"Here I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat,
Its horrid sounds and its polluted air;
And, where the season's milder fervours beat,
And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear
The song of bird and sound of running stream,
Have come a while to wander and to dream."
BRYANT.
"I lingered, by some soft enchantment bound,
And gazed, enraptured, on the lovely scene;
From the dark summit of an Indian mound
I saw the plain outspread in living green;
Its fringe of cliffs was in the distance seen,
And the dark line of forests sweeping round."
FLINT.
There are few things more delightfully refreshing, amid the fierce
fervour of midsummer, than to forsake the stifled, polluted atmosphere
of the city for the cool breezes of its forest suburbs. A freshened
elasticity seems gliding through the languid system, bracing up the
prostrated fibres of the frame; the nerves thrill with renewed
tensity, and the vital flood courses in fuller gush, and leaps onward
with more bounding buoyancy in its fevered channels. Every one has
experienced this; and it was under circumstances like these that I
found myself one bright day, after a delay at St. Louis which began at
length to be intolerably tedious, forsaking the sultry, sun-scorched
streets of {155} the city, and crossing the turbid flood for a tour
upon the prairies of Illinois. How delightful to a frame just freed
from the feverish confinement of a sick-chamber, brief though it had
been, was the fresh breeze which came careering over the water,
rippling along the polished surface, and gayly riding the miniature
waves of its own creation! The finest point from which to view the
little "City of the French" is from beneath the enormous sycamores
upon the opposite bank of the Mississippi. It is from this spot alone
that anything approaching to a cosmorama can be commanded. The city,
retreating as it does from the river's brink--its buildings of every
diversity of form, material, and structure, promiscuously heaped the
one upon the other, and the whole intermingled with the fresh green of
forest-trees, may boast of much scenic beauty. The range of white
limestone warehouses, circling like a crescent the shore, form the
most prominent feature of the foreground, while the forest of
shrub-oaks sweeps away in the rear. For some time I gazed upon this
imposing view, and then, slowly turning my horse's head, was upon the
dusty thoroughfare to Edwardsville. For the first time I found myself
upon the celebrated "American Bottom," a tract of country which, for
fertility and depth of soil, is perhaps unsurpassed in the world. A
fine road of baked loam extended along my route. Crossing Cahokia
Creek, which cuts its deep bed diagonally through the bottom from the
bluffs some six miles distant, and threading a grove of the beautiful
_pecan_, with its long trailing boughs and {156} delicate leaves, my
path was soon winding gracefully away among those venerable monuments
of a race now passed from the earth. The eye is struck at first by the
number of these eminences, as well as by their symmetry of form and
regularity of outline; and the most familiar resemblance suggested is
that of gigantic hay-ricks sprinkled over the uniform surface of the
prairie on every side. As you advance, however, into the plain,
leaving the range of mounds upon the left, something of arrangement is
detected in their relative position; and a design too palpable is
betrayed to mistake them for the handiwork of Nature. Upward of one
hundred of these mounds, it is stated, may be enumerated within seven
miles of St. Louis, their altitude varying from ten to sixty feet,
with a circumference at the base of about as many yards. One of these,
nearly in the centre of the first collection, is remarked as
considerably larger than those around, and from its summit is
commanded an extensive view of the scene. The group embraces, perhaps,
fifty tumuli, sweeping off from opposite the city to the northeast, in
form of a crescent, parallel to the river, and at a distance from it
of about one mile: they extend about the same distance, and a belt of
forest alone obstructs their view from the city. When this is removed,
and the prairie is under cultivation, the scene laid open must be
beautiful. The outline of the mounds is ordinarily that of a
gracefully-rounded cone of varying declivity, though often the form is
oblong, approaching the rectangle or ellipse. In some instances {157}
they are perfectly square, with a level area upon the summit
sufficient for a dwelling and the necessary purlieus. Most of them are
clothed with dense thickets and the coarse grass of the bottom; while
here and there stands out an aged oak, rooted in the mould, tossing
its green head proudly to the breeze, its rough bark shaggy with moss,
and the pensile parasite flaunting from its branches. Some few of the
tumuli, however, are quite naked, and present a rounded, beautiful
surface from the surrounding plain. At this point, about half a mile
from the river-bank, commencing with the first group of mounds,
extends the railroad across the bottom to the bluffs. The expense of
this work was considerable. It crosses a lake, into the bed of which
piles were forced a depth of ninety feet before a foundation for the
tracks sufficiently firm could be obtained. Coal is transported to St.
