form is probably one hundred and fifty feet long; the wall behind it is some twenty feet high; there is a little ravine, indicated by the gap up there, by which you can reach the platform. Once on it, you will see the wall back of you is very flat and even, as well as the stone floor you tread upon." Mr. Sumach answered "very well?" in a tone of inquiry. “Now,” said I, "here, in this paper, is the Legend of the Palisades, and, as we are upon legendary ground, I will read it to you." Mr. Sumach, with a despairing look at his giant flute-case, said he would like much to hear it; so, after another sip of claret, I unrolled the manuscript, and read:

A LEGEND OF THE PALISADES.

Long before the white sails of Europe cast their baleful shadows over the sunny waters of the western continent, a vast portion of this territory, bounded by perpetual snows and perpetual summer, was occupied by two mighty nations of red men. The Iroquois, by far the most warlike nation, dominated, with its united tribes, the inland from Canada to North Carolina, and east and west, from central Pennsylvania to Michigan; while the great Algonquin race peopled the sea-board, from Labrador almost to the Floridas, and extending itself westward, even to the borders of Oregon, again stretched along, beyond the waters of the Mississippi, unto the hunting-grounds of the swarthy Appalachians. bright river, in those days, flowed downward to the sea, under some dark, Indian name; and, where yonder village glitters with its score of spires and myriad windows, the smoke of numerous camp-fires curled up amidst pointed wigwams, of poles, and skins, and birch-bark, wrought with barbaric cha

racters.

This

Of the Algonquin tribes that formerly inhabited the banks of this mighty stream, tradition has scarcely preserved a name. A handful of colored earthen beads, a few flint arrow-heads, are the sole memorials of a once great populace.

But tradition, with wonderful tenacity, clings to its legends. Even from the dross of nameless nations, some golden deed shines forth, with a lustre antiquity cannot tarnish. So among the supernatural songs of the Iroquois we find a living parable.

Long before the coming of the pale faces, there was a great warrior of the

Onondaga-Iroquois, by name the Big Papoose. He had a round, small, smooth face, like that of a child; but his arms were long, and his shoulders broad and powerful as the branches of an oak. At the council fires he spoke not; at hunting parties he was indolent; and of the young squaws, none could say: "he loves me." But if he spoke not at the council fires, the people knew the scalps in his wigwam were numerous as the cones upon the pine tree; and if he cared not for hunting, yet he wore a triple collar, made of the claws of grizzly bears, and the old braves loved to sing of the great elk he had pursued and killed with a blow of his stone axe, when his feet were as the wings of a swallow. True it was, the love that is so common to man, the love of woman, was not in his breast; but the brightest and boldest maiden eyes dropped in his presence, and many a time the bosoms of the young squaws would heave—just a little. Yet the

Big Papoose was the friend of children. Who bound the tiny flint arrow-heads to the feathered shafts, and strung the lithe bow with the sinews of deer, and practiced the boy warriors of the tribe in mimic warfare, and taught them to step with the foot of the sparrow, and to trap the fox, the rabbit, and the beaver, and to shout the death whoop, the sa-sa-kuan? Who was it but the Big Papoose, lying yonder, face downward, on the frozen crust of the lake, his head covered with skins, and around him a score of boy warriors, lying face downward, too, watching the fish below, through the holes in the ice, that they might strike them with the pointed javeYes, he was the in, the aishkun? friend of children, the Big Papoose! There was then a very old brave of the Onondaga tribe; his hair was like the foam of the waterfall, and his eyes were deep and dark as the pool beneath it. He was so old that he could lay his hand upon the head of a hundred years and say "boy!" He it was who had found, far in the north, under the uttermost stars, the sacred pieces of copper; he it was who had seen the great fish, so large that a single one could drink up the lake at a mouthful; and the great Thunder Water he had seenNiagara; and the cavern, big enough to contain all the Indian tribes, the Iroquois and the Algonquins, and the stone arch that held up the skies, the

Bun and moon, and the clouds he had stood beneath, and he had seen it.

He was called the White Cloud, and sometimes, when the summer's heat had been too powerful upon the earth, and the green leaves of the maize drooped too much, he would bring forth the magic red pipe, and smoke, and blow the smoke towards the west, and then the vapors would rise up from the great Lake Ontario, and approach him, and overshadow him; and the rain would fall, and the leaves rise up refreshed, and the little birds would sing loudly in the wet forest. Then, too, would the Big Papoose sit on the same log with the White Cloud, and ask him to tell of the mysteries of the skies; and the Sachem would chant of the White Rabbit of the north, the Queen of the Heavens that holds dominion over the uttermost stars, and the snows of winter; that hides in the summer, when the sun is powerful, that she may rival his brightness in the season of frost.

