Chapter 1 - Page 2

in question. They were all wayfarers in the wilderness; and
had they not been, neither their previous habits, nor their actual
social positions, would have accustomed them to many of the luxuries
of rank. Two of the party, indeed, a male and female, belonged
to the native owners of the soil, being Indians of the well-known
tribe of the Tuscaroras; while their companions were -- a man, who
bore about him the peculiarities of one who had passed his days
on the ocean, and was, too, in a station little, if any, above that
of a common mariner; and his female associate, who was a maiden of
a class in no great degree superior to his own; though her youth,
sweetness and countenance, and a modest, but spirited mien, lent
that character of intellect and refinement which adds so much to
the charm of beauty in the sex. On the present occasion, her full
blue eye reflected the feeling of sublimity that the scene excited,
and her pleasant face was beaming with the pensive expression with
which all deep emotions, even though they bring the most grateful
pleasure, shadow the countenances of the ingenuous and thoughtful.

And truly the scene was of a nature deeply to impress the imagination
of the beholder. Towards the west, in which direction the faces
of the party were turned, the eye ranged over an ocean of leaves,
glorious and rich in the varied and lively verdure of a generous
vegetation, and shaded by the luxuriant tints which belong to the
forty-second degree of latitude. The elm with its graceful and
weeping top, the rich varieties of the maple, most of the noble
oaks of the American forest, with the broad-leaved linden known in
the parlance of the country as the basswood, mingled their uppermost
branches, forming one broad and seemingly interminable carpet
of foliage which stretched away towards the setting sun, until it
bounded the horizon, by blending with the clouds, as the waves and
the sky meet at the base of the vault of heaven. Here and there,
by some accident of the tempests, or by a caprice of nature, a
trifling opening among these giant members of the forest permitted
an inferior tree to struggle upward toward the light, and to lift
its modest head nearly to a level with the surrounding surface of
verdure. Of this class were the birch, a tree of some account in
regions less favored, the quivering aspen, various generous nut-woods,
and divers others which resembled the ignoble and vulgar, thrown
by circumstances into the presence of the stately and great. Here
and there, too, the tall straight trunk of the pine pierced the
vast field, rising high above it, like some grand monument reared
by art on a plain of leaves.

It was the vastness of the view, the nearly unbroken surface
of verdure,