How otherwise thy sister, yea, the Soul,
Bent brooding o'er these broken wings of thine!
Through all her house of mystery once she stole
To the inmost room, and found a Face benign.
Now whirl her where ye must, ye waves of Law,—
Ay, tear her vans, her painted hopes, apart!
She cannot fear, remembering what she saw:
Dark bridegroom Death, she knows thee who thou art!
HELEN GRAY CONE.
* * * * *
THE PIONEERS OF THE SOUTHWEST.
TWO PAPERS.—I.
It is related of Daniel Boone that when (in 1764) he climbed to the summit of the Alleghanies and looked down upon the vast herds of deer and buffalo that were grazing at his feet, he said to his companion Callaway, "I am richer than the man in Scripture who owned the cattle on a thousand hills: I own the wild beasts in a thousand valleys."
It may be questioned if Boone had an adequate conception of the stupendous possessions of the "man in Scripture," but he was certainly justified in boasting of the wide magnificence of this domain which, by right of discovery, he claimed as his own. An Indian might have told him that it would require "three moons, two paddles, and two stout braves" to skirt its southern and western boundaries and reach its northern limit on the Ohio; but no phraseology known to the Red Man could have expressed the boundless wealth, animate and inanimate, that lay hidden in its unexplored recesses. By the leaves on the trees, or the stars in a cloudless night, he might have indicated the countless herds of wild animals that roamed upon it; but how would he picture the leafy magnificence of its forests, or the grassy luxuriance of the many "openings" that everywhere dotted its surface?
It was a tract of country larger than the combined kingdoms of England and Scotland, and, from the exceeding richness of its soil, it was capable of sustaining a far denser population than now inhabits the British Islands. And yet throughout its entire extent there was at this period not a single human habitation, not the solitary hut of a white settler nor the smoky wigwam of a roving Indian. It was the hunting-ground and battle-field of the Indians, claimed by hostile tribes, but occupied by none, and hence the more inviting as a field for civilized settlement.
It is difficult for us to conceive of the enthusiasm which this new country awoke in the mind of the primitive explorer. To him it was a new world, more genial in climate, more beautiful in scenery, and more magnificent in extent than any he had ever beheld; and it is not surprising that the glowing accounts he gave of it on his return were received with wondering incredulity by the simple farmers on the sterile banks of the Yadkin. Accustomed to a sandy soil a few inches in thickness and covered with a scanty growth of slender pines, how could they believe in a yellow loam four feet or more in depth, and supporting dense forests of oak and poplar ten feet in diameter and towering aloft a hundred feet before they broke into branches? The tale was incredible, and it was years before the wonderful story was believed among the rural population of North Carolina, and then not until it was confirmed by the report of one of their number,—a young farmer, selected by themselves to accompany Boone on his third exploration, in 1769.