautiful farm called the Dunkard's bottom. I paused on the bank of this noble stream, not with admiration only, but with doubt about crossing it. I heard at the inn that it was fordable, but as I was also told a man had been drowned there only half an hour before, and as I knew how reckless of danger backwoodsmen are, I was still hesitating. Just then a horseman appeared on the opposite bank. Though distant three hundred yards, I could discover that he was a stout, fat man, on a very small and weak horse, riding on a large bag, and his bridle reins, as I afterwards found, were made of a strong tow string. He plunged in and the water was in an instant up to the My curiosity was very much excited by this account root of his horse's tail. He laid himself back pretty of himself, from the lips of a patriarch bordering on a much at his case, and left his little horse to feel his way hundred years of age, and not less so by the plain and among the huge stones that render that ford one of the simple good manners of the venerable old man. So as worst in Virginia. He stemmed the torrent success- soon as our scanty and uninviting meal was ended, I fully, and at length reached the shore. "Good God, took the liberty of asking the name and somewhat of friend," said I, "how could you venture across this tor- the history of this pilgrim through life's weary way, rent on that little horse with your weight, and that large who at more than fourscore and ten years was still bag full of oats?" "Lord bless you, sir," said he, "I did struggling in the humble walks of life; still pursuing not care nothing at all about it. You see, sir, I knows with unextinguished zeal some phantom—some hope— this here river as well as my own cabin. You must some glow worm fire, and still looking to earth as to his know I was the ferryman here many a day, and many home, instead of pointing for it, like Anaxagoras, to the a time I have swum it when it wur higher nor it is now. skies. What hope-what object could have tempted So if I had got a ducking, I could ha' got out slick him so far from home? Was it that he could say in the enough." As I had no fancy, however, for such a navi-pathetic language which even Burns could envy,

gation, and had not been trained to the dauntless habits of our hardy highlanders, who fear nothing, and always "go ahead," whatever stands in the way, I quietly wended my way to the ferry, where I passed dry shod, and escaped a cold bath at the expense of a ninepence.

"In Kanawha! why that is one hundred and fifty miles from here."

"Yes, sir."

"And how did you get here?"
"I walked."

"And how far do you walk in a day over these mountains?"

"About twenty-five miles, sir," said he.

I was much surprised, but here suspended my examination. The old lady recommenced hers. "And how old is your youngest child, sir," said she. "A year last April, madam," said he.. "And how old is your eldest?" said I. "Sixty-four years old," said he.*

"Na'e hame ha'e I, the minstrel said,

Sad party strife o'erturned my ha',
And lonely at the eve of life,

I wander thro' a wreath of snaw"?

*The above detail, as well as what follows, is literally true.

the peace in sixty-three, so we were as well off as could be in these here backwood settlements. We had tramped through the woods too often not to know where the good land was upon the water courses. Some squatted here and some there-near enough to hear a dog bark or the crack of a rifle, but not too near neither. There was a fine place at the Dunkard bottom, and

It was not this: he had a wife and a young child the object of his cares. Was the burden beyond his strength? Then he had a son of more than sixty, on whom to lean in his latter day, when pressed by the hand of rude mischance, and compelled to throw himself and his helpless charge upon another for protection and support. What then was the motive of this wanderer through almost trackless mountains-on foot-there, there was a settlement, and there was a settlealone-his staff his only stay, and even without a dog for company? Reader! he was on his way to the county of Monongalia to ferret out a LAND TITLE !

ment where Clarksburg now is. This, mind, was just after the peace, when Fauquier was governor. Well, we all had our little cabins, that hadn't a nail in 'em, but the roof was of clapboards, kept on by a long sap. line laid crosswise, and tied fast with hickory withes. You may see some of the like of 'em now in the nooks of the hills. And we had our little patch of corn and potatoes, and powder and ball enough to keep us in bear meat and venison. And now and then a pedler would come over among us, with a little rum and ammunition, and some pins and needles for our old women, and a heap o' little matters that would suit the like of us. We had no money-not even a cut half-bit; but every body had skins, and that was the very things the pedlers come for. And if so be, one had no skins, his neigh