One day the Big Papoose said to the old chief, "Why, oh White Cloud, do you ever blow the smoke of the calumet towards the west, is there not rain, too, in the east?" Then, the whitehaired answered: "Because I like not the visions I see, when I blow the smoke towards the east. As the smoke from the calumet moves westward, I behold in it nations of red men, moving, and ever moving, towards the caverns of the

sun.

But when I blow the smoke towards the east, I see the red men no more, but the glitter of mighty waters, and winged canoes, in size like the lofty hemlocks of the forests, and potent arrows of fire that dart forth with clouds and thunderings. And further, and further towards the east, I see more and .more of the winged canoes, in number like the leaves that are blown by the winds of autumn; and the winged canoes bear many nations, and in the approaching nations, I see not one red man." "I have dreamed," replied the young warrior, "of a maiden, whose eyes were in color like yonder lake, and whose skin was beautiful as the snow at sunset." "Do you not think of her often, more than of the women of the Onondagas ?" said the White Cloud. The young warrior bowed his head. "The time will come," said the old chief, "when the women with blue eyes will think of the young chief of the Onondagas." "When?" said his lis

tener, eagerly. The White Cloud touched with his finger a young pine, whose stem was not thicker than a stalk of maize, one moon old, and replied, "When this trunk has grown so a man may stretch his arms around it and yet his right hand cannot meet his left, then will the young chief of the Onondagas live in the thoughts of the maiden with the skin like the flush of sunset on the

snow." " You speak truth," answered the young chief, "so, too, have I dreamed." "Tell me," continued the white-haired prophet, "whom do you envy of living men?" "Not one," replied the young warrior. "Whom of the dead do you envy?" "The warriors who are dead in battle, and yet live famousest in the songs of the Iroquois !" "Look!" said the prophet. A volume of smoke arose from the red pipe, and the old man blew it gently towards the east. The Iroquois saw it spread into a plain, variegated with hills and rivers, and the villages of his tribe. Then it passed beyond the boundaries of his nation, and he recognized the habitations of the Algonquins, he saw their burial places, and the stretched skins with the accursed totems of his hereditary enemies; he saw, too, the noted warriors of their tribes, the women, the medicine men, and the children. Then the cloud rose up over a mountain, and he looked from its level summit down upon a sparkling river, broader than the rivers of his own country, and beyond, on the opposite side, were villages of Algonquin tribes, the wigwams of the Nepperhans. And he was standing on the brink of gigantic cliffs, whose vast shadows lay midway across the sparkling river; and as he looked his foot touched a fragment of rock, and it fell sheer down from the summit of the precipice to its base, and struck nothing as it fell. And just beyond him was a shelf of rock hanging over a terrible shore, huge splinters of stone were under his feet, and, as his eyes wandered up and down the sparkling river, far as his vision reached, the great shadow of the precipice, and the savage walls of stone, and the fragmentary shore went on unending. Then the sparkling river grew dimmer, and the rocks faded from view, and he saw only the blue sky, and the clouds, and, far off in the east, an eagle. "My son," said the white-haired, "you have seen it. To-morrow night loosen the thongs of your moccasins beyond the wigwams of the Iroquois. In the

Then the White Cloud put the tube of the calumet to his lips, and as the smoke arose from the kinikinic, the bowl of the red pipe expanded wider and wider, and the blue vapor spread out like the mist that rises from a lake in a midsummer morning. Then there came a powerful wind from the east, and the smoke rolled away before it, and was driven with inconceivable swiftness over the Lake Ontario, until it grew red under the sinking sun, and passed to the far-off hunting grounds of the Dacotahs. The young chief watched until it vanished, and then turned to his companion. There was nothing near him but the green grass, and the slender pine the White Cloud had touched with his finger.

Then the Big Papoose took the bag of pigments to his wigwam, and prepared for the journey. Around his broad chest he drew the folds of a gorgeous hunting shirt, decorated with many-hued barbs of the porcupine, and secured it with a gaudy belt of wampum. His leggings were fringed with the hair of scalps, and Indian beads and shells of various colors, and his moccasins were wrought with quills, tinted like flowers of the prairie. Then he took from the notched poles of the wigwam his tufted bow, and a sheaf of arrows tipped with brilliant feathers, and he thrust the stone axe through his belt of wampum, and shook once more the slender spear-staff with its ponderous head of pointed flint. And as he passed on beyond the wigwams of his tribe, the young squaws gazed after him with wondrous dark eyes, and the old women said, "Perhaps he will bring with him, when he returns, a Chenango woman, or a squaw from the blue Susquehanna."

