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Show 1836- 1837] Fogg's Far West 121 bluffs began to assume a singular aspect, as if the solid mass of limestone high up had been subjected to the excavation of rushing waters. The cliffs elevated themselves from the river's edge like a regular succession of enormous pillars, rendered more striking by their ashy hue. This giant colonnade - in some places exceeding an altitude of an hundred feet, and exhibiting in its facade the openings of several caves - extended along the stream until we reached Grafton, 1* at the mouth of the Illinois; the calm, beautiful, ever- placid Illinois; beautiful now as on the day the enthusiast voyageur first deemed it the pathway to a " paradise upon earth." The moon was up, and her beams were resting mellowly upon the landscape. Far away, even to the blue horizon, the mirror- surface of the stream unfolded its vistas to the eye; upon its bosom slumbered the bright islets, like spirits of the waters, from whose clear depths stood out the reflection of their forests, while to the left opened upon the view a glimpse of the " Mamelle Prairie," rolling its bright waves of verdure beneath the moonlight like a field of fairy land. For an hour we gazed upon this magnificent scene, and the bright [ 93] waves dashed in sparkles from our bow, retreating in lengthened wake behind us, until our steamer turned from the Mississippi, and we were gliding along beneath the deep shadows of the forested Illinois. Illinois River. Pleased with the location he returned to St. Charles, and secured a grant of the land from Don Carlos Dehault Delassus, lieutenant- governor of Upper Louisiana, organized a colony from among the French inhabitants of St. Charles and St. Louis, and occupied the place the same autumn.- ED. " Grafton, Jersey County, Illinois, was settled in 1832 by James Mason, and named by him in honor of his native place. It was laid out ( 1836) by Paris and Sarah Mason.-- ED. |