Louis upon this railway direct from the mines; and the beneficial
effects to be anticipated from it in other respects are very great. A
town called _Pittsburg_ has been laid out at the foot of the coal
bluffs.[127]
Leaving the first collection of tumuli, the road wound away smooth and
uniform through the level prairie, with here and there upon the left a
slight elevation from its low surface, seeming a continuation of the
group behind, or a link of union to those yet before. It was a sweet
afternoon; the atmosphere was still and calm, and summer's golden haze
was sleeping magnificently on the far-off bluffs. At intervals the
soft breath of the "sweet South" {158} came dancing over the tall,
glossy herbage, and the many-hued prairie-flowers flashed gayly in the
sunlight. There was the _heliotrope_, in all its gaudy but magnificent
forms; there the deep cerulean of the fringed _gentiana_, delicate as
an iris; there the mellow gorgeousness of the _solidago_, in some
spots along the pathway, spreading out itself, as it were, into a
perfect "field of the cloth of gold;" and the balmy fragrance of the
aromatic wild thyme or the burgamot, scattered in rich profusion over
the plain, floated over all. Small coveys of the prairie-fowl, _tetrao
pratensis_, a fine species of grouse, the ungainly form of the
partridge, or that of the timid little hare, would appear for a moment
in the dusty road, and, on my nearer approach, away they hurriedly
scudded beneath the friendly covert of the bright-leaved sumach or the
thickets of the rosebush. Extensive groves of the wild plum and the
crab-apple, bending beneath the profusion of clustering fruitage,
succeeded each other for miles along the path as I rode onward; now
extending in continuous thickets, and then swelling up like green
islets from the surface of the plain, their cool recesses affording a
refreshing shade for the numerous herds. The rude farmhouse, too, with
its ruder outbuildings, half buried in the dark luxuriance of its
maize-fields, from time to time was seen along the route.
After a delightful drive of half an hour the second group of
eminences, known as the "Cantine Mounds," appeared upon the prairie
at a distance of three or four miles, the celebrated "Monk Hill,"
largest monument of the kind yet discovered in North America, heaving
up its giant, forest-clothed {159} form in the midst.[128] What are
the reflections to which this stupendous earth-heap gives birth? What
the associations which throng the excited fancy? What a field for
conjecture! What a boundless range for the workings of imagination!
What eye can view this venerable monument of the past, this mighty
landmark in the lapse of ages, this gray chronicler of hoary
centuries, and turn away uninterested?
