Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/288

Rh It was difficult to persuade one's self that many of these bold pyramids and broken temple-facades had not really been the work of human hands, so symmetrical, so architectural were these colossal erections. I saw in two places human dwellings, built upon a height; they looked like birds'-nests upon a lofty roof: but I was glad to see them, because they predicted that this magnificent region will soon have inhabitants, and this temple of nature, worshippers in thankful and intelligent human hearts. The country on the other side of these precipitous crags is highland, glorious country, bordering the prairie-land; land for many millions of human beings! Americans will build upon these hills beautiful, hospitable homes, and will here labour, pray, love and enjoy. An ennobled humanity will live upon these heights.

Below in the river, at the feet of the hill-giants, the little green islands become more and more numerous; all were of the same character; all were lovely islands, all one tangle of wild vine. The wild grapes are small and sour, but are said to become sweet after they have been frosted. It is extraordinary that the wild vine is everywhere indigenous to America. America is, of a truth, Vineland.

I have heard the prophecy of a time and a land where every man shall sit under his own vine, and none shall make him afraid; when the wolf and the lamb shall sport together, and the desert shall blossom as the rose, and all in the name of the Prince of Peace!

These hills spite of their varieties of form and of their ruin-like crags, have a general resemblance; they are nearly all of the same height, not exceeding eight or nine hundred feet.—Good republicans every one of them!

Last evening, just at sunset, I saw the first trace of the Indians in an Indian grave. It was a chest of bark laid upon a couple of planks supported by four posts, standing underneath a tree golden with autumnal tints.