EVENING.

OH! at the silent hour, when o'er the deep

Falls the last sun-beam of departing day; When e'en the winds and waters seem to sleep, And nature into silence dies away;

When in the heavens the first star 'gins to peep,

And on the trees the day's last glimmerings play; Oh how I love to sit within my bower,

And watch the beauty of the twilight hour.

For then I think on happy days long past,
And memory o'er their ashes heaves a sigh-
Those happy days, alas! too bright to last,

Nor truly known their worth till long past by.
Thus memory opes her treasures deep and vast,
And thus the jaded spirit loves to fly
From earth's dark tumults, and the restless din
Of mirth to solitude, and look within.

What sees it there ?-perchance a dreary train
Of withered hopes and joys for ever gone,
Of scenes long past, recalled now but with pain,
And Love's soft visions, now for ever flown,
Of Friendship's voice we may not hear again;
Telling us sadly that we stand alone

Of all that we have been in by-gone years,
Till the heart droops-the eye grows dim with tears.

Yet love we still to commune with the heart,
However sad the task; love we to trace

Our by-gone years, as slowly from us part

The smiles of youth, and leave us in their place The wrinkles and the furrows, till we start

To find ourselves borne onward at a pace
We know not, feel not, till on the heart's page
We read the marks-the dreary marks of age.

Thus let me muse till life's sad dream be o'er,
And I shall share full many a dreamer's lot,
And launch my little bark from life's dark shore,
And glide away, unwept, unknown, forgot.
Yet oh! not all unmourned-may many pour
Their blessings on my head when I am not :
And may the widow's and the orphan's tear,
Fall on my grave, and consecrate my bier.

C. H. H.

RANDOM SKETCHES,

FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A TRAVELLER IN THE UNITED STATES.

No. VIII. THE INDIANS.

AMONG those who have honoured these sketches with an occasional perusal, many have expressed to me their wonder that I should not have, ere this, made some mention of the Aborigines of the United States, and devoted a paper to the description of the North American Indians. With every desire, therefore, to gratify the laudable curiosity of a few, and, at the same time, to present that which must be a matter of interest to many, if not to all, I enter upon the suggested topic, and shall endeavour to give as full an account as the hasty note-book of a tourist may furnish of the manners and characteristics of this singular, much misrepresented, and fast disappearing people.

Accustomed as Europeans have been to form their opinions of Indian character from the tales related by early settlers, the wars which have raged between the two races, and the present condition of the American tribes, it is scarcely possible that any other than a most unfavourable judgment should have been formed. At a period so remote as the present from the time when America was first visited by a civilized people, it is difficult to separate truth from misrepresentation, in the statements which have been handed down to us; yet all the facts which we can ascertain, fully prove that in no one instance were those who first landed received by the savages (for so custom denominated them, though the name is often much misapplied) in a hostile manner, but always with hospitality and kindness, which they repaid with the blackest treachery, and conduct unworthy of men whose boasted civilization and religion should have taught them better how to return the generous confidence which was reposed in them. Roused by such treatment to a sense of their own power and superiority, goaded by perpetual encroachment and insult to desperation, and maddened by the infringement of even the sanctities of his hearth, the poor Indian dared to raise his hand in defence of his country, his family, and his honour; and for this was branded as a murderer, a savage,

a treacherous and relentless foe. If we examine the many instances in the early history of the country (for it is from that only that we can judge) in which the two races were opposed, we shall not find a single one which did not originate in European aggression ;—a fact which may excite our shame, but which evidence places beyond denial. To enter into an enumeration of cases would be an endless task, and one which, however interesting to an admirer of Indian character, would doubtless be tiresome to the general reader; and I content myself, therefore, with an assertion of the fact, which a careful examination of American history will well sustain.

In any sketch of a peculiar people, it is well to endeavour, in the first instance, to obtain some idea of their origin: though this, in the present case, will be a matter of some little difficulty, as the point is one which has occasioned much dispute. The honour, if honour it be, of having first supplied inhabitants to the New World, has been severally assigned to five different nations:-the Greeks, Tartars, Scandinavians, Sandwich Islanders, and Jews; and a variety of evidence has been produced in support of the claims of each, to enumerate which would require more space than the limits of this paper will allow, and I shall not therefore venture on the attempt; but I may be permitted to state, as my own conviction, that the Indians are, as has been supposed by many, the last remains of the ten lost tribes of Israel. In personal appearance, though time and climate have doubtless done much, they still retain the Jewish cast of countenance; but this is the weakest ground which we have for the opinion I have stated; nor could we expect a perfect retention of all the characteristics of the people

when we consider the circumstances which we find recorded in history, and which gives us the only clue which we possess to their actual fate. We are told in 2 Esdras xiii., that after they had passed beyond the river Euphrates, the ten tribes took counsel together that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go into a far country, never yet inhabited by men; that they entered in at the narrow passages of the Euphrates, when the springs of the flood were stayed, and "went through the country a great journey, even a year and a half." Now the rate at which so vast a company could travel, would not exceed twelve miles a day; and this continued for six thousand miles-the distance from Assyria to Behring's Straits-would just occupy the year and a half mentioned by Esdras. During this journey, however, they would probably intermingle, in some degree, with the nations through which they

passed, and this would tend much to diminish the distinctness of their personal national characteristics.

