OCR Text |
Show 142 Early Western Travels [ Vol 26 L , to have been awakened one morning long before the dawn by a strain of distant music, which, swelling and rising upon the stQl night- air, came floating like a spirit through the open windows and long galleries of the building. I arose; all was calm, and silent, and deserted through the dim, lengthened streets of the city. Not a light gleamed from a casement; not a [ 114] footfall echoed from the pavement; not a breath broke the stillness save the crowing of the far- off cock proclaiming the morn, and the low rumble of the marketman's wagon; and then, swelling upon the night- wind, fitfully came up that beautiful gush of melody, wave upon wave, surge after surge, billow upon billow, winding itself into the innermost cells of the soul! " Oh* it came o'er my ear like the sweet South, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour." Illinois River. XI " You wul excuse me if I do not strictly confine myself to narration, but now and then interpose such refections as may offer while I am writing."- NEWTON. " Each was a giant heap of mouldering clay; There slept the warriors, women, friends, and foes; There, side by side, the rival chieftains lay, And mighty tribes swept from the face of day." FLINT. MORE than three weeks ago I found myself, one bright morning at sunrise, before the city of St. Louis on descending the Illinois; and in that venerable little city have I ever since been a dweller. A series of those vexatious delays, ever occurring to balk the designs of the tourist, have detained me longer than could have been anticipated. Not the [ 115] most inconsiderable of these preventives to locomotion in this bustling, swapping, chaffering little city, |