and as my friends are looking upon the gay and restless birds, they are involuntarily led to extend their gaze to the green slope beneath the more distant crags, where they spy a mountain sheep, watching the movements of the travellers as well as those of yon wolves stealing silently toward the fleet-footed animal.  Again the pilgrims are in motion; they wind their pathless way round rocks and fissures; they have reached the greatest height of the sterile platform; and as they gaze on the valleys whose waters hasten to join the Pacific Ocean, and bid adieu, perhaps for the last time, to the dear friends they have left in the distant east, how intense must be their feelings, as thoughts of the past and the future blend themselves in their anxious minds!  But now I see them, brother-like, with lighter steps, descending toward the head waters of the famed Oregon.  They have reached the great stream, and seating themselves in a canoe, shoot adown the current, gazing on the beautiful shrubs and flowers that ornament the banks, and the majestic trees that cover the sides of the valley, all new to them, and presenting a wide field of discovery.  The melodies of unknown songsters enliven their spirits, and glimpses of gaudily plumed birds excite their desire to search those beautiful thickets; but time is urgent, and onward they must speed.  A deer crosses the stream, they pursue and capture it; and it being now evening, they land and soon form a camp, carefully concealed from the prying eyes of the lurking savage.  The night is past, the dawn smiles upon the refreshed travellers, who launch their frail bark; and, as they slowly float on the stream, both listen attentively to the notes of the Red-and-White-winged Troopial, and wonder how similar they are to those of the “Red-winged Starling;” they think of the affinities of species, and especially of those of the lively birds composing this beautiful group.

* * * * *

=_Daniel Drake,[65] 1785-1852._=

From a “Picture of Cincinnati, &c.”

=_261._= OBJECTS OF THE WESTERN MOUND-BUILDERS.

No objects in the State of Ohio seem to have more forcibly arrested the attention of travellers, nor employed a greater number of pens, than its antiquities.  It is to be regretted, however, that so hastily and superficially have they been examined by strangers, and so generally neglected by ourselves, that the materials for a full description have not yet been collected....

The forests over these remains exhibit no appearances of more recent growth than in other parts.  Trees, several hundred years old, are in many places seen growing out of the ruins of others, which appear to have been of equal size....