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Show 1836- 1837] Flagg's Far West 8S female, with an infant boy in her arms. They had been deck- passengers, and we had seen none of them before; yet their situation could not but excite interest in their welfare. Poor woman! thought I, as our boat left them gazing anxiously after us from the inhospitable bank, little do you dream of the trials and the privations to which your destiny conducts, and the hours of bitter retrospection which are to come over your spirit like a blight, as, from these cheerless solitudes, you cast back many a lingering thought to your dear, distant home in New- England; whose very mountain-crags and fierce storms [ 55] of winter, harsh and unwelcome though they might seem to the stranger, were yet pleasant to you: " My native land) my native land! Though bare and bleak thou be, And scant and cold thy summer smile, Thou'rt all the world to me." A few years, and all this will have passed away. A new home and new ties will have sprung up in the wilderness to soothe the remembrance of the old. This broad valley will swarm with population; the warm breath of man will be felt upon the cheek, and his tread will be heard at the side; the glare of civilization and the confused hum of business will have violated these solitudes and broken in upon their gloom, and here empire shall have planted her throne; and then, perchance, that playful boy upon the bosom may rise to wield the destinies of his fellows. But many a year of toil and privation must first have passed away; and who shall record their annals? A thousand circumstances, all unlooked for, will seize upon the feelings of the emigrant; the harshness of strangers, the cold regard of recent acquaintance, the absence of relatives and of friends long cherished, the distance which separates him from his native home, and the dreary time which must elapse between all communications of the pen. And then the sweet chime of the Sab- |