MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF OUR OWN LAND

 By Charles M. Skinner

 Vol. 9. 

 AS TO BURIED TREASURE

 AND

 STORIED WATERS, CLIFFS, AND MOUNTAINS

CONTENTS:

AS TO BURIED TREASURE

Kidd's TreasureOther Buried Wealth

STORIED WATERS, CLIFFS, AND MOUNTAINS

Monsters and Sea-SerpentsStone-Throwing DevilsStoried SpringsLovers' LeapsGod on the Mountains

AS TO BURIED RICHES

KIDD'S TREASURE

Captain Kidd is the most ubiquitous gentleman in history. If his earningsin the gentle craft of piracy were frugally husbanded, he has possiblyleft some pots of money in holes in the ground between Key West andHalifax. The belief that large deposits of gold were made at Gardiner'sIsland, Dunderberg, Cro' Nest, New York City, Coney Island, Ipswich, themarshes back of Boston, Cape Cod, Nantucket, Isles of Shoals, MoneyIsland, Ocean Beach, the Bahamas, the Florida Keys, and elsewhere hascaused reckless expenditure of actual wealth in recovering doubloons andguineas that disappointed backers of these enterprises are beginning tolook upon--no, not to look upon, but to think about--as visionary. A hopeof getting something for nothing has been the impetus to theseindustries, and interest in the subject is now and then revived byreports of the discovery--usually by a farmer ploughing near theshore--of an iron kettle with a handful of gold and silver coins in it, the same having doubtless been buried for purposes of concealment duringthe wars of 1776 and 1812. 

Gardiner's Island, a famous rendezvous for pirates, is the only placeknown to have been used as a bank of deposit, for in 1699 the Earl ofBellomont recovered from it seven hundred and eighty-three ounces ofgold, six hundred and thirty-three ounces of silver, cloth of gold, silks, satins, and jewels. In the old Gardiner mansion, on this island, was formerly preserved a costly shawl given to Mrs. Gardiner by CaptainKidd himself. This illustrious Kidd--or Kydd--was born in New York, beganhis naval career as a chaser of pirates, became a robber himself, wascaptured in Boston, where he was ruffling boldly about the streets, andwas hanged in London in 1701. In sea superstitions the apparition of hisship is sometimes confused with that of the Flying Dutchman. 

At Lion's Rock, near Lyme, Connecticut, a part of his treasure is underguard of a demon that springs upon intruders unless they recite Scripturewhile digging for the money. 

Charles Island, near Milford, Connecticut, was dug into, one night, by acompany from that town that had learned of Kidd's visit to it--and whatcould Kidd be doing ashore unless he was burying money? The lid of aniron chest had been uncovered when the figure of a headless man camebounding out of the air, and the work was discontinued right then. Thefigure leaped into the pit that had been dug, and blue flames poured outof it. When the diggers returned, their spades and picks were gone andthe ground was smooth. 

Monhegan Island, off the Maine coast, contains a cave, opening to thesea, where it was whispered that treasure had been stored in care ofspirits. Searchers found within it a heavy chest, which they were aboutto lift when one of the party--contrary to orders--spoke. The spell wasbroken, for the watchful spirits heard and snatched away the treasure. Some years ago the cave was enlarged by blasting, in a hope of findingthat chest, for an old saying has been handed down among the people ofthe island--from whom it came they have forgotten--that was to thiseffect: "Dig six feet and you will find iron; dig six more and you willfind money. "

On Damariscotta Island, near Kennebec, Maine, is a lake of salt water, which, like dozens of shallow ones in this country, is locally reputed tobe bottomless. Yet Kidd was believed to have sunk some of his valuablesthere, and to have guarded against the entrance of boats by means of achain hung from rock to rock at the narrow entrance, bolts on either sideshowing the points of attachment, while ring bolts were thought to havebeen driven for the purpose of tying buoys, thus marking the spots wherethe chests went down. This island, too, has been held in fear as hauntedground. 

Appledore, in the Isles of Shoals, was another such a hiding-place, andKidd put one of his crew to death that he might haunt the place andfrighten searchers from their quest. For years no fisherman could beinduced to land there after nightfall, for did not an islander onceencounter "Old Bab" on his rounds, with a red ring around his neck, afrock hanging about him, phosphorescence gleaming from his body, whopeered at the intruder with a white and dreadful face, and nearly scaredhim to death?

