Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846

"Does the white Rose," said Canondah, "fear to touch her brother, for whose life she was lately so anxious?"

For sole reply, the young girl took her friend's hand, and raising the stranger from the ground, they carried him to the hollow tree, and laid him down upon his mossy couch.

"When the earth is covered with darkness," said Canondah, bending over him, "Canondah will visit her brother, and pour balsam into his wounds."

But her words were unmarked by the person addressed, who, with the exception of a faint breathing, gave no sign of life. The two maidens struck into the path by which they had first approached the river, and along which we will now precede them in order to introduce the reader into an entirely new world.

At a short distance from the scene of the adventure above narrated, was a wide clearing, extending for about three miles along the shore. It had originally been part of a palmetto field covering the bank of the river for the breadth of half a mile, at which distance a limit was put to it by the colossal stems of the aboriginal forest. The clearing had been made by the burning of the palmettos, in whose place a carpet of luxuriant grass had sprung up, dotted with groups of magnificent trees, and intersected by natural hedges of myrtle, mangrove, palm, and tulip trees, giving to the whole tract of land the appearance of a beautiful artificial park. Here and there, through the branches of the sycamore and cotton trees, small swirls of smoke were seen curling upwards, telling of the presence of man, and on nearer inspection there became visible, under various of the groups of trees, one or more huts, surrounded by little plantations of Indian corn and tobacco, and forming collectively a scattered hamlet of some fifty habitations.

No particular rule had been observed in the architecture of these modest dwellings, whose builders had been more remarkable for indolence than for refinement of taste, and had carefully avoided overworking themselves during their construction. The simplest materials had sufficed, and had been used in the same rough state in which nature afforded them. The walls were constructed of the smaller boughs of the cotton-tree, with Spanish moss stuffed into the interstices. Instead of the clapboards, wherewith, to the west of the Alleghany range, the dwellings of the poorer class of country people are usually roofed, the palmetto reed had been made use of, a selection that gave the hamlet a peculiar air of rustic simplicity. The houses were for the most part without windows, and their interior received light through the chimney or door, which latter, instead of being of wood, consisted of a buffalo hide suspended in front of the doorway, and thrown back during the day upon the low roof. The principal charm of the village, however, lay not in its style of building, but in the manner in which the humble dwellings seemed to nestle under the numerous clusters of trees. The universal cleanliness and absence of all offal formed another remarkable feature, and went far to increase the favourable impression made by the delightful situation of the hamlet. It was truly a lovely spot, as its ruins still show. The broad Natchez flowing majestically by, on its way to the sea; the dark framework of cypresses and mangroves fringing its shores, their tall shadows reflected in the clear waters; the innumerable groups of trees, with huts peeping out of their shade like so many hermitages; and finally, the spacious clearing itself, enclosed at either end by the waving palmettos, and bounded on the third side by a wall of gigantic and venerable trees, gave to the whole scene an air of enchanting repose and seclusion.

The inhabitants of this retired spot, although offering fewer charms than did their residence, were in many respects scarcely less interesting. In front of the foremost hut was assembled a group of creatures with dark shining skins, which, at a first glance, and owing to their comical movements, might well have been taken for a herd of apes. Now, like those animals, they leaped the hedges and bushes, and then, like snakes, wound along the ground, or rolled down the river bank with a rapidity of motion that the eye could scarcely follow. Further on in the village were seen lads of a maturer age, practising warlike games and exercises. They were performing the spy-dance. Whilst one party crept stealthily over the grass, others lay upon the ground in a listening posture, and with their ears pressed to the earth, strove to distinguish the movements of their antagonists. At last, when the two parties had approached each other, they sprang suddenly up, and forming themselves in Indian file, commenced a combat in which they dealt furious blows with their blunt wooden tomahawks, exhibiting in every movement an extraordinary degree of activity and natural grace. Little interest was shown in these evolutions by the adult inhabitants of the village, whose extreme apathy and indifference contrasted curiously with the display of violent exertion on the part of the young Indians. Before the open doors of the huts sat the squaws and their daughters, stripping the maize from the ear, beating hemp, or picking tobacco; the children, who, according to Indian custom, are from their very birth kept in an upright posture, hanging against the outer walls on long concave boards or pieces of bark, to which their hands and feet were fastened by thongs of buffalo hide, their only garment a strip of calico round the hips.

