These Are All Curious For The Costume; The
Warriors Are Cased In Various Kinds Of Ancient Armor, And Brandish Various
Ancient Weapons, And The Robes Of The Females Are Flowing And By No Means
Ungraceful.
Almost every one of the statues has its hands and fingers in
some constrained and awkward position; as if the artist knew as little
what to do with them as some awkward and bashful people know what to do
with their own.
Such a crowd of figures in that ancient garb, occupying
the floor in the midst of the living worshipers of the present day, has an
effect which at first is startling. From Innsbruck we climbed and crossed
another mountain-ridge, scarcely less wild and majestic in its scenery
than those we had left behind. On descending, we observed that the
crucifixes had disappeared from the roads, and the broad-brimmed and
sugar-loaf hats from the heads of the peasantry; the men wore hats
contracted in the middle of the crown like an hour-glass, and the women
caps edged with a broad band of black fur, the frescoes on the outside of
the houses became less frequent; in short it was apparent that we had
entered a different region, even if the custom-house and police officers
on the frontier had not signified to us that we were now in the kingdom
of Bavaria. We passed through extensive forests of fir, here and there
checkered with farms, and finally came to the broad elevated plain bathed
by the Isar, in which Munich is situated.
Letter VII.
An Excursion to Rock River.
Princeton, Illinois, _June_ 21, 1841.
I have just returned from an excursion to Rock River, one of the most
beautiful of our western streams.
We left Princeton on the 17th of the month, and after passing a belt of
forest which conceals one of the branches of the Bureau River, found
ourselves upon the wide, unfenced prairie, spreading away on every side
until it met the horizon. Flocks of turtle-doves rose from our path scared
at our approach; quails and rabbits were seen running before us; the
prairie-squirrel, a little striped animal of the marmot kind, crossed the
road; we started plovers by the dozen, and now and then a prairie-hen,
which flew off heavily into the grassy wilderness. With these animals the
open country is populous, but they have their pursuers and destroyers; not
the settlers of the region, for they do not shoot often except at a deer
or a wild turkey, or a noxious animal; but the prairie-hawk, the
bald-eagle, the mink, and the prairie-wolf, which make merciless havoc
among them and their brood.
About fifteen miles we came to Dad Joe's Grove, in the shadow of which,
thirteen years ago, a settler named Joe Smith, who had fought in the
battle of the Thames, one of the first white inhabitants of this region,
seated himself, and planted his corn, and gathered his crops quietly,
through the whole Indian war, without being molested by the savages,
though he was careful to lead his wife and family to a place of security.
As Smith was a settler of such long standing, he was looked to as a kind
of patriarch in the county, and to distinguish him from other Joe Smiths,
he received the venerable appellation of Dad. He has since removed to
another part of the state, but his well-known, hospitable cabin, inhabited
by another inmate, is still there, and his grove of tall trees, standing
on a ridge amidst the immense savannahs, yet retains his name. As we
descended into the prairie we were struck with the novelty and beauty of
the prospect which lay before us. The ground sank gradually and gently
into a low but immense basin, in the midst of which lies the marshy tract
called the Winnebago Swamp. To the northeast the sight was intercepted by
a forest in the midst of the basin, but to the northwest the prairies were
seen swelling up again in the smoothest slopes to their usual height, and
stretching away to a distance so vast that it seemed boldness in the eye
to follow them.
The Winnebagoes and other Indian tribes which formerly possessed this
country have left few memorials of their existence, except the names of
places. Now and then, as at Indiantown, near Princeton, you are shown the
holes in the ground where they stored their maize, and sometimes on the
borders of the rivers you see the trunks of trees which they felled,
evidently hacked by their tomahawks, but perhaps the most remarkable of
their remains are the paths across the prairies or beside the large
streams, called Indian trails - narrow and well-beaten ways, sometimes a
foot in depth, and many of them doubtless trodden for hundreds of years.
As we went down the ridge upon which stands Dad Joe's Grove, we saw many
boulders of rock lying on the surface of the soil of the prairies. The
western people, naturally puzzled to tell how they came there, give them
the expressive name of "lost rocks." We entered a forest of scattered
oaks, and after travelling for half an hour reached the Winnebago Swamp, a
tract covered with tall and luxuriant water-grass, which we crossed on a
causey built by a settler who keeps a toll-gate, and at the end of the
causey we forded a small stream called Winnebago Inlet. Crossing another
vast prairie we reached the neighborhood of Dixon, the approach to which
was denoted by groves, farm-houses, herds of cattle, and inclosed corn
fields, checkering the broad green prairie.
Dixon, named after an ancient settler of the place still living, is a
country town situated on a high bank of Rock River. Five years ago two
log-cabins only stood on the solitary shore, and now it is a considerable
village, with many neat dwellings, a commodious court-house, several
places of worship for the good people, and a jail for the rogues, built
with a triple wall of massive logs, but I was glad to see that it had no
inmate.
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