A spot near the Piscataqua River was another hiding-place, and early inthis century the ground was dug over, two of the seekers plying pick andspade, while another stood within the circle they had drawn about thespot and loudly read the Bible. Presently their implements clicked on aniron chest, but it slid sideway into the ground as they tried to uncoverit, and at last an interruption occurred that caused them to stop work solong that when they went to look for it again it had entirelydisappeared. This diversion was the appearance of a monster horse thatflew toward them from a distance without a sound, but stopped short atthe circle where the process of banning fiends was still going on, and, after grazing and walking around them for a time, it dissolved into air. 

Kidd's plug is a part of the craggy steep known as Cro' Nest, on theHudson. It is a projecting knob, like a bung closing an orifice, which isbelieved to conceal a cavern where the redoubtable captain placed a fewbarrels of his wealth. Though it is two hundred feet up the cliff, inaccessible either from above or below, and weighs many tons, still, aspirates and devils have always been friendly, it may be that the corkingof the cave was accomplished with supernatural help, and that if blastsor prayers ever shake the stone from its place a shower of doubloons anddiamonds may come rattling after it. 

The shore for several hundred feet around Dighton Rock, Massachusetts, has been examined, for it was once believed that the inscriptions on itwere cut by Kidd to mark the place of burial for part of his hoard. 

The Rock Hill estate, Medford, Massachusetts, was plagued by a spectrethat some thought to be that of a New Hampshire farmer who was robbed andmurdered there, but others say it is the shade of Kidd, for iron treasurechests were found in the cellar that behaved like that on the PiscataquaRiver, sinking out of sight whenever they were touched by shovels. 

Misery Islands, near Salem, Massachusetts, were dug over, and underspiritual guidance, too, for other instalments of Mr. Kidd'sacquisitions, but without avail. 

It takes no less than half a dozen ghosts to guard what is hidden inMoney Hill, on Shark River, New Jersey, so there must be a good deal ofit. Some of these guardians are in sailor togs, some in their mouldybones, some peaceable, some noisy with threats and screams and groans--a"rum lot, " as an ancient mariner remarked, who lives near their gravesand daytime hiding-places. Many heirlooms are owned by Jerseymenhereabout that were received from Kidd's sailors in exchange forapple-jack and provisions, and two sailor-looking men are alleged to havetaken a strong-box out of Money Hill some years ago, from which theyabstracted two bags of gold. After that event the hill was dug over withgreat earnestness, but without other result to the prospectors than thecultivation of their patience. 

Sandy Hook, New Jersey, near "Kidd's tree, " and the clay banks of theAtlantic highlands back of that point, are suspected hiding-places; butthe cairn or knoll called Old Woman's Hill, at the highlands, is nothaunted by Kidd's men, as used to be said, but by the spirit of adiscontented squaw. This spirit the Indians themselves drove away withstones. 

At Oyster Point, Maryland, lived Paddy Dabney, who recognized Kidd froman old portrait on meeting him one evening in 1836. He was going homelate from the tavern when a light in a pine thicket caused him to turnfrom the road. In a clearing among the trees, pervaded by a pale shinewhich seemed to emanate from its occupants, a strange company was playingat bowls. A fierce-looking reprobate who was superintending the gameglanced up, and, seeing Paddy's pale face, gave such a leap in hisdirection that the Irishman fled with a howl of terror and never stoppedtill he reached his door, when, on turning about, he found that thephantom of the pirate chief had vanished. The others, he conceived, weredevils, for many a sea rover had sold himself to Satan. Captain Teach, orBlackbeard, proved as much to his crew by shutting himself in the hold ofhis ship, where he was burning sulphur to destroy rats, and withstandingsuffocation for several hours; while one day a dark man appeared on boardwho was not one of the crew at the sailing, and who had gone asmysteriously as he came on the day before the ship was wrecked. It wasknown that Kidd had buried his Bible in order to ingratiate the evil one. 