At a short distance from the upper part of the clearing stood two wooden huts, which might have passed for two of the school or meeting-houses often met with in the American backwoods. Like the other dwellings composing the hamlet, they were propped against sycamore-trees, but they were distinguished by their larger dimensions and more careful style of building, by the bowers of palm and mangrove that surrounded them, and the plots of smooth turf before their doors. In front of one of these little houses, and in the centre of the lawn, about fifty men were squatted upon the ground, enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke, proceeding from tobacco-pipes, three to five feet in length, with which all of them were provided. They were attired in hunting-shirts, open in front, and showing the naked breast down to the wampum girdle, to which a second garment, reaching to the knee, was attached. Instead of the shaved head and scalping-tuft adopted by many Indian tribes, they wore the whole of their hair. They appeared to have taken their places according to their rank, the inner half-circle being composed of the older warriors, whilst the young men formed a second and third line. In the centre of the curve sat an old warrior, on whom the eyes of the assembly were respectfully fixed, and whose remarkable exterior, combined with the deference shown him, bespoke the chief of the tribe. It would be difficult to imagine a more singular, and at the same time interesting-looking person, than this old man, whose body seemed to consist of nothing but skin and bone. All the coarse and fleshy portions of his frame were dried up, and only veins and sinews remained. His open hunting-shirt disclosed a breast far broader than that of any one of his companions, resembling a board that had been chopped and hacked, so covered was it with the scars of many wounds. The chief characteristic of his countenance was a gloomy stoical gravity, mingled with a resigned expression, telling a tale of many a fearful struggle, and of grievous mental suffering. The fall of his tribe, and seven years' exile, had brought about this change in the Miko of the Oconees.

This old man is Tokeah, who, driven by the Americans from his hunting grounds, has taken refuge, with the remnant of his tribe, upon Mexican territory. Canondah is his daughter, and the young man whom she rescued from the jaws of the alligator is an English midshipman belonging to a frigate employed in sounding the entrances of the Mississippi, preparatory to the expedition against New Orleans. Whilst away from his ship on a turtling party, he and two of his comrades have been captured by Lafitte, the famous French pirate, whose chief haunt was on the island of Barataria, in the Gulf of Mexico, whence, from amidst shoals and swamps impenetrable to those unacquainted with their intricacies, he issued forth to commit depredations on the high seas, and especially in the Mexican Gulf. During an inland excursion, about two years previously to the date of this tale, Lafitte discovered the Indian village on the Natchez, and was at first about to attack and plunder it; but the determined attitude of its defenders, and, still more, the reflection that their alliance might be useful to him against the Louisianian authorities, who had set a price upon his head, induced him to change his intention, and to hold out the right hand of good fellowship to the red men. Tokeah, whose ruling passion is hatred of the Americans, gladly concluded an alliance with the pirate, who professed an equal detestation of them. The Frenchman speedily ingratiated himself with the old chief, with whom he bartered a portion of his plunder for provisions of various kinds; and after a time, Tokeah, unsuspicious of the real character of his disreputable ally, whom he believed the chief of an independent tribe living on the sea-shore, promised him Rosa in marriage, an arrangement to which, as has already been seen, the poor girl was any thing but a consenting party.

