n Ionia and Palestine, commemorating the expeditions of the warlike king; and we may thus with confidence assert, that the eloquent father of history, twenty-three centuries ago, had been standing on this mountain road between the cliffs and the sea, and with admiration had inspected, as we do now, this identical but then more perfect monument. This may likewise be said of another curious tablet on the south, close to that just mentioned. It has quite a different character from the Egyptian, and may no doubt be of Assyrian origin. Within an arched door-way stands the figure of a man finely carved in low-relief, the upper part of which is perfectly well preserved, while the lower is covered with a much defaced inscription in arrow-headed characters. He is dressed in the long flowing garments of the Medes or Assyrians, and his high pontifical tiara has a striking resemblance to the modern Persian kalpak of black sheepskin. He wears a curious long square beard; the left hand rests on his bosom, the right is lifted on high, pointing at a crescent and globe, and some other figures, symbolical of the time, which are sculptured in the left quarter of the tablet. This priest or hero is supposed to represent one of the three Assyrian conquerors, either Phul, Tiglat-Pilesar, or Salmanassar, who during the period from 770 to 720, B. C., overran Syria and Palestine with their numerous armies, and who might have been ambitious enough to wish to record their victories on the same rock on which they found the memorial of the still more celebrated Sesostris. How many conquering armies have toiled up through this narrow defile since the remote centuries when the Egyptian and Assyrian sculptures were engraved on this rock! Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Saracens, Crusaders, Turks, and Ibrahim-Pasha, the would-be Sesostris of modern times, have all had their turn. The last hero scrambling down to the Dog river appears to have been Sir Charles Napier in his straw hat and shirt sleeves, leading on his marines and blue-jackets.

And now we turned round towards the sea, which, smooth and bright like a mirror, studded here and there by a white sail, lay spread out at our feet. On the south, we surveyed the fine bay of St.

George, and the far-stretching promontory of Ras-el-Beirut, the picturesque city o its slope, with its mosques, towers, and white country-houses, looking out from the mulberry groves and orange gardens, and the numerous shipping on the road-stead a sight so uncommon on the desert shores of Syria. From the pass below rose the sound of the tinkling bells of the came's and the whooping of their drivers as they passed along, and then on a sudden gleamed the lances of a body of Bedou horsemen, slowly ascending the defile fro Beirut, and crossing the bridge of Nahr-eKelb on their march for Tripolis.

But the time for departure had arrived. We descended to the plain, mounted our horses, and after a pleasant gallop on the wet sands, we, at one o'clock in the afternoon, arrived at Beirut, where with al eral baktchis, we dismissed our attentive dragoman Mustapha, and the muleteers and then joined a large assembly of Brius and American travellers just returting from Jerusalem, with whom we were start next day for Smyrna and Europe.

On the 3d of June, at sunset, we were all embarked on board the fine steame l'Imperatrice, belonging to the company of the Austrian Lloyds. Thus, then, after an absence of more than eleven years which I had spent so pleasantly w studies and travels in the South and tr East, I was now going to revisit my nat land in the far North, and perhaps, cros ing the Atlantic, to carry to the flouring States of the new world some few d those bright pictures and dear recolar tions of men and their doings, which had so laboriously collected in the old.

The landing-place of Beirut, in the m time, had filled with spectators, and merous boats were tossing around t steamer. At last, Captain Brunette gø the signal for departure. The revers gentlemen of the American mission, Coz sul Laurella, and Colonel Rose then to leave of their departing friends and turned to the shore. The anchors wer heaved, and we stood out of the bay. 1 smiling coast receded more and mer soon night sank on the waters; and w the morning dawn again called us on de fair Syria had disappeared, and the dista island of Cyprus began to rise on t western horizon. A. L. K

THE following legend, however slight its merits in other respects, can lay claim to genuineness. It is what it purports to be, a lodge story still current among the remnants of the Algonquin stock at the Northwest. As it is here recited, it differs in no essential respect from the verbal relation of our friend Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh, better known as GEORGE COPWAY, an educated chief of the Ojibway nation.

Not

The Algonquins had unquestionably nore vivacity and animation than any of he hunter families of the continent. ess martial than the Iroquois, their temerament seems to have been more active, heir apprehension quicker, and their maners less reserved. Their religion and heir legendary lore partook of their naonal peculiarities. They entertained, in well-defined form, the grand idea of a upreme Unity, a great and beneficent 'reator and Preserver; and the inferior begs of their mythology were also for the ost part beneficent,-the friends and proctors of men, constantly warring against, id usually victorious over, the evil beings, e foes of the human race. Their legends, so, are more imaginative, and have a less mbre character than those of most of the ibes. Some are exceedingly airy and autiful, and others not without a dash of taint humor entirely peculiar to themIves. Examples of all these varieties ay be found in Mr. Schoolcraft's interting collection, bearing the badly-chosen le of "Algic Researches."

