Chapter 14

The missionaries, running to the spot, frightened away the remainder of the herd, while they took possession of the fallen one, and, having taken what would serve them for several days, left the carcass to the wolves.

In about a week after, they reached a chain of mountains, where they rested for the night, and next morning proceeded to ascend their steep and sandy sides, up which they were enabled to drag themselves by grasping the trees; nevertheless, they were several times nearly precipitated into the gulf below.

Wilmington, on one occasion in particular, when they were ascending a very dangerous part of the mountain, inadvertently seized a rotten branch, which, giving way, caused him to be hurried downward to the very brink of a precipice, where he saved himself by catching hold of a projecting bough. Thus they advanced for the remainder of that day, in the evening of which they took advantage of a small space of level ground, to remain until the morning.

About noon they succeeded in gaining the summit of the ridge; and, in order that they might view the surrounding country, they ascended a barren crag that reared itself high above the others; for, without having met with this, the trees would have excluded every prospect.

Climbed Tree to See Lakes.

Having reached its loftiest pinnacle, they turned their eager eyes to see if they could behold any traces of the mighty seas of fresh water which had been described to them by the Indians; but to their sorrow, as far as their sight could stretch, only vast woods met their anxious gaze.

While thus engaged, they sometimes heard the piercing cries of the hawk in pursuit of his prey; far under them, and among the trees, the drumming of the partridge and the tapping of the woodpecker could be clearly distinguished.

Being somewhat disappointed, they silently commenced wending their lonely way down the side of the mountain; but, notwithstanding their utmost exertions, they could not succeed in descending the range that evening, and were compelled by the approaching darkness to seek a spot where they might safely rest.

Early in the morning they awoke, and, continuing their descent with renewed energy, soon surpassed the formidable obstacle which the hills had opposed.

Having rested for the remainder of that day, they again began to cross the level country, and continued doing so for many days, without having seen a single human being since their departure from the farm, when, one day, in a glade of the woods, they saw a band of Indians among the trees, who, having approached, spoke in a pleasant but to them unknown language. Their gestures betokened their surprise at beholding people so different in color to themselves, and armed with what appeared to them only polished sticks.

While thus employed, a flock of wild geese flew high above their heads, at which the Indians discharged their arrows, but they fell short of their intended mark; when Price and Wilmington, raising their guns, fired, and to the astonishment of the natives two of the flock came fluttering to their feet.

The spectators crowded around the Europeans, and with much curiosity began to admire the weapons which they had formerly despised. Their wonder was not diminished when they saw what they imagined pounded cinders put into the muzzles of the guns, and then, on pulling a small piece of iron, a flash of fire, accompanied with smoke and a loud report, immediately followed.

The chief, by signs, appeared to ask them to accompany him, that the rest of his tribe might see what seemed to them exceedingly wonderful, and having followed him they soon arrived at a place where several Indians were engaged in erecting small wigwams of bark.

The chief, however, made them understand that this was only their hunting-ground, and told them that their village lay far off, in the direction of the sun, which was then sinking behind the trees, and to which they should soon return.

From this time the missionaries commenced learning the language of their entertainers, in which they were able to converse with some facility by the time that the Indians returned to their village, which was situated on the Oneida. Having arrived there, Price began to teach them; but they, having patiently listened to his first sermon, to his great sorrow, never assembled to hear him again; and, in consequence, he told Wilmington that he would try to discover whether there was any truth in the reports they had heard at Boston concerning the inland waters, and asked him if he was willing to be his companion.

Had Heard Great Roaring.

Wilmington assented, and having endeavored to inform the Indians of their intention, the chief, who had conducted them to the village, made them understand that the river which flowed past led to an immense basin, which they supposed was formed by the continual running of several large rivers, but that few of his tribe had ever paddled far round its borders.

There was, however, an old man who in his youth had ventured to proceed in his canoe for many suns along it, and returned with the report that he had arrived at an immense river which ran into the fresh sea, where, having landed for the purpose of hunting, he had heard a terrific roaring, as he thought, of waters, and, advancing through the woods toward the sound, for some miles the stream became so rapid that no canoe could go up against it. Being very much alarmed, he had hurried back to his bark and instantly commenced his return; but he was the only one of the tribe who had ever dared to sail so far, and from his account they supposed it the source of the lake.

Having learned this, they asked the chief, whose name was Maiook, whether he would allow any of his Indians to accompany them down the river to the lake and ascertain from whence the sound that had alarmed the aged Indian arose. He at first tried to dissuade them by every argument in his power, but, finding his endeavors of no avail, he said that he would himself join them in their expedition. It was, therefore, agreed that they should sail down the river the week following; but, before the time determined on, an event occurred that considerably delayed their departure.