Early upon the morrow of the arrival of the midshipman, upon whom our author has bestowed the unromantic name of James Hodges, the Oconee warriors depart on a hunting expedition, and the wounded man is removed to a hut in the village. During their absence, Canondah, at the entreaty of Rosa, between whom and the young Englishman a kindness has grown up during the convalescence of the latter, and who fears for his life should Tokeah discover him, disguises the midshipman in Indian paint and apparel, supplies him with arms, and explains to him the road to New Orleans, which he trusts to find occupied by British troops. She has guided him through the swamp and ferried him across the Sabine, when some words she lets fall apprise him of the peril she and Rosa will be in from her father's anger, when he returns from his hunting party, and is informed by the squaws of the evasion of one of the detested Americans, to which nation he will naturally feel assured that the English midshipman belongs. To avert all danger from the heads of his deliverers, the young man then wishes to go back to the village, but this the noble-minded girl refuses to allow, and pushes off her canoe from the shore, to which all his entreaties are insufficient to induce her to return. She retraces her steps to the hamlet, and shut up in her wigwam with Rosa, awaits, in alarm and deep dejection, her father's return from the chase.

Twenty-four hours had elapsed, during the whole of which time Canondah had not left her hut, nor had any of the squaws been to visit her. At last, towards morning, the voices of men were heard upon the shore. It was the Miko and his hunters. His daughter rose, her knees trembling under her, and looked out of the window. She saw the old squaws whispering to the men, and pointing to the wigwam in which the Englishman had dwelt. Presently the Miko entered his hut, followed by several warriors, and Canondah stepped forward to welcome her father. With hands folded upon her throbbing bosom, she silently awaited his commands.

"The men of the Oconees," he began, after a pause, during which he seemed to read his daughter's soul, "have told their Miko that a messenger from the chief of the Salt Lake has reached his wigwam. Why do not my eyes behold him?"

The trembling girl made no reply, but remained with her eyes fixed upon the ground.

"Has Canondah so forgotten her father's blood as to bring a Yankee into his wigwam, and to show him the path that leads to the villages of the pale faces? The Miko thought he had a daughter," said the old man, with the most cutting scorn; "but Canondah is not the daughter of the Miko of the Oconees. Go," continued he, in an accent of unspeakable disgust; "a miserable Seminole deceived her mother, and gave life to a traitress."

On hearing these terrible words, the maiden sank to the ground as if struck by lightning, and, writhing like a worm, crept to her father's feet, and laid hold of his garment. He pushed her from him with loathing.

"Go," said he; "she sang in the ears of the Miko, and implored the Great Spirit to protect him, whilst she cherished and concealed the foe of his race. Therefore could not the White Rose sing the night-song, because the spy was waiting for her in the forest. The Miko has nourished a snake in his bosom, his beaver-skins have been thrown away, and the White Rose has brought a spy into his wigwam to betray him to his foes. In a few suns he and his will be hunted by their enemies like the wild panther of the forests."

An angry howl escaped the Indians, and two of the most ferocious looking glided towards the curtain of Rosa's apartment. Canondah was lying speechless, apparently almost senseless, upon the ground, but hardly had the red men taken a step, when she suddenly stood before them.

"It is I," she cried; "it is Canondah, who guided the pale face across the swamp, and showed him the path he should follow. The White Rose knows it not."

Scarcely had she spoken, when the curtain was lifted and Rosa appeared. The Indian girl clasped her in her arms as if to shield her from harm, and the two maidens stood with drooping heads before the incensed Miko. The eyes of the chief had followed the rapid movement of his daughter, and he appeared astounded at the boldness with which she interposed between him and the intended sacrifice to his wrath. On beholding Rosa, a grim smile distorted his features; he made a step forward, and raised his knife.

"It was I!" cried the affrighted Canondah.

"No!" exclaimed Rose, in trembling tones; "I it was who brought the white youth into the wigwam."

The Miko stood like one petrified. Gradually, however, the generous rivalry and self-devotion of the two beautiful beings before him produced its effect on his savage nature. The expression of his features softened.

"Go," said he with bitter scorn; "does Canondah think the Miko a fool, and that his eyes do not see who brought the white spy into the wigwam? It was the foot of Canondah that opened the path, but the treacherous tongue of the White Rose prevailed with her to do it."

