1097. The Cloictheach (viz. round tower belfry) of Monasterboice, containing books and several other valuables, was burned.
This last notice, and many others of the kind which occur in our Annals, are of great value in showing the original uses of our round towers, as set forth in Mr Petrie’s Essay on the Round Towers of Ireland, now in course of publication.
In concluding these notices of a spot so long the abode of the piety, art, and learning of remote times, we may add, that in its present deserted and ruined state it is a scene of the deepest and most solemn interest; and the mind must indeed be dull and earthly in which it fails to awaken feelings of touching and permanent interest. Silence and solitude the most profound are impressed on all its time-worn features; we are among the dead only; and we are forced, as it were, to converse with the men of other days. In all our frequent visits to these ruins we never saw a living human being among them but once. It was during a terrific thunder-storm, which obliged us to seek shelter behind one of the stone crosses for an hour. The rain poured down in impetuous torrents, and the clouds were so black as to give day the appearance of night. It was at such an awful hour, that a woman of middle age, finely formed, and of a noble countenance, entered the cemetery, and, regardless of the storm raging around, flung herself down upon a grave, and commenced singing an Irish lamentation in tones of heart-rending melancholy and surpassing beauty. This wail she carried on as long as we remained; and her voice coming on the ear between the thunder-peals, had an effect singularly wild and unearthly: it would be fruitless to attempt a description of it. The reader, if he know what an Irishwoman’s song of sorrow is, must imagine the effect it would have at such a moment among those lightning-shattered ruins, and chanted by such a living vocal monument of human woe and desolation.
We subsequently learned on inquiry that this poor creature’s history was a sad one; she was slightly crazed, in consequence of the death of her only son, who had been drowned; and her mania lay in a persuasion, which nothing could remove, that he was not lost, but would yet return to her to bless her, and close her long-weeping eyes in peace.
P.
THE RED MEN OF AMERICA.
SECOND ARTICLE.
We could relate many instances of the gratitude with which Indians repay a kindness, and of their firmness in friendship, but our limits restrain us. We must besides admit, that they are equally resentful of injury as mindful of favours, and persecute an enemy with as much constancy as they cherish a friend. Mr Catlin has preserved the portrait of a Mandan chief, named Mah-to-tôh-pa, or the Four Bears, whose life affords many singular illustrations of the above truths. We have room for one only. His brother had been surprised while asleep by a Riccaree, who left the spear with which he had murdered the sleeping man in the wound, and boasted of what he had done. The Four Bears took possession of the spear, preserved it carefully, with the blood of his brother encrusted on its point, and swore to cover that stain with the heart’s blood of the Riccaree. Many moons elapsed, many snows even went by, and the Four Bears had not yet found the much desired opportunity of revenge. At length the culpability of his enforced delay became too heavy a reproach, and he resolved on seeking the Riccaree in his distant home, to do which he had to steal his way through his enemy’s country for hundreds of miles; a task, the difficulty of which can be appreciated only by those who know the watchfulness of Indian habits, and the vigilance of those whom he had to circumvent. But “when Greek meets Greek,” we all know what “comes;” in this case, however, “diamond-cut-diamond” were perhaps the more appropriate metaphor: let our readers settle that point. The Four Bears accomplished his task; he had traversed many a weary plain, had threaded many a tangled forest, swam many a river; but at length he stood, famished and outworn, before the village of his enemy. This was surrounded by a stockade, but he overcame that with little difficulty. It was night, but the dwelling of the offender was known to him, and entering it, he sat down before the fire, over which hung a pot containing food, which the provident squaw had set to simmer through the night. The family were in their beds, which consist of skins stretched on low frames, and ranged around the walls of the hut. The Riccaree, the object of the Mandan’s visit, was also on his couch, with his arms close beside him, as is the custom. But he was not asleep; the flame as it rose fitfully was reflected from his glittering eyes, which rested, but with no particular interest, on his visitor. The latter, conscious that his then exhausted strength was not equal to the duty he became to perform, sat collected within himself for a certain time; he then took part of the food that filled the pot, and ate in such measure as he thought advisable. This done, he lighted his pipe, and sat to smoke it. The squaw meanwhile had asked her husband what man it was who was reposing at their hearth. “He is a hungry man, for thou seest he is eating; what matter for the rest?” was her husband’s reply, and the uninvited guest concluded his meal without interruption. Was the Mandan shaken by what we feel to be the most touching appeal of this deep confidence to his better sympathies? He scarcely felt that it was one. Among Indians, hospitality is neither offered nor accepted as a matter of favour, but of right, and of course; nor would he have replied to such an appeal could he have felt it. He believed himself to be in the performance of a most solemn duty, and would have scorned all vacillation as weakness. Nor shall we be just ourselves if we lose sight of this in our abhorrence of his deed.
The pipe of the Mandan exhausted, he adjusted his raiment for departure; he rose, collected his force, sprang on his unsuspecting host, whom he stabbed to the heart with the spear already named, then scalped him, and, springing from the hut, was out of the village, and deep in a neighbouring watercourse, by the time that his enemies’ dogs were upon him; again, by many a night march and day of hunger and suffering, he arrived in his village, his conscience set at rest by the act at which we shudder.
Mr Catlin, who knew this chief intimately, relates many stories of his bravery and general elevation of character, but we have room for the tale of his death only. In the year 1837, Mr Catlin had left the friendly Mandans some three years, when the small-pox was carried among them by the traders; the whole family of the Four Bears perished by this disease; wife, child, not one was left him; he stood alone in his desolation, and gathering the corpses together, he covered all with skins, after the manner of his people; the songs for the dead then performed, he seated himself by the mound he had raised, which he addressed from time to time in the most touching terms of endearment, as each individual composing the mournful group rose to his memory. This continued through nine days and nights, during all which he took neither food nor sleep, and on the tenth he was himself a corpse.