A flat rock on the north shore of Liberty Island, in New York harbor, wasalso thought to mark the place of this pervasive wealth of the pirates. As late as 1830, Sergeant Gibbs, one of the garrison at the island, triedto unearth it, with the aid of a fortune-teller and a recruit, but theyhad no sooner reached a box about four feet in length than a being withwings, horns, tail, and a breath, the latter palpable in blue flames, burst from the coffer. Gibbs fell unconscious into the water and narrowlyescaped drowning, while his companions ran away, and the treasure maystill be there for aught we know. 

Back in the days before the Revolution, a negro called Mud Sam, who livedin a cabin at the Battery, New York City, was benighted at about theplace where One Hundredth Street now touches East River while waitingthere for the tide to take him up the Sound. He beguiled the time by anap, and, on waking, he started to leave his sleeping place under thetrees to regain his boat, when the gleam of a lantern and the sound ofvoices coming up the bank caused him to shrink back into the shadow. Atfirst he thought that he might be dreaming, for Hell Gate was a place ofsuch repute that one might readily have bad dreams there, and the legendsof the spot passed quickly through his mind: the skeletons that lived inthe wreck on Hen and Chickens and looked out at passing ships with bluelights in the eye-sockets of their skulls; the brown fellow, known as"the pirate's spuke, " that used to cruise up and down the wrathfultorrent, and was snuffed out of sight for some hours by old PeterStuyvesant with a silver bullet; a black-looking scoundrel with a splitlip, who used to brattle about the tavern at Corlaer's Hook, and whotumbled into East River while trying to lug an iron chest aboard of asuspicious craft that had stolen in to shore in a fog. This latter bogywas often seen riding up Hell Gate a-straddle of that very chest, snapping his fingers at the stars and roaring Bacchanalian odes, just asskipper Onderdonk's boatswain, who had been buried at sea withoutprayers, chased the ship for days, sitting on the waves, with his shroudfor a sail, and shoving hills of water after the vessel with the plash ofhis hands. 

These grewsome memories sent a quake through Mud Sam's heart, but whenthe bushes cracked under the strangers' tread, he knew that they were offlesh and bone, and, following them for a quarter-mile into the wood, hesaw them dig a hole, plant a strong-box there, and cover it. Athreatening remark from one of the company forced an exclamation from thenegro that drew a pistol-shot upon him, and he took to his heels. Such afright did he receive that he could not for several years be persuaded toreturn, but when that persuasion came in the form of a promise of wealthfrom Wolfert Webber, a cabbage-grower of the town, and promises ofprotection from Dr. Knipperhausen, who was skilled in incantations, hewas not proof against it, and guided the seekers to the spot. 

After the doctor had performed the proper ceremonies they fell to work, but no sooner had their spades touched the lid of an iron-bound chestthan a sturdy rogue with a red flannel cap leaped out of the bushes. Theysaid afterward that he had the face of the brawler who was drowned atCorlaer's Hook, but, in truth, they hardly looked at him in their flight;nor, when the place was revisited, could any mark of digging be found, nor any trace of treasure, so that part of Kidd's wealth may be at thismoment snugly stowed in the cellar of a tenement. Webber had engaged inso many crazy enterprises of this nature that he had neglected cabbageculture, and had grown so poor that the last disappointment nearly brokehis heart. He retired to his chamber and made his will, but on learningthat a new street had been run across his farm and that it wouldpresently be worth ten times as much for building-lots as it ever hadbeen for cabbages, he leaped out of bed, dressed himself, and prosperedfor many a day after. 

OTHER BURIED WEALTH

The wealth of the Astors hardly exceeds the treasure that is supposed tobe secreted here and there about the country, and thousands of dollarshave been expended in dredging rivers and shallow seas, and in blastingcaves and cellars. Certain promoters of these schemes have enjoyedsalaries as officers in the stock companies organized for theirfurtherance, and they have seen the only tangible results from suchenterprises. 

One summer evening, in the middle of the seventeenth century, a barkdropped anchor at the mouth of Saugus River, Massachusetts, and four ofthe crew rowed to the woods that skirt its banks and made a landing. Thevessel had disappeared on the following morning, but in the forge at thesettlement was found a paper stating that if a certain number of shacklesand handcuffs were made and secretly deposited at a specified place inthe forest, a sum of money equal to their value would be found in theirstead on the next day. The order was filled and the silver was found, aspromised, but, though a watch was set, nothing further was seen of men orship for several months. 

