GLIMPSES OF WESTERN TRAVEL.

and fashionable-looking group gathered around the piano engaged in a piece of modern music, and close behind them, and listening with apparently deep interest, stood some of the dark children of the forest. A squaw, with her pappoose lashed to her back, with its head just visible above her soiled blanket, forms a striking contrast to a fashionably dressed lady when placed beside her. There is an evident effort among the Indians to assume in a measure the dress of white people. Some poor and soiled articles of civilized attire, worn with their, savage costume, only makes their appearance the more miserable. The old mission-house was pointed out to me. Mackinack has long been abandoned as a missionary station, but it was evident that a missionary of evil was still laboring there in the midst of the Indians, and from their appearance had won many followers-the firewater-that curse of the red man! It was painful to see the number of casks laid along the shore with the brand "whisky" upon them, and to think of the evil that would undoubtedly ensue from it. Macki. naw is somewhat important from its fishing trade, and its white-fish and trout are justly celebrated. These large trout have the beautifully spotted skins of the fish bearing the same name in the Eastern waters. What has been said of the transparency of the "blue waters of Huron" is not exaggeration. Of a clear day, when the lake is still, one can discern objects at the depth of many fathonis as distinctly as if they were at the surface of the water. There are old, bark-covered houses standing in the town, that look as if they must have stood there when Mackinaw was one of the frontier posts belonging to France. I observed no large trees, but there are many cedars along the bluff which surrounds the island. Landing at Milwaukee late at night and leaving it early in the morning, there was no opportunity for seeing this fast-improving city of the lake. It is some miles from Milwaukee on the west, be fore one enters the prairie country. There is much beautiful prairie between Milwaukee and the Rock river, interspersed with the oak openings, which form a characteristic feature of the country. These oak openings are of a burr oak, with low, spreading branches, and are free from any under-growth of shrubs, and at a little distance have much the appearance of extensive orchards. It was night long before we reached Janesville, upon the Rock river, the place of our destination. There was again a clear, bright moon, like that which looked down upon Huron, and the country was distinctly visible in its light.

On board one of those floating Babels, a steamer | the saloon after visiting the town, we found a refined of the largest class, and bound by the way of the upper lakes for the territory of Wisconsin. The night of our leaving Buffalo was very tempestuous, which led some of the fearful passengers to inquire, "Will not the captain put into some port should the danger become imminent?" "There is no port that this boat can enter, short of Cleaveland," was the comforting reply. In the morning the weather be came calm, and the day was pleasant upon Lake Erie. A view of Cleaveland from the lake, and a very imperfect one of Detroit, as we were receding from it in the early morning, was all that I saw of the towns upon the lower lakes. Looking out upon the St. Clair river, and near the magnificent Lake Huron, Fort Gratiot lingers as a beautiful picture upon my memory. Every thing belonging to the fort looked dazzlingly white in the afternoon sun, and contrasted finely with the green foliage of the trees with which it was surrounded. The burialground seemed, as we saw it from the river, to be in the midst of a grove of Nature's, own planting. A retired and peaceful spot for the last rest of the weary-hearted! The evening found us far up upon Lake Huron. There was a clear moon, and it was delightful to stay out upon the guards and look upon the lake as its waves glittered in the moonlight. There was a lonely grandeur in that night scene upon "the great waters," that brought home to the heart a sense of how little human aid could avail us there, should evil betide our vessel. That moonlight scene upon Lake Huron is placed beside the view of Fort Gratiot in the treasure-house of memory. The morning had been dark, with a wintry sky, but the afternoon was warm and bright when we arrived at Mackinack. The isolation of its situation in the far northern waters-the antique appearance of a portion of its buildings, and the strange blending in its population of military and civil, savage and civilized life, combine to render Mackinaw indeed a unique spot. The island rises almost like a hill from the water, and the fort, as every one knows, is upon the height commanding the passage of the straits, and the town is built upon the lake shore beneath it, and close along the water's edge are erected the lodges of the Indians. Whether there are always so many lodges to be found there, or whether some of them were set up for a temporary gathering of the Indians at Mackinaw, I know not. They were made of a coarse matting, attached to poles that protruded from their tops, and were in a conical form I should suppose from their size that the families inhabiting them must be very small, or that there was little room allowed for guests. The bark canoes of the Indians were drawn up all along the lake-shore. They look frail things to trust in, out on the deep waters of the lake. A scene on board the boat impressed me strangely. On returning to

