"——Such beauty, varying in the light
Of gorgeous nature, cannot be portrayed
By words, nor by the pencil's silent skill;
But is the property of those alone
Who have beheld it, noted it with care,
And, in their minds, recorded it with love."
What wonder, then, that, amid a scene like this, where the summer reigned, and young autumn was beginning to anticipate its mellow glories, the traveller should in a measure have forgotten his vocation, and loitered lazily along his way!
Portage des Sioux, Mo.
XXV
"There's music in the forest leaves
When summer winds are there,
And in the laugh of forest girls
That braid their sunny hair."
Halleck.
"The forests are around him in their pride,
The green savannas, and the mighty waves;
And isles of flowers, bright floating o'er the tide
That images the fairy world it laves."
Hemans.
There is one feature of the Mamelle Prairie, besides its eminent beauty and its profusion of flowering plants, which distinguishes it from every other with which I have met. I allude to the almost perfect uniformity of its surface. There is little of that undulating, wavelike slope and swell which characterizes the peculiar species of surface called prairie. With the exception of a few lakes, abounding with aquatic plants and birds, and those broad furrows traversing the plain, apparently ancient beds of the rivers, the surface appears smooth as a lawn. This circumstance goes far to corroborate the idea of alluvial origin. And thus it was that, lost in a mazy labyrinth of grass and flowers, I wandered on over the smooth soil of the prairie, quite regardless of the whereabout my steps were conducting me. The sun was just going down when my horse entered a slight footpath leading into a point of woodland upon [32] the right. This I pursued for some time, heedlessly presuming that it would conduct me to the banks of the river; when, lo! to my surprise, on emerging from the forest, I found myself in the midst of a French village, with its heavy roofs and broad piazzas. Never was the lazy hero of Diedrich Knickerbocker—luckless Rip—more sadly bewildered, after a twenty years' doze among the Hudson Highlands, than was your loiterer at this unlooked-for apparition. To find one's self suddenly translated from the wild, flowery prairie into the heart of an aged, moss-grown village, of such foreign aspect, withal, was by no means easy to reconcile with one's notions of reality. Of the name, or even the existence of the village, I had been quite as ignorant as if it had never possessed either; and in vain was it that I essayed, in my perplexity, to make myself familiar with these interesting items of intelligence by inquiry of the primitive-looking beings whom I chanced to encounter, as I rode slowly on into the village through the tall stoccades of the narrow streets. Every one stared as I addressed him; but, shaking his head and quickening his pace, pointed me on in the direction I was proceeding, and left me to pursue it in ignorance and single blessedness. This mystery—for thus to my excited fancy did it seem—became at length intolerable. Drawing up my horse before the open door of a cottage, around which, beneath the galleries, were gathered a number of young people of both sexes, I very peremptorily made the demand where I was. All stared, and some few took it upon them, graceless youths, to [33] laugh; until, at length, a dark young fellow, with black eyes and black whiskers, stepped forward, and, in reply to my inquiry repeated, informed me that the village was called "Portage des Sioux;" that the place of my destination was upon the opposite bank of the Mississippi, several miles above—too distant to think of regaining my route at that late hour; and very politely the dark young man offered to procure for me accommodation for the night, though the village could boast no inn. Keeping close on the heels of my conducteur, I again began to thrid the narrow lanes of the hamlet, from the doors and windows of every cottage of which peeped forth an eager group of dark-eyed women and children, in uncontrolled curiosity at the apparition of a stranger in their streets at such an advanced hour of the day. The little village seemed completely cut off from all the world beside, and as totally unconscious of the proceedings of the community around as if it were a portion of another hemisphere. The place lies buried in forest except upon the south, where it looks out upon the Mamelle Prairie, and to the north is an opening in the belt of woods along the river-bank, through which, beyond the stream, rise the white cliffs in points and pinnacles like the towers and turrets of a castellated town, to the perpendicular altitude of several hundred feet. The scene was one of romantic beauty, as the moonbeams silvered the forest-tops and cliffs, flinging their broad shadows athwart the bosom of the waters, gliding in oily rippling at their base. The site of Portage des Sioux is about seven miles above [34] the town of Alton, and five below the embouchure of the Illinois. Its landing is good; it contains three or four hundred inhabitants, chiefly French; can boast a few trading establishments, and, as is invariably the case in the villages of this singular people, however inconsiderable, has an ancient Catholic church rearing its gray spire above the low-roofed cottages. Attached to it, also, is a "common field" of twelve hundred arpens—something less than as many acres—stretching out into the prairie. The soil is, of course, incomparably fertile. The garden-plats around each door were dark with vegetation, overtopping the pickets of the enclosures; and away to the south into the prairie swept the broad maize-fields nodding and rustling in all the gorgeous garniture of summer.
My conducteur stopped, at length, at the gate of a small brick tenement, the only one in the village, whose modern air contrasted strangely enough with the venerable aspect of everything else; and having made known my necessities through the medium of sundry Babel gibberings and gesticulations, he left me with the promise to call early in the morning and see me on my way.