The four men did return, however, and lived by themselves amid the woodsof Saugus, the gossips reporting that a beautiful woman had been seen intheir company--the mistress of the pirate chief, for, of course, themysterious quartette had followed the trade of robbery on the high seas. Three of these men were captured, taken to England, and hanged, but thefourth-Thomas Veale--escaped to a cavern in the wood, where, it wasreputed, great treasures were concealed, and there he lived until theearthquake of 1658, when a rock fell from the roof of the cave, closingthe entrance and burying the guilty man in a tomb where, it is presumed, he perished of thirst and hunger. Dungeon Rock, of Lynn, is the name thatthe place has borne ever since. 

In 1852 Hiram Marble announced that he had been visited by spirits, whonot only told him that the pirates' spoils were still in their oldenhiding-place, but pointed out the spot where the work of excavationshould begin. Aided by his son he tunnelled the solid granite for adistance of one hundred and thirty-five feet, the passage being sevenfeet high and seven wide. Whenever he was wearied the "mediums" that heconsulted would tell him to make cuttings to the right or left, and forevery fresh discouragement they found fresh work. For thirty years thistask was carried on, both father and son dying without gaining anypractical result, other than the discovery of an ancient scabbard in arift. The heiress of the house of Marble alone reaped benefit from theirlabors, for-resuming on a petty scale the levies of the first dwellers inthe rock--she boldly placarded the entrance to the workings "Ye who enterhere leave twenty-five cents behind. "

In several cases the chasms that have been caused by wear of water orconvulsions of nature (their opposite sides being matched) were believedto have been hiding-places, but, in the old days in New England, it wasbelieved that all such fractures were caused by the earthquake at thetime of the crucifixion--a testimony of the power of God to shakesinners. 

The Heart of Greylock is the name given to the crater-like recess, athousand feet deep, in the tallest of the Berkshire peaks, but it wasformerly best known as Money Hole, and the stream that courses through itas Money Brook, for a gang of counterfeiters worked in that recess, andthere some spurious coinage may still be concealed. The stream is alsoknown as Spectre Brook, for late wandering hunters and scouting soldiers, seeing the forgers moving to and fro about their furnaces, took them forghosts. 

Province Island, in Lake Memphremagog, Vermont, is believed to containsome of the profits of an extensive smuggling enterprise that was carriedon near the lake for several years. 

A little company of Spanish adventurers passed along the base of theGreen Mountains early in the last century, expecting to return afterhaving some dealings with the trading stations on the St. Lawrence; sothey deposited a part of their gold on Ludlow Mountain, Vermont, andanother pot of it on Camel's Hump. They agreed that none should returnwithout his companions, but they were detained in the north andseparated, some of them going home to Spain. Late in life the solesurvivor of the company went to Camel's Hump and tried to recall wherethe treasure had been hidden, but in vain. 

While flying from the people whose declaration of independence hadalready been written in the blood of the king's troops at Concord, theroyal governor--Wentworth--was embarrassed by a wife and atreasure-chest. He had left his mansion, at Smith's Pond, New Hampshire, and was making toward Portsmouth, where he was to enjoy the protection ofthe British fleet, but the country was up in arms, time was important, and as his wearied horses could not go on without a lightening of theburden, he was forced to leave behind either Lady Wentworth or his otherriches. As the lady properly objected to any risk of her own safety, thechest was buried at an unknown spot in the forest, and for a century andmore the whereabouts of the Wentworth plate and money-bags have been amatter of search and conjecture. 