I am well aware that in any other country than this, my story would be disbelieved. My readers would set me down as a pretender in the almost threadbare art of romancing, and my only credit would be the zeal which I display in contributing my mite to your pages. But those who are familiar with American backwoodsmen, feel and understand at once, how powerful a motive with an old settler and locator of land-warrants, is the hope of securing a title to some scanty glen among the hills, or of discovering a spot of vacant land between the boundaries of other occupants. Upon inquiry, I found that my new acquaintance was no other than Adam O'Brien, of celebrated memory in the north-bor would lend him some, and next time, maybe, he western part of Virginia, where his name or rather its initials are to be found marked on numerous trees as evidences of settlement. He was, I think, an Irishman by birth, though he was certainly in Virginia as long ago as the war of 1756, at the time of Braddock's defeat. At a later period he seems to have gone over the Alleghany, contrary to the King's proclamation, and was found in that region at the commencement of Indian hostilities before the battle of the Point in 1774. In this situation he became an Indian scout or ranger, and passed his days upon the frontier, amid all the hardships and privations of the forest, and in perpetual hazard of the tomahawk and the scalping knife.

After learning his name, and the service in which he had been engaged in the prime of life, I asked him what circumstances had led him at so early a day to pass into the wilderness and encounter all the perils and the sufferings of the frontier. "Why, Lord bless you, sir," said he, "I did not mind it a bit. It was just what I liked. You see I was a poor man, and I had got behind hand, and when that's the case you know there's no staying in the settlements for those varments, the sheriffs and the constables. They are worse than Ingians any day, for you daren't kill 'em no how. Now you know the King's proclamation* warned every body to keep the other side the big ridge, so there was no people over on this side except what run away from justice; and when they got here they were as free as the biggest buck agoing. The red men lay still after *I presume he alluded to the proclamation of 1763, which reserved "the lands and territories lying to the westward of the sources of the rivers which fall into the sea from the west and north-west," and "strictly forbid on pain of the King's dis. pleasure all his loving subjects from making any purchases or settlements of any of the said lands without his special leave." It also expressly enjoined upon all officers to seize and apprehend all persons whatever, who, standing charged with treasons, misprisions of treasons, murders, or other felonies, or

misdemeanors, shall fly from justice, and take refuge in the said territory, and send them under proper guard to the colony where the crime was committed, &c. in order to take their trial for the same." The trans-alleghany country thus appears to have been the city of refuge of those early times.

would have to borrow. And we all wur snug and comfortable, I tell you. But at last came the Revolution, and there was a land office opened for patenting the vacant lands; and then the land spekulators poured upon us; and as all settlement rights were saved, all our settlements were as good as gold, and we set about making new settlements. That was easy done. There was nothing to do but mark your name on a tree, and cut down a few saplines and plant a handful of corn, and you'd get a right to four hundred acres of land, though it afterwards cost a good deal of hard swearing, as you may guess. You may see A. O. B. now upon a heap of the trees in the woods through the country here. That stands for Adam O'Brien. That's my name; and I was employed to make settlements on the good lands, and many of 'em I did make sure enough, and after all I am now as poor as a bear in the month of March.

"Well, as I was a saying, we lived quite happy before the Revolution, for there was no courts and no law and no sheriffs in this here country, and we all agreed very well. But by-and-bye the country came to be settled; the people begun to come in, and then there was need for law; and then came the lawyers, and next came the preachers, and from that time we never had any peace any more. The lawyers persuaded us when we lent our skins to our neighbors that we ought to take a due bill for 'em, and then if they did'nt pay they never let us alone tell we sued 'em ; and then the preachers convarted one-half, and they begura to quarrel with t'other half, because they would not take care of their own souls; and from that time we never had any peace for our soul or body. And as for the sheriffs, the varmints, they were worse than a wild cat or a painter;* for they'd take the last coverlit from your wife's straw bed, or turn her out of doors in a storm. Oh Lord! oh Lord! its I that knows it! my old blood gets hot when I think of it. My second wife, no, it was my third wife, was lying in of her fourth child in the cold winter,' in the middle of January.

* Panther.

One of these here spekulators had brought suit agin | He then followed on the trail 'till about dark he came to me for my little settlement, and what with bad man- where they were camped in the fork of two little cricks. agement and hard swearing and perjury, he gained it. And there was his little daughter in the thick of them. And the sheriff come one snowy day in January, with 1 forget how many they were, but not many; so he a writ of possession to turn me out, and out we went, makes for home as fast as he can-gets back to the setand my poor wife I took to an old cabin that had but tlement and gets what neighbors he can to go with him. half a roof on, and she never was out of it till she come And so they went, and 'tween daylight and sunrise they out a corpse. I'll tell you, what mister, I thought I'd come upon 'em, where they were with the little gal. rather live among the savages all my days, and take They sneaked up and all were to fire together, and he my chance of a tomahawk, than live among justices of begs them for God's sake not to hit his child. And so peace and lawyers and sheriffs, who with all their they let fly, and some tumbled down, and some jumped civility, a'nt got no natral feeling in 'em. They sarved up and run off, and Hart and his men set up a whoop, me amost as bad as the copper devils sarved old Tom and rushed on and saved the child and carried her safe Hart there down upon the Ohio."* back, and ever since that time he's been mortal innimy to all the race, and I raly think he would kill one if he was to see him, no matter where. And yet he got his spite out of 'em at the battle of the Point. How many he killed that day he never could say for sartain; but

"How was that?" said I, willing to divert the mind of the poor old man from reminiscences that seemed to shake his aged frame with emotion.