Twice the moon rose, and he saw the maize fields of the Algonquins. Later and later she glittered over his solitary path by the rocky gorges of the Dela

ware.

Then he saw in the north the misty mountains of Shawangonk, and lodges of hostile tribes without number,

and other maize fields, and at night the camp-fires of a great people. Then ho came to shallow rivers dotted with canoes, and these streams were less broad than the river of the Oswegos. And then he saw before him a sloping upland, and just as the moon and the dawn were shining together, he stood under tall trees on the summit, and beneath him was the platform of rock, and the waters of the sparkling river.

"My dear," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, "I am sorry to interrupt you, "but isn't that our boat out there, going up the river?" "Yes," added Mr. Sumach, suddenly leaping up with energy," and my flute, too, I believe." "It cannot be," I replied, "for I fastened the boat with an iron grapnel," and, as I did not like to be interrupted when I was reading, told Mr. Sumach very quietly, but severely, he would find his bassoon just back of our stone table. The explanation being satisfactory, I was allowed to proceed with the legend.

There was a pathway to the platform; as it might be, a channel for the heavy rains, that sometimes pour from the table-lands of the precipice to the ravine, and tumble, in a long, feathery torrent, over its rocky breast. It was a narrow passage, with walls of stone on either side, and ended just a few feet south of the jutting ledge; so that the young chief had to leap from the brink of the gorge to the edge of the platform. There he looked around, and behind him rose up the flat surface of thundersplit rock. Then he walked to the further end of it, and laid upon the ground his tufted bow and sheaf of arrows, loosened his belt of wampum, cast down his terrible stone axe, and leaned his pointed spear against the vast wall of the terrace. Then he took from the bag the pigments and the painting implements, and before midday he had sketched, upon the rocky background, the vast outline of his picture.

It was at the moment when he had completed the totem of his tribe, when he was nearest the gorge and farthest from his weapons, that a fawn darted from the chasm to the plateau, gathered up its affrighted form at sight of him, and then sprang sheer over the brink. The next instant, an Algonquin warrior leaped upon the ledge. A startled look at the Iroquois, a contemptuous glance at the pictograph, two panther bounds,

and the hereditary foes were struggling in a death grapple, upon the eaves of the precipice. Sometimes they leaned far over the brink, and then, unitedly, bent back, like twin pine trees, overblown. Both were unarmed; for the Algonquin had not suspected an enemy in a place where the foot of an Iroquois had never trod, and the weapons of his adversary were distant from them a bow-shot. So, with terrible strength, and zeal, and skill, each sought to overthrow the other, until, in the struggle, they fell, still clutched together, upon the rocky floor of the battle-ground. There, with tremendous throes and throbs of anger, they lay, until the shadows of the cliff had stretched far over the bosom of the sparkling river.

"Let us rise," said the Algonquin. The warriors rose to their feet, and stood gazing at each other.

There they stood, upon that terrible brink. The touch of a hand would have precipitated either upon the fragmentary

shore below.

"Let us not perish," said the Algonquin, "like the raccoon and the fox, starving in the death-lock, but let us die like braves."

The Iroquois listened.

"Do you go," continued the Algonquin, "tell the warriors of my tribe to come, that they may witness it, and I will leap with you from this ledge upon the death below."

The Iroquois smiled.

"Stay," added the Algonquin, "I am a child. Do I not know the fate of an Iroquois, who would venture within the camp of my people? Remain you, until my return, that the history of my deed may be inscribed with that you have pictured upon these rocks."

The Iroquois smiled again, and said, "I wait." The Algonquin bounded from the parapet, and was gone.

Left to himself, the Iroquois collected together his painting implements, and filled with brilliant colors the outlines he had sketched upon the wall. Then he cast his spear far into the sparkling river, and sent the stone axe circling through the air, until it splashed far out in the stream, and he broke the tufted

bow with his powerful arms, and snapped his feathered arrows one by one. Then he girded on his gorgeous belt of wampum, and waited. Of whom was he dreaming, as he sat beneath the shadow of the pictograph? Was it not of the blue-eyed maiden, with cheeks like the flush of sunset on the snow?

The Iroquois waited. Then he heard a murmur, as of the wind stirring the leaves, then the rustle of rapid footsteps, and, as he started to his feet, the cliffs above him were thronged with Algonquin warriors. There was silence for an instant, and then an hundred bows were bent, an hundred bow-strings snapped, an hundred arrows converged through the air, and struck him! But as he turned to hurl defiance at his enemies, a warrior form bounded upon the parapet; it caught the figure, studded with arrows and tottering upon the brink, in its arms, and screamed into the dying ears, "I am here, O Iroquois!" and then, except the pictograph, nothing human remained upon the platform of the Palisades!

