"Walk gently, (O camel,) and remember thy master's kindness; for thy lord is well pleased, and sits fast upon thy back." (El Oeza is the extremity of the sacks, into which a stone is put, in order to be able to tie the rope round it, by which it is fastened to the sack on the other side of the camel.) (To be continued.) AN INDIAN ECLOGUE.-Advertisement. Sunt illis hæc quoque Carmina, quorum relatu, quem barditum vocant, accedunt animos, futuræque pugnæ fortunam, ipso cantu, augurantur." Tacitus de Mor. Ger. c. 3. THERE is a striking resemblance in the manners of all savage nations; and much of what Tacitus has so well said of the ancient Germans, is applicable to the scattered hordes of our North American wilds. · But before proceeding with this thought, courteous reader! I wish to call your attention to one word in my motto, which seems deserving of a digression. I mean that marked in Italic letters-" barditum." Here is the etymon of our English word bard; which the ingenious critics inform us is derived originally from blaritum,-the cry or blare, (as we express it,) of calves! Others derive it, very elegantly, from baritum, quasi, "a baer, ursorum murmur," the growling of bears! Others, reflecting with singular sagacity on the condition of Germans, have deduced it from barrire, alluding to the cry of that northern animal, the elephant.* Leaving it to others to settle the conflicting opinions, it becomes us to notice one thing, in particular, in which perhaps all agree: which is, that this beautiful word, like the British constitution, was "invented in the woods." Nay, more, this agreeable, this ear-delighting expression had its origin in the honest adulation of the brute creation! Now, reader, why should the story of Orpheus be thought incredible, which so many dying swans have sung; which Palæphatus has endeavoured to explain, and to which Cicero has so beautifully alluded in his oration for Archias? Orpheus was a poet, indeed, and when HE sang, the wild beasts themselves gathered around him in the forests, and affectionately called him bard! * See the profound notes to Erneste's Tacitus: "Quis talia legens temperet a risu! -Our author is sometimes strikingly facetious.---Ed. + See Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws. To return to the train of thought with which I commenced. The Indians, as well as the Germans, are said to have had their bards,-considerable bards, too; at least as respectable as our ancestors the Druids, notwithstanding the huge architecture which was piled by the latter upon Salisbury Plain. Upon the banks of a beautiful and romantic river, not unlike the Teleboas* of Xenophon, and which discharges its waters into the Pequod or Thames river, in Connecticut, there lived more than a century ago, an Indian poet, whose name was Ahauton. Tradition, which usually envelops the events of the past in the cloudy drapery of mystery, has handed down to us little besides obscure legends concerning him; but from them we learn that he was esteemed among his countrymen as a youth of rare facetiousness, and of matchless valour. His name, it is said, is still kept alive among the smoking embers of Indian ruins, and the songs of Ahauton are the burden of a summer's day. They tell us, amongst other pleasant tales, concerning him, that he was accustomed to hold nightly converse with the " man in the moon," who taught him to express the sweet influence of that luminary upon an autumnal evening. Often was he seen seated upon the mountain's crags, or upon the verdant banks of his native rill, confabulating with the stars ;-and when the night was wasted, and the glories of the morning returned, he would wander through the mazy labyrinths of the wilderness, and seek out some sequestered spot beneath the tumbling waters of the cataract, or would pursue the bear through the lonely thicket, and the dangerous ravine. The fame of Ahauton soon spread among the neighbouring tribes; and his songs were rehearsed in the cabins of princes. The distant Aberginians left their beautiful bay,† to listen to his voice; and the stern sachems of the .Wampanoags, for many years after his death, shed tears of affection at the grave of their poet! The person of Ahauton is described to have been like his, whose praises the Syrian damselst sang, and whose death was celebrated by the Grecian bards: but, said the daughters of his nation, "Ahauton was more than beautiful: he was war * σε Μεγαςμον ου καλοσ δε The Indians upon Massachusetts bay were called Aberginians. See Hutch. Tamnuz-"Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate, PARDISE LOST, b. i. p. 29. like. The oak of the plains could not vie with him in strength; and in gracefulness he surpassed the elm. His courage outdid the panther's; and his activity was like that of the mountain roe! Danger but awakened his energies, and the noise of the battle was music to his ear! But when the conflict was over, and the war-song had died away, the smile of the young poet was like the rainbow after the shower;—the fair ones of his nation sought to gaze upon it!" From what I can gather from his verses, the heart of Ahauton was not unlike the Shepherds in Virgil, attuned to love; and whatever is remembered of his songs, is conformed to the structure of the Idylls of Greece. This is nothing surprising, since all accounts go to confirm us in the opinion, that the wastes of our hemisphere were originally peopled from Asia: and we have the authority of an erudite scholar* for the presumption, that the Sanscrit, one of the polite languages of Asia, bears a near affinity to the idiom of the Greeks! With these premises, it does not need much logic to convince us, that the pastorals of our poet were borrowed from "the Isles of the sea!" It is singular, indeed, that any thing remains of his, through the vicissitudes of Indian history; but, perhaps, not more so than the preservation of the poems of Homer: only one of his productions has fallen into my hands, in a written form; this I have translated, in my own poor way, into the heroic rhyme of our vernacular tongue. I make no apology for presenting it to the reader, since, however humble my Ahauton may seem, compared with English poets, he can hardly sink below the Virgil of Doctor Trapp! "Aliquando dormitat bonus Homerus," Quinctilian said, (after Horace,) near two thousand years ago; and I am conscious that Ahauton nods sometimes: but I must entreat the reader, if he be disposed to respuate these verses, not to conclude, that ours was no poet, any more than that Virgil was a drowsy writer, because he slumbers in the version of the immortal Trapp! I hope the student of the aboriginal languages of this country may hereafter be induced to present this distinguished bard, under more favourable auspices, to the public, gifted as he may be, with a better genius for poetry than I ever dreamed myself to possess, even in the most flattering visions of vanity. Owing to my imperfect knowledge of the Mohegan dialect, the strictness of the original has not always been followed: sometimes, too, I have changed the style, to accommodate it to English idiom,-perhaps to the detriment of the original. My version is certainly imperfect, but I console myself with the sentiment of a Roman poet: "Si deficient vires, audacia ceste FROPERT. ELEG. IDYLLIUM. By fair Shetucket's pebble-studded wave, The next was milder in his gen'ral air, "Know'st thou Onanto, that the fairest maid Onanto.- -" My brown Owampah dances 'neath the trees Oneko. -"What voice is that, which echoes through the Thus spoke Onekostepping from the shade. [glade ?" Sken." Hark, father, Hark!" Skenandoh quick replied; "We sing our loves-do you for us decide! A bow of ash, and carv'd with matchless skill Onanto." This hatchet pipe, which late Alnomook made, Oneko. Begin my children, said the ancient chief, Begin; for old Oneko once was young :" Thus spoke the chief, and thus Skenandoh sung. Sken." As on the hills I sought the bounding deer, When from beneath the fragrant birch-tree's shade Onan." When late the northern enemy by night, When direful shrieks arose upon the gale, And the shrill war-hoop echoed through the vale, Firm by my side, confiding in my arm; And when our foes ignobly fled the plain, Forc'd to retire to gloomy moors again, When victory rais'd the battle's thrilling song, And hymns of praise were borne the breeze along, Weary, I sought my native cabin free, And there Owampah ran to welcome me. Roger Williams says, "when they (the Indians) saw one man excelling others in wisdom, valour, strength, &c. they would cry out he is a god.' Hutchinson's Massachusetts, Vol. i. p. 477. |