But the next morning early, from one of the small fortified villages of the Indians some miles from their great Castle, no less than six young men set out at different times, and took their way separately through the woods. One said to his wife, as he left her,--
"I go to hunt the moose." And one to his sister, "I go to kill the deer." And another told his squaw the same story; but she laughed, and answered,--
"Thou art careful of thy goods, my husband. Truth is too precious a thing to be used on all occasions. Thou keepest it for the time of need."
The man smiled, and patted her cheek, saying,--
"Keep thine own counsel, wife; and when I lie to thee, seem not to know it."
[CHAPTER XXIX.]
In the chain of low cliffs which ran at the distance of four or five miles from the Oneida village, and to which, probably, at one time the waters of the lake had extended, was a deep cleft or fissure in the hard rock, fourteen or fifteen yards in width at its widest part, and narrower at the mouth than in the interior. One of the rocks, at the time I speak of, though large masses have fallen since, and a good deal altered the features of the scene, abutted considerably over its base, and projected so far as almost to touch the opposite crag, giving the mouth of the fissure somewhat the appearance of a cave. On either side, the walls of this gloomy dell were perpendicular--in some places even overhanging; and at the end, where it might have been expected to slope gradually away to the upland, the general character of the scene was merely diversified by a break fifteen or sixteen feet from the ground, dividing the face of the crag nearly into two equal parts. Beneath this ledge was a hollow of four or five feet in depth, rendering ascent from that side impracticable.
It is probable that at some time in the long, unknown past of America a river poured here over the edge of the cliff, wearing away the solid rock by its continued action; and, as in the case of Niagara, carrying the cataract further and further back with each succeeding year, but without diminishing the precipitancy of the fall. The stone was of a loose and friable nature, breaking, by all the various accidents of the seasons, into strange and uncouth forms; and altogether the place, rarely if ever visited by the sun, would have been one of the most dim and gloomy that can be conceived, had not some light feathery shrubs and trees perched themselves upon several prominent points, especially where the ledge I have mentioned marked out the former site of the cascade.
Underneath that ledge, at the time referred to, had been hastily constructed a small hut or Indian lodge, formed of stakes driven into the ground, and covered over skilfully enough with bark, branches, and other materials of the forest. A door had apparently been brought for it from some distance; for it was evidently old, and had strange figures painted on it in red. Across this door was fixed a great bar, which would indeed have been very useless, had not the stakes forming the walls of the hut been placed close together, rendering it in reality much stronger than an ordinary Indian lodge.
On the day after Otaitsa's expedition, mentioned in the preceding chapter, sixteen or eighteen Oneidas of different ages, but none of them far advanced in life, gathered round the mouth of the cleft, and conversed together for several minutes, in low tones, and with their usual slow and deliberate manner. At the end of their conference, one seated himself on a stone near the entrance, two advanced into the chasm, and the rest dispersed themselves in different directions through the woods.