As, however, the peculiar mark of the Jewish nation was their religion, we should naturally look for some traces of this in any who assumed to be their descendants; nor shall we look in vain among the North American Indian tribes. They all worship one supreme Spirit, whom they call by various names; having, however, like the Jews, one appellation, which they use only in the most sacred rites, and this is "Je-ho-wah," evidently identical with the Jehovah of the Israelites. They use also in their sacred dances, the words "Meshehah," and "Shilu," together with many other phrases, of evidently Hebrew origin. They have their ark, which they allow no one to open, and which they carry to battle, placing all faith in its power; and we are told by Adair, that three persons having had the profanity to look into the ark, were punished with blindness, the penalty which was threatened among the Jews for daring to look into the Holy of Holies. They have a great day of atonement, abstain from the use of blood, of swine's flesh, of fish without scales, and other creatures deemed impure by the Mosaical law; and compel the brother to marry his brother's widow, if he should die childless: in all these cases, strictly adhering to the practices of the Jews.

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Such general evidence as this, coupled with the fact, that it affords a solution of what has hitherto been a problem of no small difficulty—the actual fate of the ten tribes, would be almost sufficient; but we have one or two facts of a more minute nature, which bear strongly upon the subject. If, in addition to a general resemblance, such as I have just mentioned, we found among any people one peculiar ceremony, preserved in some of its most minute points, which originated among, and was practised by another, we should, I presume, be justified in concluding that they were in some manner connected; and such is actually the case here.

Some years ago, when the Seneca Indians inhabited the spot now occupied by the town of Rochester, in the state of New York, the leading members of the nation met to celebrate a religious ordinance, not peculiar to themselves, but performed occasionally by many of the tribes. Two dogs, as nearly white as possible, were carefully selected from among those belonging to the tribe, and killed at the door of the council-house by strangulation, as the slightest effusion of blood would destroy the efficacy of the victim. The dogs were then painted fantastically of various colours, and

suspended at the height of twenty feet, in the middle of the village, and the ceremony then commenced; the five, seven, or nine days of its continuance, being marked by feasting and dancing. Two selected bands, one of men, and the other of women, ornamented with trinkets and feathers, and each person furnished with an ear of corn in the right hand, danced around a fire, regulating their steps by rude music; several men clothed themselves in skins, and scattered the embers from the fire around, for the purpose of driving away evil spirits; and the whole concluded with the conveyance, by the chief medicine-man, or priest, of the sins of the tribe into the persons of these two dogs. If any one will take the trouble to compare this with the account given in Leviticus xiv. 7—22 of the ceremony of the scape goat, he cannot but perceive how striking the resemblance is, and how well the North American Idians have preserved the peculiar religious practices of their

ancestors.

It could hardly be expected that the Jews should have brought over with them any documents, after so long a captivity as that to which they were subjected; and it would be still less likely that they should have preserved them to the present day, having lost, most probably, in the corruptions to which their language were naturally subject, the power of reading the Hebrew in its pure state: and it would therefore hardly be considered as an insuperable objection to my theory, that we now find among the Indians no relics of Jewish literature; but even here we are not entirely destitute. A gentleman of Pittsfield, in Vermont, found one day in his grounds, what appeared to be a thick leather strap, which he threw aside as worthless rubbish. His curiosity, however, led him, some time afterwards, to examine it; and he discovered that this strap consisted of two pieces of hide, firmly sewn together with the sinews of some animal, being also gummed over to render it water-tight; inside were four folded pieces of parchment, of a dark yellow hue, and containing some kind of writing. The neighbours, coming in to see the strange discovery, tore one of the pieces to atoms, in their eager desire to gratify their curiosity; but the other three were sent to the university of Cambridge (Massachusetts), where they were examined, and found to contain Hebrew inscriptions, the three being severally quotations from Deut. vi. 4-9, Exod. xiii. 11-16, and Deut. xi 13-21; these being the very passages which, as Calmet informs us, the Jews were accustomed to write on their phylacteries.