Like the pastoral Sabians of central Asia, › Algonquins were close observers of nae and its manifestations. In the sun they v the symbol of that Great Spirit from om they believed all life proceeded. It s deemed to be his abiding place, from ence he looked kindly down upon his lian children. The Milky Way was the ath of souls," the bright roadway of

the dead, leading to the blissful spirit-land, the elysium of the western world. The fitful Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) was the "dance of the dead," in which the disembodied spirits of emulous warriors and mighty "medicine men" alone participated.

It is true similar notions with these were entertained by numerous other tribes. The Mandans believed the sun to be the abode of the "Master of Life," (Ohmahauk Namakshi,) and regarded the moon as the residence of "the old woman that never dies," (the goddess of maize and of fruits,) she who wears a white band from the front to the back of her head. She has six children, three sons and three daughters, who abide in different stars. The eldest son is the day, the second is the sun, and the third is the night. The eldest daughter is the morning star, and they call her "the woman who wears a plume;' the second is the high star which revolves around the pole; and the third daughter is "the woman of the west," the evening star. The stars generally they believed to be the spirits of the dead, and the rainbow a beautiful spirit that accompanies the sun. The thunder is the voice of the "Lord of Life" when he speaks in his anger.

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The Minatarees adored the sun, and denominated the moon "the sun of the night." The morning star, Venus, they deemed to be "the child of the moon. The great bear is an ermine, and the Milky Way is the "path of ashes." The thunder is supposed to be the flapping of the wings of the great bird that lived at the beginning, and the lightning is the glance of his eye searching for prey. They call the rainbow the " cup of the waters," or the

66

cup of the rain." Once, say they, an Indian caught in the autumn a red bird which mocked him. This gave offence to the

man, who bound the feet of the bird together with a line. The bird saw a rabbit and pounced upon it, but the animal crept into the skull of a buffalo and escaped; and as the line from the claws of the bird described a semicircle in the air, so was the rainbow formed.*

The Housatonic Indians," says Hopkins, "believed the sun to be God, or at least the residence of the Deity. They also believed that the seven stars were so many Indians translated to heaven in a dance, and that the stars in Charles's Wain were so many men hunting a bear; that they begin the chase in the spring and hold it all summer; by the fall they have wounded the bear, and the dripping blood turns red the leaves of the trees; by winter they have killed it, and the fat makes the snow, which, being melted by the heat of summer, makes the sap of trees."

The Cherokees believed that there were many thunders, stationed at different points of the heavens, and each charged with specific duties. "They venerated the morning star, but rather as an object of fear. They say that very long ago, a wicked conjurer committed murder by witchcraft. The people combined to slay him, but divining their purpose, he gathered the shining implements of his craft around him, and sprang upwards to a great height, where his apparatus makes him seem a star. He then became fixed in his position, and his aid is sought by all who endeavor to kill others by necromancy. The Cherokees also regard the seven stars with peculiar reverence. There are no prayers addressed to the cluster, but there is a wild legend of its having sprung from a family of eight boys, who were wont to steal into the town council-house and beat the drum which was kept there for public solemnities. Some of the elders reproving them for it, they took offence, and seizing the drum, sprang upwards, beating it in defiance as they ascended. On the way, however, one came down with so hard a fall that his head stuck deep in the ground. He was immediately transformed into a cedar, which is to stand forever, and which bleeds like a human being

Travels in North America, by Maximilian, Prince of Weid, pp. 360, 398.

| when cut. The others mounted on high. where they now are."*

The semi-civilized nations, as well a the savage tribes, had similar legends, of greater or less interest, connected with the planets, the constellations, and the ele ments, which it would be impossible to recite. If these were collected, they would open to the world a new view of the abʊriginal mind.