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Along the way we saw, in different places, the "camping out" so common among the team-drivers of the West, and I was reminded strikingly of scenes I had read of in gipsy life. The groups gathered around their fires-the fire-light shining and flicker

ing upon the trees-the large wagons, with their | prairie is many miles in extent-it is skirted by oak white, covered tops, which at a little distance looked openings, and has some groves of timber dotted almost like tents in the moonlight, and the cattle in through it. The soil of the prairie is very dark and the background, formed altogether a picturesque rich, and looks as though it might bear cultivation scene. It is said that teams often go in this manner for ages without wearing out. Rock county posfrom the Mississippi to the lake and return, without sesses great agricultural resources, and has settled their drivers seeking any other lodgings than such as very rapidly for an inland district. The tide of fothey can find within or beneath their wagons. They reign emigration that sets so strongly to the West, select places for the night encampment were wood has brought many emigrants to this county. Many and water can be readily obtained, and turn out their from the cold and sterile land of Norway have found cattle to crop the grass around them. homes upon its rich soil. In the deed-books, in the county register's office, are recorded many names that sound strangely to American ears. The foreign vote told heavily upon the last elections in the territory, and its weight was given on the side that usually receives the foreign vote every where in our country.

Janesville, the county town of Rock county, is already a place of very considerable business, although it is but little more than nine years since its site was the hunting-ground of the Pottawattomies and Winnebagoes. The town was originally built on the eastern side of the river, beneath and along the side of the bluff which there terminates Rock prairie on the west; but within two years past streets have been laid out in the oak openings on the western side of the river, and many buildings erected upon them. There is a stone academy on the western side of the river, which is also occupied for the present as a chapel for the services of the Episcopal denomination. A very fine, large flouring-mill is also in process of erection on the western side of the river. The court-house stands upon the brow of the bluff, on the eastern side of the river, and near the centre of the village, and commands a fine and extensive view. Rock river is a much purer and quicker stream than many of the rivers of the West. Rock

Beloit, in the lower part of the county, near the Illinois line, is said to have grown still more rapidly than Janesville, and there are also several other villages growing up in different parts of Rock county. This is a broad and rich and beautiful country, but to one whose life has been passed in the mountain-bounded valley of the Susquehanna, the absence of any high points of view detracts from its beauty. The autumnal burning of the prairies has passed. It is a magnificent sight in the night time, to see a belt of flame stretching along for miles, until in the distance it seems lost upon the very verge of the horizon.

A MIDNIGHT FANTASY.

⚫ BY WILLIAM ALBERT SUTLIFFE.

LIGHTING the lonely taper of a thought-
Lone and forlorn, solely entranced I sit,
While night, in silence deeper dipt for aye,
Hushes to midnight in a weirdish calm.
I may not muse the low abasing earth

That ever yearn beyond its sensual coil-
Nor all the stars, th' ambitious stars sublime,
Sprinkling the liquid blue on witching nights-
But in the hazy precincts of a dream,
Soft-pacing, like a shade, erring I roam.
Go to, go to, ye winds with wasting moan,
And chase the shadows through the woody aisles,
And gild the sleep-drunk earth with slender beam,
Ye stars that watch the undulating sea!
While dimly I, with memory's torch alight,
And fancy's shifting prism, chase my will,
My own dear will, incessant through and through
The antique halls of the Past's dusky dome.

And now the glimmering of a friendly face

Grows haze-like through the gloom; and now a burst
Of hateful passion in my childish soul;

And now a coterie of friends enring
My heart with sunshine, lighting up the dim
For many a dream-land rood.