As it is first beheld, surrounded by the lesser heaps, it is mistaken
by the traveller for an elevation of natural origin: as he draws nigh,
and at length stands at the base, its stupendous magnitude, its lofty
summit, towering above his head and throwing its broad shadow far
across the meadow; its slopes ploughed with yawning ravines by the
torrents of centuries descending to the plain; its surface and
declivities perforated by the habitations of burrowing animals, and
carpeted with tangled thickets; the vast size of the aged oaks rearing
themselves from its soil; and, finally, the farmhouse, with its
various structures, its garden, and orchard, and _well_ rising upon
the broad area of the summit, and the carriage pathway winding up from
the base, all confirm his impression that no hand but that of the
Mightiest could have reared the enormous mass. At that moment, should
he be assured that this vast earth-heap was of origin demonstrably
artificial, he would smile; but credulity the most sanguine would fail
to credit the assertion. But when, with jealous eye, slowly and
cautiously, and with measured footsteps, he has circled its base; when
he has surveyed its slopes and declivities from every position, and
has {160} remarked the peculiar uniformity of its structure and the
mathematical exactitude of its outline; when he has ascended to its
summit, and looked round upon the piles of a similar character by
which it is surrounded; when he has taken into consideration its
situation upon a river-bottom of nature decidedly diluvial, and, of
consequence, utterly incompatible with the _natural_ origin of such
elevations; when he has examined the soil of which it is composed, and
has discovered it to be uniformly, throughout the entire mass, of the
same mellow and friable species as that of the prairie at its base;
and when he has listened with scrutiny to the facts which an
examination of its depths has thrown to light of its nature and its
contents, he is compelled, however reluctantly, yet without a doubt,
to declare that the gigantic pile is incontestibly the WORKMANSHIP OF
MAN'S HAND. But, with such an admission, what is the crowd of
reflections which throng and startle the mind? What a series of
unanswerable inquiries succeed! When was this stupendous earth-heap
reared up from the plain? By what race of beings was the vast
undertaking accomplished? What was its purpose? What changes in its
form and magnitude have taken place? What vicissitudes and revolutions
have, in the lapse of centuries, rolled like successive waves over the
plains at its base? As we reflect, we anxiously look around us for
some tradition, some time-stained chronicle, some age-worn record,
even the faintest and most unsatisfactory legend, upon which to repose
our credulity, and relieve the inquiring solicitude of the mind. But
{161} our research is hopeless. The present race of aborigines can
tell nothing of these tumuli. To them, as to us, they are veiled in
mystery. Ages since, long ere the white-face came, while this fair
land was yet the home of his fathers, the simple Indian stood before
this venerable earth-heap, and gazed, and wondered, and turned away.
But there is another reflection which, as we gaze upon these venerable
tombs, addresses itself directly to our feelings, and bows them in
humbleness. It is, that soon _our_ memory and that of our _own_
generation will, like that of other times and other men, have passed
away; that when these frail tenements shall have been laid aside to
moulder, the remembrance will soon follow them to the land of
forgetfulness. Ah, if there be an object in all the wide universe of
human desires for which the heart of man yearns with an intensity of
craving more agonizing and deathless than for any other, it is that
the memory should live after the poor body is dust. It was this
eternal principle of our nature which reared the lonely tombs of Egypt
amid the sands and barrenness of the desert. For ages untold have the
massive and gloomy pyramids looked down upon the floods of the Nile,
and generation after generation has passed away; yet their very
existence still remains a mystery, and their origin points down our
inquiry far beyond the grasp of human ken, into the boiling mists, the
"wide involving shades" of centuries past. And yet how fondly did they
who, with the toil, and blood, and sweat, and misery of ages, upreared
these stupendous piles, anticipate {162} an immortality for their name
which, like the effulgence of a golden eternity, should for ever
linger around their summits! So was it with the ancient tomb-builders
of this New World; so has it been with man in every stage of his
existence, from the hour that the giant Babel first reared its dusky
walls from the plains of Shinar down to the era of the present
generation. And yet how hopeless, desperately, eternally hopeless are
such aspirations of the children of men! As nations or as individuals,
our memory we can never embalm! A few, indeed, may retain the forlorn
relic within the sanctuary of hearts which loved us while with them,
and that with a tenderness stronger than death; but, with the great
mass of mankind, our absence can be noticed only for a day; and then
the ranks close up, and a gravestone tells the passing stranger that
we lived and died: a few years--the finger of time has been busy with
the inscription, and we are _as if we had never been_. If, then, it
must be even so,
"Oh, let keep the soul embalm'd, and pure
In living virtue; that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
Th' immortal spirit in the skies may bloom."
_St. Clair Co., Illinois._