On rising one morning they remarked that large clouds of smoke were drifting over their heads, accompanied by an overpowering pressure of heat, which the Indians said was occasioned by the woods being on fire; and as the wind was high, showers of ashes frequently fell around them.

To avoid these, they took shelter in their wigwams, but the hotness of the air, together with the smoke, increased so much that, being in danger of suffocation, the chief proposed that they should cast themselves into the Oneida; and as no better proposition could be made, they hurried into it, and remained with only their heads above water, being often obliged to immerse them likewise. They were thus situated many hours, while the water was black with the ashes that fell around them.

First View of Lake Ontario.

The wind at last, to their great joy, changed, and relieved them from their perilous position, by driving the flames in the contrary direction. They did not, however, quit the water, as the ground was still covered with burning embers. On leaving the river, they saw, to their mortification, that the village was on fire in several places, and it was some time before they succeeded in stopping the progress of the burning; the canoes which they had drawn up on the shore were also consumed.

After repairing the damage and making other canoes, they began their expedition; and, having paddled for several days, one calm and beautiful evening they were astonished at the sight of Lake Ontario.

As far as the eye could reach they could only see what appeared to them boundless water, which lay without the slightest ripple on its glassy surface, undisturbed by the softest breath of wind. They then continued paddling round the shore, looking out for a place where they might safely moor their canoes during the night, and, among the many small inlets, they soon discovered one fitted for their purpose, which they immediately entered.

At sunrise they again advanced on their adventurous expedition. As they coasted along, the deer would sometimes look at them from among the thickets which fringed the borders of the lake; and at other times they saw them swimming across the mouths of the various creeks or rivers which they passed in their progress. They were, however, too much engaged in admiring the lonely magnificence of the surrounding scenery to interrupt the playful gambols of the deer by endeavoring to wound them, which they did only when their necessities compelled.

Thus they paddled onward for several days without perceiving anything that might lead them to suppose they were approaching the spot to which the old Indian had alluded, when one hazy morning, having proceeded many miles before the sun had power to dispel the thick mists, they were delighted at seeing themselves, as the air at noon cleared, about to enter a large river, which flowed rapidly into the lake.

As this in some measure coincided with the first part of what had been related to them, they determined on entering it; but after paddling up it for some time the current grew so strong that they were compelled to disembark and continue their journey by land on the edge of the high precipitous bank.

The wind, softly blowing, rustled among the trees, but sometimes they fancied that a distant rumbling could be distinguished.

Having followed the course of the stream along the edge of the cliff for some distance, Price proposed that one of them should ascend a tree and follow the course of the river upward with his eye, and try if he could discover whence the sound that reached them arose.

Maiook, therefore, told one of his Indians to climb up a lofty pine which grew apart from the rest, and he had hardly ascended half-way when, uttering a cry of astonishment, he hastened to the ground and told his comrades that he had seen immense clouds of spray rising far above the trees, but he could not perceive from what cause they arose.

The Cataract at Last!

Encouraged by this report, after refreshing themselves (being much wearied by their toilsome march), they hastened along the edge of the cliffs, while the rushing sound that had been gradually increasing was every instant becoming more and more tremendous, and the velocity of the stream made them imagine that they were in the vicinity of a furious rapid, when, on advancing from the thick bushes, they suddenly found themselves on a bare ledge of rock which overhung an immense chasm into which two streams and a mighty river were tumbling with a noise that drowned all their exclamations of surprise, and which was louder than the voice of the ocean in a storm.

Springing back with terror from the edge of the precipice over which they had so nearly plunged, they eyed the thundering and foaming torrent with amazement, not noticing that part of the rock on which they had just been standing was tottering, and slowly separating itself from the adjoining mass, till they were roused by the crash with which it was precipitated into the gulf below, shaking the living rock from whence it had been detached, and resounding through the woods, far above the roaring of the stupendous cataract.

The missionaries involuntarily leaped back among the trees, not daring to return to the place where they had been, and viewed with more composure the awful prospect before them. The river above the falls was for some distance a furious rapid, rushing with incredible force toward the precipice; but when on its very brink it, in some parts of the great stream, became calm, other parts were white with foam.

While thus engaged, Maiook, with a loud cry, directed their attention to a large deer, which, in vain struggling against the overpowering suction of the falls, was rapidly coming to destruction. They watched its fruitless endeavors to reach the shore; but, on arriving at the deceitful calm, it looked wildly, with distended nostrils and outstretched neck, and seemed to be crying; but the roar of the cataracts drowned its voice, and it was soon precipitated into the boiling abyss.