But soon a shape
Comes brightening on and on into a face
Of serious loveliness and graceful form,
With eyes lit up in sweet expectancy,
And slanted earthward so to veil their joy:-
My sister at her bridal, know 't is she!

And then again, drooped as with hidden wo,
As one doth bide a threatened stormy shock,
And, trembling ever, yet affirmed and strong,
Doth linger till its coming; her I see,
Clinging with tendrils of enhanced love
To one pale image ever at her side

Until the cloud shall drop its deathly store.

A rainy burial on a sullen day,

When all the heaven showers its hoarded gloom,
Melts in and out the vision as I dream,
And the wild strangeness of the pale farewell-
And scattered sobs unclosing all the heart-
Blend darkly with the varying of my thought;
Till the starred midnight and the homeless wind
Thrill in upon the sense with light and sound,
Bringing me back from visions unto tears.

to his intense disgust he was compelled to do, for
he was not fond of parting with his money. Various
and very interesting are the views obtained as the
traveler is borne along in his ascent. Often after
passing through some dense jungle (the whole hill-
side being wooded, and infested with tigers and other
feræ naturæ,) he finds himself on the verge of some
precipitous and dark ravine, or catches a glimpse of
the almost boundless jungle and plain which stretches
away beyond his ken, far, far below him. An active
and hardy race are the men that convey one up to
the mountain brow; yet their forms, thin and meagre,
give no promise to the eye, of their immense endur-
ance. Patiently they toil on, the sweat oozing from
every pore, and mingling in streams with cocoa-nut
oil adown their dark half-naked bodies, as with an
occasional "Hough! hough!!" when the ascent is
steeper than usual, they hump their shoulders and
steadily continue their painful task. The flavor of
the creatures is nothing sweet; and as I was blessed
with a pair of sturdy legs, after the first visit I always
made use of them to attain the summit. When once
past the gate, as two projecting rocks which narrow
the path near the top are termed, a glorious sight, or
rather succession of sights, meets the eye. At about
five thousand feet above the plain an irregular and
hilly table-land of some six miles in diameter occurs.
By a table-land, however, I do not mean to convey
the idea of any level space, for there is scarcely five
hundred yards of continuous level to be found in the
whole tract, but rather a species of main top to the
entire mass, from whence many hills of various
heights take their rise, the larger of these forming the
different peaks of the mountain as seen from the
plains below. Ravines and glens of varied descrip-
tion seam this top or table-land in every direction;
small streams flow through the rugged fissures or
grassy glades, and here and there cultivation is car
ried on with tolerable success.
One feels, on arriv
ing at this elevation, a greater freedom of breathing,
a more bracing air, and altogether a renewal of that
elasticity of the frame, sadly shaken and out of repair
from the hot winds and fevered climate of the sultry

MOUNT ABOO, to the north of Guzerat, is one of
the most interesting spots in the world, and also one
of the pleasantest in the great eastern peninsula. It
rears its giant form amongst a group of mountains
which are surrounded on nearly all sides by the
sultry plains peculiar to that part of India. These
latter are so perfectly hot, that it has become a pro- |
verbial expression that there is only a sheet of brown
paper between Deesa and the infernal regions; and
really the gently undulating sandy expanse, destitute |
during the dry season of every thing like vegetation,
save a stunted milk or thorn bush here and there,
presents no bad resemblance to an uneven sheet of
brown paper. Strange is the alteration about the
beginning of June; the rains set in, and after the
second day a tinge of green may be observed ming-
ling with the dusky brown; a week elapses, and all
is a smiling meadow. Not less extraordinary is the
change in the rivers: at one time they are dry sandy
channels; at another, torrents from a hundred yards
to half a mile broad, full to the brim, and sweeping
buffaloes, deer, sheep, cattle, trees, fragments of
houses, and sometimes even human bodies, hurry
headlong in their course toward the rhun of Cutch,
(at that time a gulf,) where they and their victims
are alike swallowed up in the ocean. A ride of fifty
miles through a country principally jungle takes one
from Deesa to the foot of Mount Aboo; but a
traveler's bungalow is built at Goondree, as a kind
of half-way house for those who do not relish the
idea of a fifty mile morning gallop. At Anadra, a
mile from the foot of the mountain, is another tra-
veler's bungalow, and a village wherein reside the
people whose business it is to transport baggage,
and even individuals, to the top; for the path is such
that a horse has quite enough to do to scramble up
the rugged ascent, while to a wheel carriage of any
description it is perfectly impossible. All burdens
are therefore carried up by Coolies; when not too
heavy they are borne upon the head, while the more
weighty are slung upon poles by two or more men,
as the case may be. Individuals, whom laziness or
illness debar from using, or rather abusing, the
muscles of their legs and backs to a degree neces-plains beneath. But one of the chief attractions is
sary to replace them on the summit, are carried by
four men, on a rude seat swung by ropes between
two poles which rest on the bearers' shoulders;
and, as the path leads along the very edge of frightful
precipices, it is certainly a position well calculated
to test a man's nerves, though I never heard of any
accident occurring. The usual complement of bearers