"Will my father," said Canondah, folding her hands humbly on her breast – "will my father loosen the tongue of his daughter?"

A long pause ensued, during which anger and paternal feeling held a visible contest in the bosom of the deeply-moved chief. Finally, the latter prevailed.

"Canondah may speak."

"My father, the white youth has sworn to me that he is no spy, and not one of the Yengheese. He is from the island of the foolish chief, the land of which you have told me that it is cold and icy. His people are on the war-path against our foes, the Yengheese. It is but a few suns since he and his friends came across the great salt lake; they will go up the great river and burn the wigwams of our enemies. The chief of the Salt Lake, he says, is a thief, who overpowered him and his brothers whilst they caught oysters and turtle, and took them to his wigwam. He escaped, and for eight suns he suffered hunger. His people will hang the chief of the Salt Lake by the neck to a tree. See, father, thy daughter delivered him from the jaws of the great water-snake, and he was already nearly dead. He has returned to his brothers, to lift the hatchet against your foes. He is no spy; his hands are soft and he was weak."

"Has Canondah more lies to tell her father?" said the old man, in a milder tone. "Her tongue is very nimble."

The abashed maiden cast her eyes to the ground. Her words, however, had visibly made a deep impression upon the Miko, and he remained for a while sunk in reflection. Tokeah was a savage by birth, habit, and education; but he was neither bloodthirsty nor cruel. Under other circumstances, and in a civilized land, he might have been a hero, a benefactor of thousands or millions of his fellow-creatures; but in his wild condition, despised, goaded and insulted as he felt himself, his better feelings blunted, and his whole nature soured by real and fancied injuries, what wonder was it that he raised his knife even against his own daughter, entering the hut as he did with the full persuasion that the young man she had sheltered was a spy and emissary of his bitterest foes?

The account given of himself by the midshipman, and the imputations cast by him on the chief of the Salt Lake, as Lafitte is called by the Indians, receive strong confirmation from two handbills, which Tokeah, who has learned to read English in the course of his long intercourse with the white men, has torn, during his recent expedition, from a wall in one of the new Louisianian settlements. One of these papers is a proclamation by the authorities of Louisiana, enumerating the crimes and cruelties of the pirate of Barataria, and offering a reward of five hundred dollars for his head. The other is an address to the citizens of the state, summoning them to the defence of their country against the British. Notwithstanding this corroborative evidence of the correctness of his daughter's statement, Tokeah, unwilling to remain with the smallest doubt upon his mind, or to risk the discovery of the nook in which, for seven years, he has been unseen by an American eye, sets off with a party of warriors in pursuit of the young Englishman. The ensuing chapter, the last of the first volume, we will translate with small abridgement, and therewith, for the present, conclude our extracts.

The mood of mind in which we left our young Englishman may aptly be compared with that of the assassin neophytes, whom, according to the tale, the Old Man of the Mountain was wont to introduce into an enchanted garden, peopled with ravishing houris, whence, after a short enjoyment of the most voluptuous delights, he again thrust them forth into the dark and dismal night of the desert, with nothing remaining of their past pleasures save a wild confusion of the senses, a chaos of images and visions, and a burning desire to recover the lost paradise. True it is, as our readers know, that the young sailor had no such enjoyments to regret, and equally true that his own wish had driven him from his Eden; but he nevertheless experienced the tumult and confusion of thought, and the longing to return, above described. It seemed as if the nobler and inferior qualities of his nature were striving within him, the two principles alternately, as either got the upper hand, impelling him onwards and calling him back. A full hour elapsed, during which he several times walked away from the shore and then again returned to it, until at last he was surprised by the first beams of the sun, disclosing to him a scene whose sight assisted him to prompt decision.