When the Hessian troops marched from Saratoga to Boston, to take shipafter Burgoyne's surrender, they were in wretched condition-war-worn, ragged, and ill fed, --and having much with them in the form of plate andjewels that had been spared by their conquerors, together with some ofthe money sent from England for their hire, they were in constant fear ofattack from the farmers, who, though they had been beaten, continued toregard them with an unfavorable eye. On reaching Dalton, Massachusetts, the Hessians agreed among themselves to put their valuables into ahowitzer, which they buried in the woods, intending that some of theirnumber should come back at the close of the war and recover it. An Indianhad silently followed them for a long distance, to gather up anyunconsidered trifles that might be left in their bivouacs, and he markedthe route by blazes on the trees; but if he saw the burial of this noveltreasury it meant nothing to him, and the knowledge of the hiding-placewas lost. For years the populace kept watch of all strangers that came totown, and shadowed them if they went to the woods, but without result. Inabout the year 1800 the supposed hiding-place was examined closely andexcavations were made, but, as before, nothing rewarded the search. 

A tree of unknown age--the Old Elm--stood on Boston Common until within afew years. This veteran, torn and broken by many a gale andlightning-stroke, was a gallows in the last century, and Goody Glover hadswung from it in witch-times. On tempestuous nights, when the boughscreaked together, it was said that dark shapes might be seen writhing onthe branches and capering about the sward below in hellish glee. On agusty autumn evening in 1776 a muffled form presented itself, unannounced, at the chamber of Mike Wild, and, after that notorious miserhad enough recovered from the fear created by the presence to understandwhat it said to him, he realized that it was telling him of somethingthat in life it had buried at the foot of the Old Elm. After muchhesitancy Mike set forth with his ghostly guide, for he would have riskedhis soul for money, but on arriving at his destination he was startled tofind himself alone. Nothing daunted, he set down his lantern and began todig. Though he turned up many a rood of soil and sounded with his spadefor bags and chests of gold, he found nothing. Strange noisesoverhead--for the wind was high and the twigs seemed to snicker eerily asthey crossed each other-sent thrills along his back from time to time, and he was about to return, half in anger, half in fear, when his spiritvisitor emerged from behind the tree and stood before him. The mien wasthreatening, the nose had reddened and extended, the hair was rumpled, and the brow was scowling. The frown of the gold monster grew more awful, the stare of his eye in the starlight more unbearable, and he wascrouching and creeping as if for a spring. Mike could endure no more. Hefainted, and awakened in the morning in his own chamber, where, to aneighbor who made an early call, he told--with embellishments--the storyof the encounter; but before he had come to the end of the narrative thevisitor burst into a roar of laughter and confessed that he hadpersonated the supernatural visitant, having wagered a dozen bottles ofwine with the landlord of the Boar's Head that he could get the better ofMike Wild. For all this the old tree bore, for many years, an evilreputation. 

A Spanish galleon, the Saints Joseph and Helena, making from Havana toCadiz in 1753 was carried from her course by adverse winds and tossedagainst a reef, near New London, Connecticut, receiving injuries thatcompelled her to run into that port for repairs. To reach her broken ribsmore easily her freight was put on shore in charge of the collector ofthe port, but when it was desired to ship the cargo again, behold! thequarter part of it had disappeared, none could say how. New London got abad name from this robbery, and the governor, though besought by theassembly to make good the shortage, failed to do so, and lost his placeat the next election. It was reputed that some of the treasure was buriedon the shore by the robbers. In 1827 a woman who was understood to havethe power of seership published a vision to a couple of young blades, whohad paid for it, to the effect that hidden under one of the grass-grownwharves was a box of dollars. By the aid of a crystal pebble she receivedthis really valuable information, but the pebble was not clear enough toreveal the exact place of the box. She could see, however, that thedollars were packed edgewise. When New London was sound asleep the youngmen stole out and by lantern-light began their work. They had dug towater-level when they reached an iron chest, and they stooped to liftit-but, to their amazement, the iron was too hot to handle! Now theyheard deep growls, and a giant dog peered at them from the pit-mouth; redeyes flashed at them from the darkness; a wild-goose, with eyes ofblazing green, hovered and screamed above them. Though the witch hadpromised them safety, nothing appeared to ward off the fantastic shapesthat began to crowd about them. Too terrified to work longer they sprangout and made away, and when-taking courage from the sunshine--theyrenewed the search, next day, the iron chest had vanished. 