Every one who has looked upon the face of the full moon has seen there the faint outline of a human form. Many think it is the image of a man, whom they call the "man of the moon;" and some dull people, peering idly through glasses and long tubes, very learnedly protest that there is no man there, and that the outlines which we see are only mountains of scorched and blackened rocks, deep and gloomy caverns, where no life nor verdure is seen, not even a blade of green grass to relieve the utter desolation. But the clear eye of the Indian can penetrate further than the glass of the astronomer, and the Ojibway hunter and the Ojibway maider. can plainly see in the faint outlines on the disk of the moon, the graceful form of the beautiful Ne-she-kay-be-nais, the “Lone Bird," whom the great Manitou transferred from the lodge of her father to the hear ens, where she dwells in the embrace of the moon. The story of the Lone Bird is known to the inmates of every Ojibway wigwam, and thus it was told by Kah-gega-gah-bowh, the "Firm Standing," as seated beside our camp-fire on the shores of the great lake, we watched the harvestmoon slowly rising from the bright waters before us.

Very many snows ago, before the paleface invaded the lands of the Indians, the Ojibways were great and strong, and nmerous as the leaves of the trees. They chased the buffalo on the meadows of the West, they trapped the beaver and hunted the deer in the forests around the great lakes, and struck the salmon in the rivers that flow from the mountains towards the

* John Howard Payne, Esq., MSS. on the Cherokees.

rising sun. They were feared and respected by their enemies, and beloved by their friends: the Great Spirit was pleased with his children, and they were happy.

It was then by the shores of Ojibwakechegun, which the pale-faces call Superior, dwelt Wah-bon, the "Dawn of Day," and his wife Me-ge-seek, the "She Eagle." They had an only child, a daughter, mild as the mourning dove, and beautiful as the day. She was tall and graceful as the fir-tree, and her step was like that of the spotted fawn. Her eyes were dark and clear as the fountains in the shade of the forest, and her voice was like the song of the stream in the evening. Very beautiful was Ne-she-kay-be-nais, the "Lone Bird," and though the Ojibways were numerous as the leaves of the forest, and their daughters many and fair, yet amongst them all was none to compare with the daughter of Wah-bon. From all the villages of the nation came the young warriors to seek the favor of the Lone Bird, that they might bear her from the lodge of her father; but she looked coldly upon them all, and it was in vain they recited their prowess in war, and their success in the chase. The fame of her beauty spread to the neighboring nations, and the sons of great chiefs brought presents to the lodge of Wah-bon, that they might gain the affections of his daughter; but the heart of the Lone Bird was like the ice of the winter, and the young chiefs were compelled to return lonely and sad to their distant homes.

Wah-bon saw the coldness of his child, and expostulated with her; he praised the young warriors whose bravery and skill he knew and trusted, and he told her that no daughter of the nation had so proud an array of lovers from which to choose a husband. But the Lone Bird laughed aloud when her father ceased to speak, and she asked

"What care I for the young braves? I love them not. Has not the daughter of the She Eagle her mother to love? Is not the arm of Wah-bon strong, and can he not cherish and defend his child?"

Wah-bon heard the laugh of his daughter and was silent. But next morning he went forth from the village of his tribe, and as the young warriors gathered round to ask concerning the Lone Bird, he pro

claimed aloud that at a certain time they should all gather together on the smooth shore of the lake, and the fleetest of foot should bear her to his lodge. Great was the joy of the young braves, and much of the intervening time they spent in preparation and in prayers to the Great Spirit that he might give them the swiftness of the prairie deer, and the agility of the mountain cat.

When the sun came up on the morning of the appointed day, there was gathered on the shores of the lake a great assemblage, for the news of the race that was to happen had spread all over the nation, and it was known that the beautiful daughter of Wah-bon was to be the prize of the victor. The young men were all there in their bravest array, painted, and plumed with the feathers of the wild turkey and the eagle, and when they moved the noise of their ornaments was like the fall of the dry leaves in the autumn. The old men were there, for they were to judge the race and award the prize. The women too were there; the mothers to encourage their sons, and the daughters that they might look upon the young braves of their people and receive their admiration. But nowhere was the Lone Bird to be seen; she sat in the cabin of her parents and wept, for she loved none but her father and mother, and desired not to leave them.

But

The bounds of the race were fixed, and the judges silently took their places. The young men stood side by side, leaning breathlessly forward, every muscle quivering with excitement and impatient for the struggle. The signal was given, and they dashed forward like the frightened deer when the hunter breaks from his covert, and with a sound like that of the storm when it treads over the mountains. soon it was seen that Me-te-quab, the "Bending Bow," and Mazho-tungk, "Who strikes the Game," both of whom had long loved the Lone Bird, gained widely on their companions. They were fleet as the wind, but neither could surpass the other, and when they came to the end of the race, the old men could not tell which was the victor. Then it was that the two young braves ran again, but again they came in side by side. Again did they struggle, and still again the old men could not tell