to each chair is eight, four being at work and four at
rest. But one fat friend of mine they refused to have
any thing to do with, unless he employed twelve,
and after the first trial, unless he took sixteen; which

the beautiful lake of pure cool water, which lies embosomed among these hills. It is about half a mile long, by a third of that distance in breadth, and was formed many hundred years ago, by damming up a marshy hollow with solid masonry and banks of earth (called a Bund in that country.) The stream which runs through it escapes, in its downward course, through a small ravine on the main side of the mountain. It is a most lovely spot, surrounded by grassy hills, gently swelling from the water's edge, with here and there a mighty black rock rear

ing its rugged head in stern and solemn majesty. | receded and vanished from his view; while he, The hills are covered with fine large trees, or some- unable to check himself, lunged furiously forward, times thickets of wood and jungle, and the white and following his adversary, tumbled headlong into houses of the different European residents, or whiter the lake below-" Præceps fertur in hostem." With tents of occasional visitors, give a pleasing and social breathless excitement I rushed to the brink, anxious effect to the park-like scenery. From the foot of to see this marvelous catastrophe brought to a close. some of the hills which descend to the water's edge In a few seconds both emerged from the bottom, the earth has crumbled away, leaving here and puffing like grampuses, and at once made the best of there a scarped, gravelly perpendicular fall of twenty their way to the shore, giving vent to many a fearful or thirty feet into the water, which beneath these bellow. It was evident that the surprise and the small precipices is generally very deep. plunge. had banished all warlike thoughts, for on reaching terra firma they started off at full gallop in opposite directions, with their tails streaming in the air, and making the woods and valleys ring with their panic-stricken roarings.

It was my, good fortune to witness an amusing scene near one of these places. Lying under the shade of a tree one fine morning, and smoking the pipe of meditation as I gazed on the calm lake stretching beneath my feet, I was suddenly startled by a thundering roar not a hundred paces from me. I looked up, and saw that it proceeded from a magnificent Bramahinee bull: he was evidently in a desperate fury, and tore up the turf with head and horn in grand style, making the surrounding hills echo with his hollow bellowing-"Reboant sylvæque et magnus Olympus," as old Virgil has it. He was the champion in the lists; nor was his challenge long unanswered. Soon a roar, as deep and as full of rage as his own, was heard in the distance. Nearer and louder it came; and out of an adjoining thicket rushed another bull, brother-like, equal at all points, and a worthy antagonist for such a hero. For a second or so each stood proudly at gaze, surveying each other; then down went their heads, and they met with a shock that seemed to me the very image of a knightly joust. Well matched they were, and it was evident the combat would be a desperate one. Save where a shade of black ap=peared on the curled forehead and on the tuft of the tail, both were milk white, and both carried, of course, the large hump-that epicurean dish-peculiar to the breed; while their ponderous dewlaps, wide-spreading horns, and gallant bearing, produced a grand effect. There I lay regarding this strife with the most intense interest, but without the least alarm; for, even supposing they had ventured to resent my intrusion on their tilting ground, my double-barrelled gun, without which I rarely stirred, would soon have taught them good manners. Round and round they drove one another, till the grass was beaten down and the bushes torn up in all directions; but neither gave way until the fate of war brought one with his back to the lake on the slope of the hillpentine, worked and carved with every sort of device, which verged to the water. Here position told: his enemy, equal in strength, and being on the higher ground, began to prevail, and to force him backward. Bravely he battled, but in vain: still he only yielded to main force; and with foreheads joined as if soldered to each other, he retreated step by step to ward the edge of that treacherous precipice noticed above. I scarcely ventured to breathe as the pair arrived within a foot of the trap, of which they were totally unconscious. Here a more strenuous resistance from the lowermost hero called forth a more vigorous shove from the uppermost, when suddenly (I've no doubt to his utter astonishment) his enemy

