Ah, what is that which draws tears to the eyes of the dreamer, and brings sighs to his labouring heart? He beholds an Indian mother lying dead in the skirts of the forest. Upon her arm is laid a little child, and beside them, leaning on a bow, is the husband of the one and the father of the other. Sorrow has bowed him down, as far as the soul of an Indian may be bowed—there are no tears in his eyes, yet distress is written on the features of his face, in letters of enduring agony. For a while he surveys the scene of death in stern silence, but soon the memory of his wrongs weighs upon his soul and rouses him to action. He springs upon his feet, and his shrill war-whoop rings through the forest, like the echo of the tap of the woodpecker on the hollow beech. His eye flashes fire as he grasps his war spear, and his laugh, when he examines his good ash bow, is like the cry of a hungry panther. Is not vengeance his? Look at yonder flames! He hath kindled them. Listen to that wail of many over the slaughtered corpses of their friends, who lay down to rest at the beginning of darkness, and woke ere the sun came over the hills in the shades of the valley of death. Bitterly, deeply, deadly, has the son of Alknomook revenged his own, and the wrongs of his race.
Again the dreamer saw, and still his dream was of the land where he dwelt. He saw the two sister Genii sitting in the same spot where he had at first beheld them. She who was of the far clime still retained the beauty and grace which were her's when her little foot first touched the greensward of the hitherto, by her, untrodden island. Still around her head was bound the grape-vine laden with rich, ripe, clusters, amongst which were intermingled locks of hair, of a hue resembling the yellow leaf. Still were her round and plump arms bound with the shining bracelets, and her long and slender fingers adorned with the glittering rings. The sheaf of nodding grain was still an emblem of her power, and the shell and sceptre another. But she wore no more the suppliant air which at first distinguished her. Pride and haughtiness, and command and oppression, were now written on her face, and ruled her gestures.
By her side stood the other Genius, the spirit of the land, her elder sister—but oh, how changed! Her once glossy black locks now hung uncombed upon a shoulder once beautifully rounded, but rounded no longer; her mocassins were torn and soiled; and missing from her wrists and ancles the gay ornaments of bead and shell-work which adorned them in the day of her prosperity and pride. The feathers of the canieu or war-eagle, and the painted vulture, towered above her head no more, and gone from her shoulder was the emblem of the race over which she had borne rule, the bow and the arrow.
Anon these two sisters entered into speech with each other. She who was of the land, from the moment that the Bird of Ages planted it in the bosom of the waters, said to the other,
"Thou hast a most beautiful land."
"It is indeed a most beautiful land," answered the other, casting her eye proudly over the space beneath her feet.
"It has lofty mountains."
"Its mountains are very lofty."
"It has many rapid and beautiful rivers."
"It has."