Lofty natural mounds rose amidst the rest,
with the same lovely and sweeping outline, showing everywhere the
plastic power of water,--water, mother of beauty, which, by its sweet
and eager flow, had left such lineaments as human genius never dreamt
of.
Not far from the river was a high crag, called the Pine Rock, which
looks out, as our guide observed, like a helmet above the brow of the
country. It seems as if the water left here and there a vestige of forms
and materials that preceded its course, just to set off its new and
richer designs.
The aspect of this country was to me enchanting, beyond any I have ever
seen, from its fullness of expression, its bold and impassioned
sweetness. Here the flood of emotion has passed over and marked
everywhere its course by a smile. The fragments of rock touch it with a
wildness and liberality which give just the needed relief. I should
never be tired here, though I have elsewhere seen country of more secret
and alluring charms, better calculated to stimulate and suggest. Here
the eye and heart are filled.
How happy the Indians must have been here! It is not long since they
were driven away, and the ground, above and below, is full of their
traces.
"The earth is full of men."
You have only to turn up the sod to find arrowheads and Indian pottery.
On an island, belonging to our host, and nearly opposite his house, they
loved to stay, and, no doubt, enjoyed its lavish beauty as much as the
myriad wild pigeons that now haunt its flower-filled shades.
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