"Oh!" said he, "it was a sad affair, but what every body looked for in them hard times. I heard old Hart | he could swear to two, for as the Ingians and white men

tell about it myself, one time when the Osages was. coming into Virginia on their way to the seat of government. They staid all night at Gallipolis, a little below the Point,† not far from where I live, and they were to have a war-dance, and the folks all wanted to go over from the Point to see it, and they wanted Hart to go. And he would'nt. And they asked him why not? And he said because he should want to kill one of them, and he said he was too old to commit murder, and the Indians were all at peace, and it would be a sin to kill one, but if he was to go he should want to kill one of the damned copperheads. And so he up and told what aggravated him so much agin 'em.

"You must know, just about the time of the battle of the Point the Ingians was even on, around the settlements. The settlers were sometimes forted, but whenever the innimy retired they went on to their settlements agin to plant and work their corn, and then the savages would come upon 'em of a sudden, and burn and scalp and slaughter all they come across. The man of the house had to go to the field with his gun, and oftentimes when he was at the plough the woman kept watch with the rifle. Rich people, mister, who have now got all these here lands, don't think much of what a world of suffering they cost the poor settlers. Well! Tom Hart went out one morning to plough, leaving his wife and children at home, and taking his rifle to shoot a buck if he should see one, for he never mistrusted about the Ingians, as it was rather before the troubles broke out, and they had for sometime been quiet. As he was coming home from his work what should he see but his house all afire. He run on, not slow, I tell you, and when he got there, he burst through the fire and found his wife and one child tomahawked and scalped and t'other child gone. He rushed out-for the fire was too hot for him to stay, and took the trail and followed on. He heard a cry like a wild turkey, and he knew it was an Ingian. So he got behind a tree and answered him; and presently a tall Ingian come tramping through the bushes, thinking 'twas another Ingian that answered. So he shot him.

The above recital is as nearly as I can recollect a substantially accurate statement of the old man's remarks. † Point Pleasant.

Gathered together in a fort with block houses for defence.

were treed, whenever they could they took good sight, and twant hard to tell when they knocked one over."

A new subject was thus broached, and I asked him if he was at the battle of the Point; he answered in the affirmative, and told me a good many things about it which I had heard before. I was particularly struck with his account of old Cornstalk, the Indian chief, who commanded the red men. He was often during the day on a little hillock where he could command a view of the whole battle, and gave his orders in a voice like a speaking trumpet. The old man could not repress his admiration of the noble savage, though he was his natural enemy, and he inveighed in strong language against the manner in which he was slain.

We sat till late bedtime chatting about Indian affairs and early times. I remember a little anecdote which gives a vivid idea of the state of the frontier population, while the Indians were yet hovering around them. Clarksburg was a small village much exposed, and the children were kept within very narrow limits, lest a lurking savage should chance to fall upon them. The little urchins, however, then, as now, sometimes broke their bounds. One evening, when a squad of them had wandered too far, they discovered an Indian who was creeping up to surprise them. They all set off for home at full speed, and the Indian finding himself discovered, pursued them fiercely with his tomahawk. The larger children were ahead, but one little fellow, though he ran his best, fell into the rear, and the savage was gaining on him. At last the boy got so far that his pursuer stopped, poised his tomahawk and threw it at him, but missed; upon which, the dauntless child, looking back, exclaimed, "Ahah! you missed me though, you slink."

After several hours of interesting conversation with the old centenarian, we retired to rest. The next morning, though I rose with the sun, he was gone before I was up, and two days afterwards I met him again in Clarksburg, which he had reached after a circuit of more than sixty miles, travelling on foot at about thirty miles a day. How he succeeded in his land claim I never heard, nor do I know whether he yet lives. The days of his pilgrimage are probably ended, though his brawny frame, his firm and well developed muscles, and his fine "thews and sinews" might well have lasted him for half a century more.

A TRAVELLER.