RUSTIC BRIDGE, NORWICH.
Norwich is ranged about a hill overlooking the Thames. It is on a point of rock-land infolded by two streams, the Yantic and Shetucket, that come tumbling and hurrying down from the higher northern ranges to meet and kiss each other in the Thames. Rising, terrace above terrace, the appearance of Norwich, as viewed from the river, is more striking in its ensemble than by reason of particular features. The water-side is the familiar dull red, above which glancing roofs and steeples among trees are seen retreating up the ascent. By night a ridged and chimneyed blackness bestrewed with lights rewards the curious gazer from the deck of a Sound steamboat. I admired in Norwich the broad avenues, the wealth of old trees, the luxurious spaciousness of the private grounds. Washington Street is one of the finest I have walked in. There is breathing-room everywhere, town and country seeming to meet and clasp hands, each giving to the other of the best it had to offer. I do not mean that Norwich is countrified; but its mid-city is so easily escaped as to do away with the feeling of imprisonment in a wilderness of brick, stone, and plate-glass. The suburban homes of Norwich have an air of substantial comfort and delicious seclusion. In brief, wherever one has made up his mind to be buried, he would like to live in Norwich.
OLD MILL, NORWICH.
There are not a few picturesque objects about Norwich, especially by the shores of the Yantic, which, since being robbed of the falls, once its pride and glory, has become a prosaic mill-stream.[329] The water is of the blackness of Acheron, streaked with amber where it falls over rocks, and of a rusty brown in shallows, as if partaking of the color of bits of decayed wood or dead leaves which one sees at the bottom. The stream, after having been vexed by dams and tossed about by mill-wheels, bounds joyously, and with some touch of savage freedom, to strike hands with the Shetucket.
The practical reader should be told that the city of Norwich is the outgrowth and was of yore the landing of Norwich town, two miles above it. The city was then known as Chelsea and Norwich Landing. The Mohegans were lawful owners of the soil. Subsequent to the Pequot war hostilities broke out between Uncas, chief of the Mohegans, and Miantonimo, the Narraganset sachem. The Narragansets invaded the territory of the Mohegans, and a battle occurred on the Great Plains, near Greenville, a mile and a half below Norwich. The Narragansets suffered defeat, and their chief became a prisoner. He was delivered by Uncas to the English, who condemned him to death, and devolved upon Uncas the execution of the sentence. The captive chief was led to the spot where he had been made prisoner, and, while stalking with Indian stoicism in the midst of his enemies, was killed by one blow from a tomahawk at the signal of Uncas. Miantonimo was buried where he fell, and from him the spot takes its name of Sachem's Plain.[330]
SIGNATURES OF UNCAS AND HIS SONS.