On Crown Point, Lake Champlain, is the ruin of a fort erected by LordAmherst above the site of a French work that had been thrown up in 1731to guard a now vanished capital of fifteen hundred people. It wasdeclared that when the French evacuated the region they buried money andbullion in a well, in the northwest corner of the bastion, ninety feetdeep, in the full expectancy of regaining it, and half a century ago thisbelief had grown to such proportions that fifty men undertook to clearthe well, pushing their investigations into various parts of theenclosure and over surrounding fields. They found quantities of lead andiron and no gold. 

Follingsby's Pond, in the Adirondacks, was named for a recluse, who, inthe early part of this century, occupied a lonely but strongly guardedcabin there. It was believed afterward that he was an English armyofficer, of noble birth, who had left his own country in disgust athaving discovered an attachment between his wife and one of hisfellow-officers. He died in a fever, and while raving in a delirium spokeof a concealed chest. A trapper, who was his only attendant in his lastmoments, dug over the ground floor of the hut and found a box containinga jewelled sword, costly trinkets, and letters that bore out thepresumption of Follingsby's aristocratic origin. What became of thesevaluables after their exhumation is not known, and the existence of morehas been suspected. 

Coney Island is declared to have been used by a band of pirates as thefirst national sand bank, and, as these rascals were caught and swung offwith short shrift, they do say that the plunder is still to be had--bythe man who finds it. But the hotel-keepers and three-card-monte men arenot waiting for that discovery to grow rich. 

In Shandaken Valley, in the Catskills, it was affirmed that a party ofBritish officers buried money somewhere, when they were beset by thefarmers and hunters of that region, and never got it out of the earthagain. 

On Tea Island, Lake George, the buried treasures of Lord Abercrombie haveremained successfully hidden until this day. 

The oldest house at Fort Neck, Long Island, was known for years as thehaunted house, and the grave of its owner--Captain Jones--was called thepirate's grave, for, in the last century, Jones was accused of piracy andsmuggling, and there have been those who suspected worse. A hope offinding gold and silver about the premises has been yearly growingfainter. Just before the death of Jones, which occurred here in anorderly manner, a crow, so big that everybody believed it to be a demon, flew in at the window and hovered over the bed of the dying man until hehad drawn his last breath, when, with a triumphant cry, it flew throughthe west end of the house. The hole that it broke through the masonrycould never be stopped, for, no matter how often it was repaired, thestone and cement fell out again, and the wind came through with such achill and such shriekings that the house had to be abandoned. 

The owner of an estate on Lloyd's Neck, Long Island, had more wealth thanhe thought it was safe or easy to transport when he found the coloniesrising against Britain in 1775, and flight was imperative, for he wasknown by his neighbors to be a Tory. Massing his plate, coin, and othermovables into three barrels, he caused his three slaves to bury them inpits that they had dug beneath his house. Then, as they were shovellingback the earth, he shot them dead, all three, and buried them, one oneach barrel. His motive for the crime may have been a fear that theslaves would aid the Americans in the approaching struggle, or that theymight return and dig up the wealth or reveal the hiding-place to theenemies of the king. Then he made his escape to Nova Scotia, though hemight as well have stayed at home, for the British possessed themselvesof Long Island, and his house became a place of resort for red-coats andloyalists. It was after the turn of the century when a boat put in, oneevening, at Cold Spring Bay, and next morning the inhabitants foundfootprints leading to and from a spot where some children had discovereda knotted rope projecting from the soil. Something had been removed, forthe mould of a large box was visible at the bottom of a pit. Acres of theneighborhood were then dug over by treasure hunters, who found a box ofcob dollars and a number of casks. The contents of the latter, thoughrich and old, were not solid, and when diffused through the systems ofseveral Long Islanders imparted to them a spirituous and patrioticglow--for in thus destroying the secreted stores of a royalist were theynot asserting the triumph of democratic principles?

