The little burying-ground, shorn of its original dimensions by the encroachments of the fatal race that came from the rising sun, contained less than half an acre, and was situated at the top of a ravine, running down from the level land, on which the gravestones were erected, to the Yaupaae, where that river expands itself into a lake.  The sides of the ravine, along its whole sweep upwards, was covered quite to the top with immense oaks and chestnuts, the growth of centuries, interspersed with ash trees, while in the colder and moister part in the centre, the smooth-barked birch threw out its gnarled branches.  There was no undergrowth, and under and between the limbs of the trees, the eye caught a view towards the south of the widened Yaupaae and of the islands that dotted its surface, with hills sweeping round in a curve, and presenting an irregular outline like that made by the backs of a school of porpoises.  Towards the three other quarters of the compass, a level plain extended for a short distance, and then was broken up into an undulating surface which rose into eminences covered with woods that hemmed in the whole.  The falls of the Yaupaae were at a distance of only a few rods, but invisible, being hidden by the plain that occupied the intervening space, at an elevation of some forty feet higher than the point where the river, rushing down its rocky bed, made its presence known by a ceaseless roar, and seemed to chant a dirge over the vanished greatness of the tribe.

Here were assembled some sixty or seventy Indians to perform the rights of sepulture to one of their number.  No vestige of their original wildness was to be traced among them.  They were clothed in the garments of civilization, but of a coarse and mean quality, and appeared broken down and dispirited.  One half, at least, were women, and at the moment of which we are speaking they were collecting together from among the blue slate gravestones, where they had been dispersed, around a newly dug grave.  The rites were of a Christian character, and performed by an elder of one of the neighboring churches, who offered up a prayer, on the conclusion of which he retired.  The grave was immediately filled, and then commenced a ceremony of a singular character.

At a given signal the assembled company began with slow and measured steps, and in silence, to encircle the grave.  It must have been a custom peculiar to the tribe, at least we do not recollect seeing it alluded to by any traveller or describer of Indian manners, and consisted in walking one after the other around the grave, in the manner called Indian file, and recounting the good qualities of the departed; nor was it considered permissible to leave until something had been said in his praise.  The Indians walked round and round in unbroken silence, each one modestly waiting, as it seemed at first, for another to speak.  But no one begun, and it soon became evident that some other cause than modesty restrained their speech.