The French, from the province of Quebec, may have reached as far before, but Price and his companion believed they were the first who had penetrated to that spot; and when they returned back to the settlements their description of the unparalleled magnificence of the cataracts to which Maiook gave the name of Niagara, or the thundering waters, was deemed incredible.

But the wilderness has now been banished, and festivity and commerce have there established themselves amidst the simple sublimity that distinguishes this, the most impressive spectacle of the kind to be seen on the whole earth.

I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue: he approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.--

Cato. (95-46 B.C.)

THE GLORY OF THE CORN.

An Eloquent Appreciation of the Greatest and Most Typical of All the Agricultural Staples of America, to Which Richard J. Oglesby, the Famous Old War Veteran and Governor of Illinois, Gave Expression.

Richard J. Oglesby, from whose lips came this eloquent praise of Indian corn, was himself a son of the Corn Belt. He was born in Oldham County, Kentucky, July 25, 1824. He was elected Governor of Illinois in November, 1864, holding the office continuously until 1869. Again, in 1872, he was elected Governor. From 1873 to March 3, 1879, he was a United States senator from Illinois, when he declined reelection. In November, 1884, he was once more elected Governor, serving four years. He died at Elkhart, Indiana, April 24, 1899.

The following speech was delivered before the Fellowship Club in Chicago, September 9, 1892, on the occasion of the Harvest Home Festival. At the speaker's table that night ex-Governor Oglesby sat between Joseph Jefferson and Sir A. Conan Doyle.

The corn! The corn! The corn, that in its first beginning and in its growth has furnished aptest illustration of the tragic announcement of the chiefest hope of man! If he die he shall surely live again. Planted in the friendly but somber bosom of mother earth, it dies. Yea, it dies the second death, surrendering up each trace of form and earthly shape until the outward tide is stopped by the reacting vital germs which, breaking all the bonds and cerements of its sad decline, come bounding, laughing into life and light, the fittest of all the symbols that make certain promise of the fate of man. And so it died, and then it lived again.

See it--look on its ripening, waving field. See how it wears a crown, prouder than monarch ever wore; sometimes jauntily, and sometimes, after the storm, the dignified survivors of the tempest seem to view a field of slaughter and to pity a fallen foe. And see the pendent caskets of the cornfield filled with the wine of life, and see the silken fringes that set a form for fashion and for art.

And now the evening comes, and something of a time to rest and listen. The scudding clouds conceal the half and then reveal the whole of the moonlit beauty of the night; and then the gentle winds make heavenly harmonies on a thousand thousand harps that hang upon the borders, and the edges, and the middle of the field of ripening corn, until my very heart seems to beat responsive with the rising and the falling of the long, melodious refrain. The melancholy clouds sometimes make shadows on the field and hide its aureate wealth; and now they move, and slowly into sight there comes the golden glow of promise for an industrious land.

Aye, the corn, the royal corn, within whose yellow hearts there is of health and strength for all the nations. The corn triumphant! That with the aid of man hath made victorious procession across the tufted plain and laid foundation for the social excellence that is and is to be. This glorious plant, transmitted by the alchemy of God, sustains the warrior in battle, the poet in song, and strengthens everywhere the thousand arms that work the purposes of life.

Oh, that I had the voice of song or skill to translate into tone the harmonies and symphonies and oratorios that roll across my soul when, standing, sometimes by day and sometimes by night, upon the borders of the verdant sea, I note a world of promise; and then before one-half the year is gone I view its full fruition and see its heaped gold await the need of man!

Majestic, fruitful, wondrous plant! Thou greatest among the manifestations of the wisdom and the love of God that may be seen in all the fields, or upon the hillsides, or in the valleys. Glorious corn that, more than all the sisters of the field, wears tropic garments. Nor on the shore of Nilus nor of Ind does Nature dress her forms more splendidly. My God, to live again that time, when half the world was good and the other half unknown!

And now again the corn! The corn, which in its kernel holds the strength that shall (in the body of the man refreshed) subdue the forest and compel response from every stubborn field; or, shining in the eye of beauty, make blossoms of her cheeks and jewels of her lips, and thus make for man the greatest of all inspirations to well-doing, the hope of companionship of that sacred, warm, and well-embodied soul, a woman.

OUR INTEREST IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Among the Impressive Memorials in the Ancient Edifice in Which England Lays the Bodies of Her Honored Dead Are Many That Possess Peculiar Interest for Americans.

To be buried in Westminster Abbey, or to be honored there by a memorial bust or tablet, is one of the highest posthumous honors that can be accorded an Englishman. The noble old structure enshrines many of the good and the great; and it is gratifying to Americans that a number of their fellow countrymen are there remembered. In the Poets' Corner is a beautiful bust of Longfellow, set up in 1884 by English admirers of the poet.