Agreeably with what Canondah had told him, he found the left bank of the Sabine bare of trees, with the exception of a few stunted firs and cedars growing along the shore. Before him was spread a landscape which the most skilful pencil could but imperfectly sketch, the most powerful fancy with difficulty conceive. It was an interminable tract of meadow land, its long grass waving in the morning breeze, presenting an endless succession of gentle undulations, whilst in the far distance isolated groups of trees appeared to rock like ships upon the boundless ocean. Nowhere was a fixed point to be seen, and the whole stupendous landscape swam before his eyes, waving like the surface of the sea in a soft tropical breeze. Towards the north, the plain rose gradually into highlands, between whose picturesque clusters of trees his eye penetrated to the extremity of the vast panorama, where the bright tints of the landscape blended with those of the horizon. Eastward the huge meadow sank down into bottoms, shaded by trees, and overgrown with reeds and palmettos, shining, as the wind stirred them, like sails in the sunshine. The profound stillness of the sky-bounded plain, only broken by the plash of the waterfowl, or the distant howl of the savanna wolf, and the splendour of the rising sun, imparted an indescribable solemnity and grandeur to the scene. Lower down the river were detached groups of trees, amongst which grazed deer, who, with wondering glances, seemed to ask the wanderer whence he came; and after gazing at him for a while, tossed their antlers proudly in the air, and, as if displeased at the intrusion upon their territory, paced slowly back into the thicket. The whole landscape was dotted with diminutive hillocks of a conical form, the habitations of small brown animals, who sat in front of them with their faces to the sun, making their breakfast on the tender grass.

The district just described is the western portion of Louisiana, which, from the alluvial land of the Mississippi, Red River, Atchafalaya, and other smaller but deep streams, swells gradually upwards towards the west, and ends in these vast and magnificent savannas. The detached pictures that we have laid before our readers, in the endeavour to convey to them some idea of the whole, burst at once upon the young Englishman; and their view put him in much the same state of mind with the seaman, who, having left his ship during the night in a frail skiff, finds himself in the morning alone upon the wide waters, and hesitates whether he shall not, by one desperate plunge, avoid the misery and suffering that await him. This feeling of isolation and helplessness, like the last grain thrown into the balance, suddenly terminated the young man's indecision, and induced him to take a step, which, whilst it seemed to ensure his own destruction, attested the triumph of the better principle within. Hastily stripping off his clothes, he tied then in a bundle, and jumping into the chilly stream, in a quarter of an hour reached the opposite shore. The parting words of the noble Indian girl had decided him to return to the village, and give himself up to the fury of the terrible Miko. Any other consideration was subordinate to that generous motive.

Upon reaching the right bank of the river, Hodges proceeded to seek the path through the thicket. But the difficulties he encountered were such as might well deter the most persevering. The western side of the Sabine, like that of the Natchez, is a gentle slope, ending in a ridge which again sinks gradually and imperceptibly down to the swamp. The black masses of cypress and cedar allowed him to penetrate a few hundred paces through them, and to reach the summit of the rising ground; but as soon as the descent began, he found it impossible to get a step further. The slope was covered with a description of tree which he had never before seen or heard of. The stems were not thicker than a man's body, but they grew close together, and were covered with thorns as long as his arm, presenting the appearance of millions of brown bayonets, so thickly planted, and so manifold in their direction, as scarcely to allow a squirrel to set foot upon the trees on which they grew. He tried to call to mind the position of the path along which Canondah had conducted him; he investigated every thicket and opening in the bushes, but all in vain; hours passed away, and he had not found it. When he detected the trace of footsteps, they invariably proved to be his own. At last fortune seemed to smile upon him; he discovered the place where the canoe was concealed. He had still long to look, however, before he could find the track leading through the forest; and when he did hit upon it, it was so intricate, and led in such a zigzag line, now up the slope and then down again, that darkness came on, and he had not yet reached the swamp. Hungry and fatigued, he returned to the Sabine, and, fully determined to try his luck again next morning, he trusted with better success, he loaded the canoe upon his shoulders, launched it upon the water, and rowed to the opposite bank, where he had left the provisions with which Canondah had supplied him. Taking them with him, he recrossed the river, and after a short but hearty meal, busied himself in the preparation of a sleeping place. In that heavenly region, nature has supplied the means for a simple, but delightful bed, in the tillandsea or Spanish moss, whose long, delicate, horsehair-like threads, compose the most luxurious couch. With this moss Hodges now filled the canoe, and carried it to the hiding-place where he had found it. This had been selected between two cedars, whose lower boughs served as rollers, upon which he only had to raise the boat to be secure from observation. His gun at his side, and wrapped in his blanket, he fell asleep.

