ness of the flesh and in languidness of spirit, the overspent wayfarer has laid down his wearied frame to rest for the toils of the morrow, it is indeed a bitter thing rudely to have that rest broken up! "The sleep of the wafaring man is sweet," and to have that slumber obtruded upon by causes too contemptible for a thought, is not in nature with equanimity to bear! Besides, the luckless sufferer meets with no commiseration: it is a matter all too ludicrous for pity; and as for fortitude, and firmness, and the like, what warrior ever achieved a laurel in such a war? what glory is to be gained over a host of staving -but I forbear. You are pretty well aware, kind reader, or ought to be, that the situation of your traveller just then was anything but an enviable one. Not so, however, deemed the worthy landlord on this interesting occasion. His blank bewilderment of visage may be better imagined than described, as, aroused from sleep, his eye met the vision of his stranger guest; while the comic amalgamation of distress and pique in the marvellously elongated features of the fair hostess was so truly laughable, that a smile flitted along the traveller's rebellious muscles, serving completely to disturb the serenity of her breast! The good lady was evidently not a little nettled at the apparent mirthfulness of her guest under his manifold miseries-I do assure thee, reader, the mirthfulness was only apparent— and did not neglect occasion thereupon to let slip a sly remark impugning his "gentle breeding," because, forsooth, dame Nature, in throwing together her "cunning workmanship," had gifted it with a VOL. II.—M ' ing the interesting pair to their own co the very top of the morning the travel self upon his horse and was soon out Kaskaskia, Ill. XXXIII. "STRANGER, if thou hast learn'd a truth wh THE moon had gone down; the la burned out in the firmament; and that ness which precedes the dawn was bro the earth as the traveller turned awa little inn at the village of Pinkneyvil nately he had, the previous evening, wh ing the face of the region from the door telrie gained some general idea of the Kaskaskia; and now, dropping the reins upon his horse's neck, he began floundering along through a blackness of darkness perfectly Cimmerian. It was, indeed, a gloomy night. The early mists were rising, damp and chill, from the soil saturated with the showers of the preceding day; and the darkness had become of a density almost palpable to the sense. Crossing a narrow arm of the prairie in the direction presumed to be correct, my horse carried me into a dense wood, and, if possible, the darkness increased. I had penetrated some miles into the heart of the forest, and was advancing slowly upon my way, when my attention was suddenly arrested by a low, whispering, rustling sound in the depths of the wood at my right; this gradually increasing, was almost immediately succeeded by a crashing, thundering, rushing report, till every echo far and wide in that dark old wood was wakened, and the whole forest for miles around resounded with the roar. My horse, terrified at the noise, leaped and plunged like a mad creature. An enormous forest-tree had fallen within a dozen rods of the spot on which I stood. As I left the noble ruin and resumed my lonely way, my mind brooded over the event, and I thought I could perceive in the occurrence a powerful feature of the sublime. The fall of an aged tree in the noiseless lapse of time is ever an event not unworthy of notice; but, at a moment like this, it was surely so in an eminent degree. Ages since—long ere the first white man had pressed the soil of this Western world, and while the untamed denizens of the wil that young leaf, expanded and ( spread itself abroad, until, at length the earth had sought out its shade stood up the monarch of the forest. is gone, and the hoary moss of time the winds from its venerable branche the thunderbolt had consecrated its the baptismal of fire, and, sere and rif cloud now sings through its naked an aged man, its head is bleached while the strength and verdure of turity yet girdle its trunk. But at the root rottenness at the heart work. Its day and its hour are ap their bounds it may not pass. Tha moment is come! and in the deep, p ness of the nighttime, when slumber man and Nature pauses in her work spring of centuries is laid low, and along the earth. Yet another age is the traveller comes not to muse ove of the once-glorious ruin. Long ag been mouldering away, and their dust with the common mother of us all. A a moral in the falling of an aged tree ! I was dwelling with rather melancholy reflections upon this casual occurrence, when a quick panting close at my side attracted my attention; a large, gaunt-looking prairie-wolf had just turned on his heel and was trotting off into the shade. The gray dawn had now begun to flicker along the sky, and, crossing a beautiful prairie and grove, I found myself at the pleasant farmhouse of a settler of some twenty or thirty years' standing; and dismounting, after a ride of eighteen miles, I partook, with little reluctance or ceremony, of an early breakfast. Thus much for the night adventures of a traveller in the woods and wilds of Illinois! My host, the old gentleman to whom I have referred, very sagely mistook his guest for a physician, owing to a peculiarly convenient structure of those indispensables ycleped saddle-bags; and was just about consulting his fancied man of medicines respecting the ailings of his "woman," who was reclining on a bed, when, to his admiration, he was undeceived. Passing through an inconsiderable village on the north side of the Little Vermillion called Georgetown, my route lay through an extended range of hills and barrens. Among the former were some most intolerably tedious, especially to a horseman beneath a broiling sun, who had passed a sleepless night: but the sweep of scenery from their summits was beautiful and extensive. At length the traveller stood upon the "heights of Chester," and the broad Mississippi was rolling on its turbid floods a hundred yards beneath. The view is here a no |