Before the tomb of Major André the American visitor pauses, and doubtless he agrees with the inscription, which says that the ill-fated André was "lamented even by his foes." André's remains were taken to England in 1821 from Tappan, New York, where he was originally buried.

Another memorial of the Revolutionary War is a monument to the memory of William Wragg, of South Carolina. Wragg stuck to the fortunes of England when the colonies revolted. On his way to England he was drowned. The monument was erected by his sister in 1779. A very beautiful urn surmounts it, on which is pictured the incident of the shipwreck in which Mr. Wragg was drowned.

The visitor who does not penetrate to the remotest corner of the Abbey will look in vain for the James Russell Lowell memorial. It has been erected in the vaulted vestibule of the old chapter-house. This chapter-house is the most interesting feature of the entire Abbey. It is the oldest part of the building.

Originally the assembly-hall of the members of the convent and the scene of the floggings of the older monks, it became the meeting-place of the Commons soon after the separation of the two houses of Parliament, in the reign of Edward I, and it remained their meeting-place until they removed to the Chapel of St. Stephen, in the old Westminster Palace, in 1547.

The chapter-house itself is dark and gloomy. Far more so is the passageway which leads to it, and in the dimness of its obscurity one who looks closely will find a small tablet bearing the bust of James Russell Lowell in bas-relief. Above this tablet is a beautiful triple stained-glass window to the memory of Mr. Lowell, erected by his friends in England.

The tributes to Americans which appear in the Abbey are the tributes of their English friends and admirers. Colonel Joseph Lemuel Chester, an American little known to his countrymen, who edited the _Westminster Abbey Register_, figures among the distinguished dead. He was a native of Norwich, Connecticut, but lived for many years in London, and died there in 1882. The dean and chapter of Westminster erected the memorial to his memory.

Though the monuments in Westminster to Americans are the gifts of Englishmen, the old church of St. Margaret's, which stands close beside the Abbey, holds two memorials to famous Englishmen erected by Americans. These are a fine stained-glass window commemorating Sir Walter Raleigh, who was buried in St. Margaret's in 1618, and another beautiful window in honor of John Milton, whose second wife and infant child also rest in the church. The Milton window was erected by the late George W. Childs, of Philadelphia; the Raleigh memorial by several American subscribers.

The Beginnings of Stage Careers.

BY MATTHEW WHITE, JR.

A Series of Papers That Will Be Continued from Month to Month and Will Include All Players of Note.

BREESE EMULATED ANANIAS.

Former Farm Boy and Swimming Instructor Told a Weird Yarn About Francis Wilson to Get Behind Footlights.

Some very unusual experiences form the foundation-stones upon which rests the stage career of Edmund Breese, who has become widely known for his work as the Lion (a multimillionaire supposed to typify Rockefeller) in the season's success, "The Lion and the Mouse."

Breese was a Brooklyn boy, with no tinge of the theater in any of his forebears or surroundings. Before he reached his 'teens the members of his family were in the habit of making frequent trips to Atlantic City, via Philadelphia, where they had relatives, who now and then took young Edmund to the play.

On one of these journeys the boy chanced to spy a notice outside the Eleventh Street Opera House, where the Carncross Minstrels were holding forth. This announced that a number of boys were wanted for a certain production about to be made. Instantly young Breese was fired with the determination to apply for a job on the stage.

Presenting himself at the box-office he made known his desires. A man inside looked him over and said he thought he would do, and told him to present himself on a certain day in the following week. Breese returned home to Brooklyn all aglow with anticipation, informed his mother of his good luck, and--well, was made very clearly to realize that school and home and the keeping of early hours were his _métier_ just then.

It was some little time after this stirring of the Thespian bug in his blood that he received another inoculation--also in the City of Brotherly Love. He saw Dore Davidson in a performance of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and the characterization made such an impression on him that after he reached home he took the first opportunity of showing his mother a duplication of it.

At first she listened with the complaisant toleration of a parent anxious to appear interested in a child's enthusiasms, but presently young Breese became aware that she was following his depiction with absorbed attention.

"I really must have it in me to do something in the acting-line," he told himself.

Becomes a Farm Boy.

But soon after this a big change in his life occurred. He left Brooklyn and went West to study--what do you suppose? Nothing short of farming. It was decided that he should learn to become a tiller of the soil, although he had been born and brought up in a city.

At twenty dollars a month, then, he started in to milk the cows, do the chores and make himself generally useful about the place. But it did not take him long to discover that for a young fellow of eighteen, the prospects in such a life were not very illuminating.