Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/43

Rh deeply mourned by his people. That tribe, in all conveyances of land to the white people, strenuously reserved this sacred sepulchral ground.

Whether it is still a favorite resort with the young, I know not. But to enumerate the spots in the neighborhood of Norwich, where the lover of nature might delight to ruminate, would be difficult. Equally so would it be, to do justice to the social virtues that predominate there, and to the hospitality and cordial feeling which naturalize the stranger, and unlock the springs of sympathy. Memory lingers around every nook and dell, of "mine own romantic town," repeopling it with the loved and lost. Scarce a rocky ravine, but hath its legend of some musing hour, or of some cherished friend, in whose company it was visited.

Yet how vain to attempt a description of the haunts which in childhood we frequented. Those which we were in the habit of visiting, after the confinement of a long day in school, are clothed with an illusive beauty, which neither time, nor truth, can perfectly dispel. Hence this variable, and diminutive cataract of my native place, was ever in the days of childish simplicity, as the Fall of Terni:—

One of the peculiar features of the scene in those days, was its entire seclusion. Tall and beautiful