DAVIS’S TRAVELS IN AMERICA.” 
ng wood is noticed as a sound deli ght- 
e to the foot traveller in America, for 
it lets him know some human habitation 
is near. - The following picture has evi- 
dently been sketched from nature. 
« My recreation after school in the even- 
ing was to sit and meditate before’ my door, 
in the open air, while the vapours of a 
friendly pipe administered to my philosophy. 
In silent gravity I listened to the negro call- 
ing to his steers returning from labour, or 
contemplated the family groupe on the grass- 
t before the dwelling-house, of whom the 
father was tuning his violin, the mother and 
daughters at their needles, and the boys 
running and tumbling in harmless mirth 
upon the green. Before me was an immense 
ate 
forest of stately trees ; the cat was sitting on 
the barn-door; the fire-Ay was on the wing, 
and the whip-poor-will in lengthened cries 
was hailing the return of night. 
«© T was now, perhaps, called to supper, 
and enjoyed the society of Mr. Ball and his 
family till the hour of their repose, when I 
returned to my !og-hut, and resumed my 
pipe before the door. ‘The moon in solemn 
majesty was rising from, the woods ; the 
plantation-dog was barking at the voices of 
the negroes pursuing their nightly revels on 
the road ; while the mocking songster mi- 
micked the note of every bird that had sung 
during the day.” 
The poetry with which the volume is 
interspersed is very inferior to the prose. 
It is introduced with peculiar impropri- 
ty, inthe history of captain Smith and 
e female Indian Pocahontas. This 
history, Mr. Davis assures us, has been 
related with: an inviolable adherence to 
truth, every circumstance being rejected 
thathad not evidence to support it: but 
by attributing his own verses to one of 
the personages, he has given a character 
of fiction to a story which was in itself 
too romantic to be believed without a 
solemn affirmation of its authenticity. 
For this very interesting tale we must 
refer to the volume itself. One Indian 
scene which the author himself wit- 
_ nessed our limits will permit us to notice. 
On the north bank of the Occoquan, 
is a pile of stones heaped uponthe grave 
of an Indian warrior... The Indians who 
pass near never fail to turn from the 
main road into the woeds and visit this 
rave, and if a stone be thrown down, 
_ they religiously restore it to its place. 
_A party, while the author resided at 
Occoquan, came to this spot; it con- 
sisted of an elderly chief, twelve war 
_ Captains, and two squaws, the younger 
a girl of seventeen, her person remark- 
57 
ably fine, and with a profusion of raven 
hair, 
«¢ When I saw the squaws a second time, 
they were just come from their toilet. Wo- 
man throughout the world delights ever in 
finery; the great art is to suit the colours to 
the complexion. 
«« The youngest girl would have attracted 
notice in any circle of Europe. She had 
fastened to her long dark hair a profusion of 
ribbons, which the bounty of the people of 
Occoquan had heaped upon her; i the 
tresses of this Indian beauty, which before 
had been confined round her head, now rioted 
luxuriantly down her shoulders and back. 
The adjustment of her dress one would have 
thought she had learned from some Eveglish 
female of fashion; for she had left it so open 
before, that the most inattentivd eye could 
not but discover the rise and fall of a bosom 
just beginning to fill. 
«The. covering of this young woman's 
feet rivetted the eye of the stranger with its 
novelty and splendopr. Nothing could be 
more delicate than her saocassins. “They were 
each of them formed of a single piece of 
leather, having the seams ornamented with 
beads and porcupine. quills; while a string 
of scarlet eben confined the mocassin round 
the instep, and. made every other part of it 
sit close to the foot. -The sivcassin was ofa 
pier yellow, and made from the skin of a 
eer. 
*¢ Of these Indians, the menhad not been 
inattentive to their persons. The old chief 
had clad himself in a robe of furs, and the 
young warriors had blacked their bodies with 
charcoal. 
«© The Indians being assembled round the 
grave, the old chief rose with a solemn mien, 
and, knocking his war-club .against the 
ground, pronounced an oration to ithe me 
mory of the departed warrior. 
«Here rests the body of a chiet of out 
nation, who, before his spirit took its fight 
to the country of souls, was the boldesi in 
war, and the flcetest in the chace.. The arm 
that is now mouldering beneath this pile, 
could once wield the tomahawk with vigour, 
and often caused the foe to sink bencath its 
weight. (A dreadful cry of whoo! whoof 
whoop! from the hearers.) it has often 
grasped the head of the expiring enemy, and 
often with the knife divested it-of the scalp, 
(a yell of whoo! whoo! whoop!) It-has 
often bound to the stake the prisoner of war, 
and piled the blazing faggots round the vic- . 
tim, singing his last song of death. , (4 yell 
of whoo! whoop!) ‘The foot that is now 
motionless, was once ficeter than the hart 
that grazes on the mountain ; and in danger 
it was ever more ready to advance than 
retreat. (A cry of whoo! whoo! whoop!) 
But the hero is not gone unprovided to the 
country of: spirits. His tomahawk was bu- 
ried with ,him to repulse the enemy in the 
