OCR Text |
Show 298 Early Western Travels [ Vol 36 beneath the sod, is said, in the touching intensity of her affection, to bathe the tombstone of her little one with that genial flood which Nature poured through her veins for his nourishment [ 43] while living. The Oriental nations, it is well known, whether civilized or savage, have ever, from deepest antiquity, manifested an eloquent solicitude for the sepulchres of their dead. The expiring Israelite, we are always told, " was gathered to his fathers;" and the tombs of the Jewish monarchs, some of which exist even to the present day, were gorgeously magnificent The nations of modern Turkey and India wreathe the tombs of their departed friends with the gayest and most beautiful flowers of the season; while the very atmosphere around is refreshed by fountains. From the site of the stone- heap of which I have spoken, and which may or may not have been erected to the memory of some Indian chieftain, a glorious cosmorama of the whole adjacent region, miles in circumference, is unfolded to the eye. At your feet, far below, flow on the checkered waters of the Mississippi, gliding in ripples among their emerald islands; while at intervals, as the broad stream comes winding on from the west, is caught the flashing sheen of its surface through the dense old woods that fringe its margin. Beyond these, to the south, lies spread the broad and beautiful Mamelle Prairie, even to its faint blue blending with the distant horizon laid open to the eye, rolling and heaving its heavy herbage in the breeze to the sunlight like the long wave of ocean. And the bright green island- groves, the cape- like forest- strips swelling out upon its bosom, the flashing surface of lakes and water- sheets, almost buried in the luxuriance of vegetation, with thousands of [ 44] aquatic birds wheeling their broad flight over them, all contribute to fill up the lineaments of a scene of beauty which fails not to enrapture the spectator. Now |