The green and fresh appearance of the grass and foliage at Aboo was remarkably pleasant: even during the hottest weather dews and morning mists were not uncommon; and though by nine or ten o'clock the sun asserted his power, and caused all vapor to disperse, yet he shone forth with a benign aspect, and did not inflict that "knock-me-down" heat experienced in the plains below. Through the glens and over the hill-sides I used to wander through the live-long day, and each ramble brought me to new scenes of beauty, and made me more and more regret that the talent of the painter was not mine. How 'exceedingly lovely are the Dillwara temples! Situated on the bank of a small stream which flows through a well-cultivated valley, and bounded on each side by wooded hills, the exterior alone is imposing and beautiful; but the interior is a wonder, the grandeur and magnificence of which are far beyond my powers of description. One enters a large quadrangular court, in the centre of which is the shrine and porch of the deity Parsuatt (I think that is the right name.) The shrine and porch are oval in shape, and about one-fourth of the quadrangle is taken up by the former, which is a building admitting no light save from the porch door. A silver key opened this door to us, (although unbelievers,) and we were honored with a sight of the deity sitting cross-legged, in white marble, with a lamp or two burning before him, and a great many tawdry ornaments hanging about his domicile. But the porch is the most magnificent work of art. Under the same dome with the shrine, a succession of arches, instead of the walls, is continued round the oval: these. arches are of the lightest form imaginable, often ser

and all made of the purest white marble: the pillars supporting them are light and tall, and also of white marble, with figures of men and women about two feet high, playing and singing and dancing: these are grotesquely carved in compartments, and in such high relief that one can insert the hand between them and the pillars. The roof, too, is wonderful: the most minute flowers, the most delicate tracery, are all carved exquisitely in white marble; a thousand different objects are also represented, but it would be impossible to enumerate all. Round the quadrangle runs a veranda supported by a double row of white marble pillars placed at equal distances

about 18 goats, had been left open during the previous night, and the owner, hearing an uproar, rose to shut it, and only then discovered that he had also shut in the panther among his defenseless flock: on making this discovery, he lost no time in coming to demand the sahib's assistance. F. and K. held a council of war, as to the best mode of action: the goat-house was a round wall of rough stones about three feet high, from the top of which a thatched roof rose to a point in the centre, at about six feet in height above the wall-plate; the rude building had no window, and only the one door, which was so low as only to be

