[From _The Louisville Literary News-Letter_]
Ages since--long ere the first son of the Old World had pressed the
fresh soil of the New--long before the bright region beyond the blue
waves had become the object of the philosopher's reverie by day, and
the enthusiast's vision by night--in the deep stillness and solitude
of an unpeopled land, these vast mausoleums rose as they now rise, in
lonely grandeur from the plain and looked down even as now they look,
upon the giant floods rolling their dark waters at their base,
hurrying past them to the deep. So has it been with the massive tombs
of Egypt, amid the sands and barrenness of the desert. For ages untold
have the gloomy pyramids been reflected by the inundations of the
Nile; an hundred generations, they tell us, have arisen from the
cradle, and reposed beneath their shadows, and like autumn leaves have
dropped into the grave; but, from the midnight of bygone centuries,
comes forth no darting spirit to claim these kingly sepulchres as his
own! And shall the dusky piles, on the plains of distant Egypt affect
so deeply our reverence for the departed, and these mighty monuments,
reposing in dark sublimity upon our own magnificent prairies, vailed
in mystery more inscrutable than they, call forth no solitary throb?
Is there no hallowing interest associated with these aged
relics--these tombs, and temples, and towers' of another race, to
elicit emotion? Are they indeed to us no more than the dull clods we
tread upon? Why then does the wanderer from the far land gaze upon
them with wonder and veneration? Why linger fondly around them, and
meditate upon the power which reared them, and is departed? Why does
the poet, the man of genius and fancy, or the philosopher of mind and
nature, seat himself at their base, and with strange and undefined
emotions, pause and ponder, amid the loneliness that slumbers around?
And surely, if the far traveler, as he wanders through this Western
Valley, may linger around these aged piles, and meditate upon a power
departed--a race obliterated--an influence swept from the earth
forever--and dwell with melancholy emotions upon the destiny of man,
is it not meet, that those into whose keeping they seem by Providence
consigned, should regard them with interest and emotion?--that they
should gather up and preserve every incident relevant to their origin,
design, or history, which may be attained, and avail themselves of
every measure, which may give to them perpetuity, and hand them down,
undisturbed in form or character, to other generations?
That these venerable piles are of the workmanship of man's hand, no
one, who with unprejudiced opinion has examined them, can doubt. But
with such an admission, what is the cloud of reflections, which throng
and startle the mind? What a series of unanswerable inquiries succeed!
When were these enormous earth heaps reared up from the plain? By what
race of beings was the vast undertaking accomplished? What was their
purpose?--what changes in their form and magnitude have taken
place?--what vicissitudes and revolutions have, in the lapse of
centuries, rolled like successive waves over the plains at their 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 our research is
hopeless. The present race of Aborigines can tell nothing of these
tumuli. To them as to us they are vailed 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 the venerable earth-heap, and
gazed, and wondered, and turned away.