The clay bluffs at Pottery Beach, Brooklyn, were pierced with artificialcaves where lawless men found shelter in the unsettled first years of therepublic. A wreck lay rotting here for many years, and it was said to bethe skeleton of a ship that these fellows had beached by false beacons. She had costly freight aboard, and on the morning after she went ashorecrew and freight had vanished. It was believed that much of the plunderwas buried in the clay near the water's edge. In the early colonial days, Grand Island, in Niagara River, was the home of a Frenchman, Clairieux, an exile or refugee who was attended by a negro servant. During onesummer a sloop visited the island frequently, laden on each trip withchests that never were taken away in the sight of men, and that are nowsupposed to be buried near the site of the Frenchman's cabin. Report hadit that these boxes were filled with money, but if well or ill procurednone could say, unless it were the Frenchman, and he had no remarks tooffer on the subject. In the fall, after these visits of the sloop, Clairieux disappeared, and when some hunters landed on the island theyfound that his cabin had been burned and that a large skeleton, evidentlythat of the negro, was chained to the earth in the centre of the placewhere the house had stood. The slave had been killed, it was surmised, that his spirit might watch the hoard and drive away intruders; but theFrenchman met his fate elsewhere, and his secret, like that of manyanother miser, perished with him. In 1888, when a northeast gale hadblown back the water of the river, a farmer living on the islanddiscovered, just under the surface, a stone foundation built in circularform, as if it had once supported a tower. In the mud within this circlehe found a number of French gold and silver coins, one of them minted in1537. Close by, other coins of later date were found, and a systematicexamination of the whole channel has been proposed, as it was also saidthat two French frigates, scuttled to keep them out of the hands of theEnglish, lie bedded in sand below the island, one of them with a navalpaymaster's chest on board. 

On the shore of Oneida Lake is an Indian's grave, where a ball of lightis wont to swing and dance. A farmer named Belknap dreamed several timesof a buried treasure at this point, and he was told, in his vision, thatif he would dig there at midnight he could make it his own. He made theattempt, and his pick struck a crock that gave a chink, as of gold. Heshould, at that moment, have turned around three times, as his dreamdirected, but he was so excited that he forgot to. A flash of lightningrent the air and stretched him senseless on the grass. When he recoveredthe crock was gone, the hole filled in, and ever since then the light hashovered about the place. Some say that this is but the will-o'-the-wisp:the soul of a bad fellow who is doomed to wander in desolate regionsbecause, after dying, Peter would not allow him to enter heaven, and thedevil would not let him go into the other place, lest he should make thelittle devils unmanageable; but he is allowed to carry a light in hiswanderings. 

In Indian Gap, near Wernersville, Pennsylvania, the Doane band of Toriesand terrorists hid a chest of gold, the proceeds of many robberies. It isguarded by witches, and, although it has been seen, no one has been ableto lay hands on it. The seekers are always blinded by blue flame, andfrightened away by roaring noises. The Dutch farmers of the vicinity aregoing to dig for it, all the same, for it is said that the watch of evilspirits will be given over at midnight, but they do not know of whatdate. They will be on hand at the spot revealed to them through thevision of a "hex layer" (a vision that cost them fifty cents), until thenight arrives when there are no blue flames. 

In the southern part of Chester County, Pennsylvania, is money, too, butjust where nobody knows. A lonely, crabbed man, who died there in a poorhut after the Revolution, owned that he had served the British as a spy, but said that he had spent none of the gold that he had taken from them. He was either too sorry for his deeds, or too mean to do so. He had putit in a crock and buried it, and, on his death-bed, where he made hisstatement, he asked that it might be exhumed and spent for some goodpurpose. He was about to tell where it was when the death-rattle chokedhis words. 

The Isle of the Yellow Sands, in Lake Superior, was supposed by Indiansto be made of the dust of gold, but it was protected by vultures thatbeat back those who approached, or tore them to pieces if they insistedon landing. An Indian girl who stole away from her camp to procure aquantity of this treasure was pursued by her lover, who, frightened atthe risk she was about to run from the vultures, stopped her flight bystaving in the side of her canoe, so that she was compelled to takerefuge in his, and he rowed home with her before the birds had come tothe attack. 

Old Francois Fontenoy, an Indian trader, buried a brass kettle full ofgold at Presque Isle, near Detroit, that is still in the earth. 

On the banks of the Cumberland, in Tennessee, is a height where asearcher for gold was seized by invisible defenders and hurled to thebottom of the cliff, receiving a mortal hurt. 

The Spaniards were said to have entombed three hundred thousand dollarsin gold near Natchez. A man to whom the secret had descended offered toreveal it, but, as he was a prisoner, his offer was laughed at. Afterwardan empty vault was found where he said it would be. Somebody hadaccidentally opened it and had removed the treasure. 

