The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 538, March 17, 1832 by Various
page 16 of 48 (33%)
page 16 of 48 (33%)
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"You shall see the '_Dead men's feast_,'" said Logan. I followed him in silence, till we reached the southern bank of the Ohio, not far from his own residence. The tribe was seated in a beautiful and secluded _prairie_, that just afforded a vista of the river through the cypress swamp between. A number of men and women seemed busily engaged in the decoration of others with belts, beads, and brilliant-coloured garments; and these latter seemed passive or asleep. Logan laid down the load he carried in his blanket, and unwrapped the burden that had so long attracted my attention. "'Tis my grandsire!" said he: "he has only been two years buried:--I have brought him far. Aid me to cleanse the brave old limbs and skull from these worms, that his spirit may rejoice over the feast with his red children. Haste! my father yonder is painted and dressed already." * * * * * Before I quitted Kentucky, I made a point of visiting the celebrated and immense nitre caverns or catacombs of the limestone region. Here I found the mummies of the pigmy race that once inhabited the gigantic valley of the Mississippi, adorned with strings of shell-wampum and turkeys' feathers--seated in death like the ancient Naso-menes, grinning at me with their long _inhuman_ fore-teeth--and came out as wise as I went in. * * * * * "O," said the captain, "a burial in Canada is no trifle in winter. Just before you arrived, our drummer died, and we mustered spades, picks, and shovels, to dig a grave for him; but the ground was one rock every where, and after trying twenty places we found--that we had spoiled our tools. It took the armourer next day to steel them all. The third day we got down |
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