The fatigues of the day procured the young Englishman several hours of profound and untroubled slumber, but at the end of that time he was tormented by a strange dream. He thought he saw the corpses of Rosa and Canondah lying pale and bleeding before him, whilst over them strode a fantastical-looking monster, a knife in its claws, levelled at his heart. He turned round, he fought and wrestled, and strove to seize his gun. The desperate struggle awoke him.

That which had been a dream had now become reality. A grim savage really stood over him, one foot upon the canoe, in his hand a tomahawk, which he waved above his head with a scowl of triumph. One blow, and all would be over. Quick as thought the young Englishman raised his rifle, and pointed it at the breast of the Indian, who started on one side. The tomahawk descended, but, fortunately for Hodges, his sudden movement overturned the canoe at the very moment that the blow fell. This saved his life. Clasping the knees of the Indian with the strength of desperation, he brought him to the ground, and threw himself upon him. The deadly scalping-knife was about to pierce his heart, when he caught the wrist of the savage in his right hand, and with his left clutched his throat. For a moment the Indian struggled, glared at him with an expression of inveterate hate, and then his breath left him, his features became distorted, and he let the knife fall. The next instant it glittered in the hand of Hodges, and the Indian lay defenceless, his antagonist's knee on his breast, awaiting, with set teeth and staring eyes, the death which he deemed inevitable. During one second, the young man appeared to hesitate; then he sprang to his feet.

"Go," said he; "I will not sully myself with your blood."

"My young brother is really a friend of the red men," said a voice behind him.

Hodges turned, and beheld another Indian, a scalping-knife in his hand, which he seemed about to plunge into his back. Springing on one side, he confronted this new foe.

"My brother need not fear," said the second Indian, behind whom the other had now retreated, not unlike a dog, who, feeling himself guilty of a misdeed, creeps, with tail between his legs, behind the back of his master. The new-comer surveyed him with a severe glance.

"Milimach," said he, "would have taken a scalp from a sleeping man, but he has to thank the white youth that his own is still upon his head. Milimach has disobeyed the Miko."

"Are you the Miko?" cried Hodges – "the Miko of the Oconees?"

The old man fixed his calm and penetrating look upon his interrogator, and replied with much dignity, "My young brother has said it. He has nothing to fear; the Miko stretches out to him his hand, in peace and friendship."

"You the Miko of the Oconees?" repeated Hodges, grasping the Indian's hand, and heartily shaking it. "I am delighted to see you; and, to say the truth, I was on my way to your village."

"The maidens," said the chief, "told the Miko that the son of the great father who owns the two Canadas, had escaped from the chief of the Salt Lake, and sought shelter in his wigwam. My eyes have seen, and my soul believes what is true. But my brother has travelled very little of the path leading to his people."

"I will tell you why," said the young man. "You have an excellent girl for a daughter – Heaven bless her! – and she and that angel, Rosa, were like sisters to me. I would gladly have remained longer, had not the voice of duty called me away. But when your daughter left me upon the other side of the river, something escaped her that made it my first duty to return to your wigwam."

The chief had listened with much attention. "What did my daughter whisper in the ear of my young brother?" said he.

"Few words," was the reply, "but weighty ones. I understood that the poor girls would suffer for their goodness to me; and that, suspecting they had brought a Yankee spy into your wigwam, you would perhaps kill them."

"And my brother?" said the Miko.

"Held himself bound to return, to avert the danger from their innocent heads."