(about eight feet) from each other, and thus dividing | of no ordinary character was going on; but as we the veranda into a number of imaginary squares approached, respect for the sahibs soon silenced it. between each four pillars; each square has its roof All was now explained: a fierce and huge panther and its cornice round the lower edge of the roof, had for some time been the terror of the village; while the roofs are of every indescribable pattern, sheep, goats, calves, and an occasional piccaninny, and two are seldom found alike; the cornices are had been carried off by the remorseless brute. By covered with men and animals in all situations, hunt-accident, the door of a goat-house, which contained ing, battling, dancing, the whole executed in white marble; sometimes the roof will ascend gradually, narrowing with most elaborate and deep carving to a height of many feet, then the same carving after the same fashion is continued down again, till it looks like a beautiful stalactite depending from the centre of the roof. A second court of the same kind is also shown, and I think a third, but my memory will not allow me to be sure of this last point. The description I have given, though imperfect, will do for all. I must not, however, forget to mention the curious room in which a large figure of a royal personage on horseback, and some twenty or thirty figures of ele-entered in a stooping or rather crawling position. phants, about five feet high, stand fully equipped with howdahs and trappings, the whole of which are carved most beautifully in solid white marble, and so minutely that even the very strands of the ropes are executed with the utmost fidelity. In fact, the whole thing is so wonderfully beautiful that I despair of doing more than conveying a faint idea of it. These temples are said to be some 800 or 900 years old, and are held in great sanctity as a place of pilgrimage. At a certain season of the year, thousands flock thither, and the Brahmins make a pretty decent thing out of the pious but deluded devotees. I have often wished that they were rooted out, and that I were made governor of Aboo, with the temple for my palace, and the top of the mountain for my park. The Ghau-Muk, pronounced Gyemook, or cow'smouth, is another sweet spot on the mountain-side; it is a small marble spout, carved in the form of a cow's head, through which a stream of pure, cold water flows into a square tank: it is a sacred spot to Fakeers and Brahmins, who resort there in great numbers; but its refreshing waters and the cool shade of the magnificent trees that surround it are far better recommendations to the tired wayfarer, and give him fresh courage to ascend the steep staircase of steps leading from it to the mountain-top.

At first it was resolved to throw open the door, and shoot the brute as he bolted; but this plan was rejected for several reasons: the natives were crowding round on every side, the place was uneven and rocky, and if in his bolt they had the bad luck to miss him, there was a chance of not getting another shot at him; or, if they did, of hitting one of the natives. who would have run in all directions as soon as the panther appeared. At last, F., with more boldness than discretion, decided to try and shoot him from above: the thatch, however, was too old and rotten to bear his weight, and so a "charpoy" or frame of wood, with cords interlaced across it (used as a bedstead,) was procured and laid upon the thatch, and upon it mounted F. and an old gray-headed Shikaree of the village, more like a monkey than a man, whose charge it was to open a hole for F. to shoot through; this he accomplished with so much good will, but unfortunately with so little adroitness, that in a second or two the already ragged thatch had a hole close to F.'s head, not only quite large enough to shoot through, but also large enough for the panther to make his escape. A sudden execration caused him to desist; but in spite of the large hole, F. could discern nothing in the dark interior, but he distinctly heard the angry purring of the enraged savage, and One morning rather early, F. and his friend K., the flapping of his tail against the ground, which is while lying in their tent on Mount Aboo, were a sure prelude to a charge. F.'s thoughts were not aroused from sleep by the solemn tones of the Kit-altogether comfortable as he lay on the thatch, the mutgar, or butler, announcing news, which, as a matter of course, meant game. Out of bed both sprang simultaneously, and soon discovered from the Shikaree that a panther had been somehow entrapped in a neighboring village, and that the natives wished the sahibs (Anglicé gentlemen) to come with their guns and kill it. Clothes being thrown on, and guns prepared without loss of time, out they sallied into the raw air of the morning (it was not yet light,) and followed the native guide. A smart walk of four or five miles across the mountain top brought them to a little village, or collection of huts, clustered upon the edge of a steep bank, which formed one side of a very narrow and rocky valley. Here an Indian hubbub

infuriated and invisible brute being within a short spring of him, and having, no doubt, a clear view of his head and shoulders against the rising light. All of a sudden, the glare of the panther's eyes showed like two coals of fire; to level between them was the work of an instant, but lying on his right side F. was forced to bring the gun to the left shoulder, and as his finger pressed the trigger, he found that from habit he was closing the left eye; rectifying, how ever, his mistake at once, the explosion followed, and the pest of the village fell dead with a brace of bullets in his brain. It was found that he had killed 11 of the goats, but had not eaten any part of them; so that he seems to have slaughtered them from