MAY. 
151 
F, — Let us stand still a few moments on the bridge, and 
view the scene. I love to stand here at this hour, when the 
twilight gives a mellowness to every object, and that indis- 
tinctness which has so pleasing an effect. I love to look on 
the calm and placid river, flowing in blackest shade beneath 
the tall overhanging woods on each side : — 
" the dark, the silent stream," 
as Shelley beautifully says : — the line of light in the middle, 
where the sky is reflected between the woods on either bank, 
making the blackness of each side still more dense and ob- 
scure. Not a breath ruflles the surface ; not a twig vibrates 
in the air ; every sound and every motion seems stilled ; 
nature appears to sleep in that calm repose which prevailed 
in this spot for centuries before the foot of the adventurous 
white man trod the soil. We seem to expect the face of the 
dark Huron to peep from the woods, or the canoe of the 
more chivalrous Algonquin to dart round yonder point ; 
everything is in its primitive wildness : there is nothing to 
remind us of civilized man, save the bridge beneath our feet. 
The same silent river has flowed here for ages ; the same 
woods have clothed its banks ; the same beasts have hid in 
their recesses ; the same birds have warbled among their 
branches ; the same tiny flies have danced in the last light 
of evening, between the heaven above, and the reflected 
heaven below. Nature remains the same : — but where is 
the Red-man, whose noiseless tread once passed like the 
gliding of a spirit through these woods, or whose wild war- 
whoop broke the solemn silence, and made the forest ring ? 
He has passed away, and left scarce a vestige behind. 
C. — Do you know anything of the manners of the 
natives ? 
jP. — Nothing from my own observation : I have seen but 
few, and they appeared to be little benefited by their inter- 