When I had finished the legend, Mr. Sumach startled the echoes with a burst of fluting that defies description. So I set to work resolutely, to pack up the basket, for I thought such a place as the one we were visiting did not require the aid of art to make it interesting. After the packing was finished, we started off for the boat, Mr. Sumach tooting over the rocks in a marvelous manner, until we came to the place where some climbing was necessary, and there I had the satisfaction of seeing the flute dislocated and cased, and then it fell in the water, where Mr. S. had some trouble to get at it. When we got to the place of anchorage, we found the tide had risen, and the grapnel under water, but no boat. So I suppose the other end of the rope had not been tied to the ring in the bow. We had a pretty walk, though, to Closter, and hired another boat. As our boat was brought home next day, it was no great matter, but I wished the person who found it for us had found also the oars and the thole pins.

ON my way to the Trosachs and Loch

Katrine, I lodged one night at the very snug inn which intercepts tourists at the Brigg of Turk, near the royal hunting forest of Glenfinlan, and just half a mile from the hostel of Ardcheanochrochan. Formidable as the Turkish name was, it was less so than the unpronounceable Gaelic one. By tarrying there overnight, I gained an early glimpse of my first Highland shepherd, seated on a rock, enveloped in a shawl of hodden-gray, which entirely covered him, and was a protection against the cold drizzle. Since that day, the Scotch shawl has become American.

The simplest variety of human apparel, after the fig-leaf and the fur, must have been the web of rude cloth, wrought, as the Arab and Indian now work it, by means of a warp stretched on the earth, and a shuttle flying across it with the woof-thread. Between this and the Jacquard loom, there is a vast stretch of progress; yet it is surprising to observe what showy and even elegant textures come out of these primitive instruments. The early raiment probably did not vary much from the parallelogram of white cotton, which the Hindoo gracefully winds about him, and which he, at other times, wreathes into a manifold turban, when the sun beats too hotly for any European hat or umbrella. This long-cloth, as it is technically called-and the name has crept into the commercial parlance of the world-admits of every variety of adjustment, according to the figure, means, and taste of the wearer. Seen in contrast with the ebony or olive skin of the Hindoo, and among the palmary foliage of tropical trees, it leaves scarcely anything to be desired, and is, in truth, the elementary origin of all sculptured drapery. The great basrelief of Flaxman, in the antechamber of University College, Oxford, which commemorates Sir William Jones, by representing him as one of a group compiling the digest of Indian Law, illustrates this flexibility of the simple web, which may be seen in several conformations on the three Brahmin sages. The consummate taste of Flaxman led him to seize at once on this native trait, and he is true to Asiatic costume. The Cummerbund, which renders to the

lower castes that service which gave a name to Gallia Braccata, is twisted as ungracefully as is the Scotch shawl by a Glasgow clerk, when he out-highlands the Highlander.

A garb so simple and obvious must have commended itself to every nation which possessed the textile art; and, assuredly, the investigations of our day do not lead antiquaries back to any period when the loom was unknown. Such savages as are ignorant of the shuttle, have degenerated from a more luxurious people, who. once flaunted in its motley products. It is not in continental Asia that we find any such barbarism; because from thence we derive the shawl, both name and thing. Cashmere was long famous for shawls, properly so called, before Europe knew anything of an article now so largely included in commerce. To the looms of this delightful region we also owe the species of cloth universally known as cassimeres, or cashmeres. While that country was under the king of Candahar, the shawl-business alone employed forty thousand frames. The finest of these are believed to be woven of the warmest, or most non-conducting material ever used by man. The long shawls were a hundred and twenty-six inches by fifty-four; and the square shawls were about seventy inches. The elegant blending of colors was as much admired as the texture. These superb coverings loaded the camels of caravans and cafilas, pressing on their weary marches to Northern India, Cabul, Tartary, Persia, and Turkey. As to value, it is enough to say, that the time has been when a celebrated London dealer held one of his cashmere shawls at five hundred guineas. Napoleon's introduction of the Thibet goat into France is justly recorded among his pacific benefits to mankind. The shawl which M. Jacquard wove for the Empress Josephine, during the breathing time of Amiens, came from a loom, or machine, which cost twenty thousand francs. The wool of the cashmere goat is daily spun and woven in Glasgow and Paisley.

If any one cares to inquire about Hebrew shawls, he need only make his beginning at any one of the sixteen synagogues of New York. When peo