Caverns have frequently been used as hiding-places for things of more orless value--generally less. Saltpetre Cave, in Georgia, for instance, wasa factory and magazine for saltpetre, gunpowder, and other militarystores during the Civil War. The Northern soldiers wrecked the potashworks and broke away tons of rock, so as to make it dangerous to return. Human bones have been found here, too, but they are thought to be thoseof soldiers that entered the cave in pursuit of an Indian chief who haddefied the State in the '40's. He escaped through a hole in the roof, doubled on his pursuers, fired a pile of dead leaves and wood at themouth, and suffocated the white men with the smoke. 

Spaniards worked the mines in the Ozark Hills of Missouri two hundredyears ago. One of the mines containing lead and silver, eighteen milessouthwest of Galena, was worked by seven men, who could not agree as to adivision of the yield. One by one they were killed in quarrels until buta single man was left, and he, in turn, was set upon by the resurrectedvictims and choked to death by their cold fingers. In 1873 a Vermonternamed Johnson went there and said he would find what it was the Spaniardshad been hiding, in spite of the devil and his imps. He did work therefor one day, and was then found dead at the mouth of the old shaft withmarks of bony fingers on his throat. 

The seven cities of Cibola, that Coronado and other Spanish adventurerssought in the vast deserts of the Southwest, were pueblos. A treacherousguide who had hoped to take Coronado into the waterless plain and losehim, but who first lost his own head, had told him a tale of the Quivira, a tribe that had much gold. So far from having gold these Indians did notknow the stuff, but the myth that they had hoarded quantities of it hassurvived to this day and has caused waste of lives and money. Towns inNew Mexico that have lain in ruins since 1670, when the Apaches butcheredtheir people--towns that were well built and were lorded by solid oldchurches and monasteries erected by the Spanish missionaries--these townshave often been dug over, and the ruinous state of Abo, Curari, andTabira is due, in part, to their foolish tunnelling and blasting. 

A Spanish bark, one day in 1841, put in for water off the spot whereColumbia City, Oregon, now stands. She had a rough crew on board, and ithad been necessary for her officers to watch the men closely from thetime the latter discovered that she was carrying a costly cargo. Hardlyhad the anchorchains run out before the sailors fell upon the captain, killed him, seized all of value that they could gather, and took it tothe shore. What happened after is not clear, but it is probable that in aquarrel, arising over the demands of each man to have most of theplunder, several of the claimants were slain. Indians were troublesome, likewise, so that it was thought best to put most of the goods into theground, and this was done on the tract known as Hez Copier's farm. Hardlywas the task completed before the Indians appeared in large numbers andset up their tepees, showing that they meant to remain. The mutineersrowed back to the ship, and, after vainly waiting for several days for achance to go on shore again, they sailed away. Two years of wandering, fighting, and carousal ensued before the remnant of the crew returned toOregon. The Indians were gone, and an earnest search was made for themoney--but in vain. It was as if the ground had never been disturbed. Theman who had supervised its burial was present until the mutineers wentback to their boats, when it was discovered that he was mysteriouslymissing. 

More than forty years after these events a meeting of Spiritualists washeld in Columbia City, and a "medium" announced that she had received arevelation of the exact spot where the goods had been concealed. Acompany went to the place, and, after a search of several days, found, under a foot of soil, a quantity of broken stone. While throwing outthese fragments one of the party fell dead. The spirit of the defraudedand murdered captain had claimed him, the medium explained. So great wasthe fright caused by this accident that the search was again abandoneduntil March, 1890, when another party resumed the digging, and aftertaking out the remainder of the stone they came on a number of humanskeletons. During the examination of these relics--possibly the bones ofmutineers who had been killed in the fight on shore--a man fell into afit of raving madness, and again the search was abandoned, for it is nowsaid that an immutable curse rests on the treasure. 

STORIED WATERS, CLIFFS AND MOUNTAINS

MONSTERS AND SEA-SERPENTS

It is hardly to be wondered at that two prominent scientists should havedeclared on behalf of the sea-serpent, for that remarkable creature hasbeen reported at so many points, and by so many witnesses not addicted tofish tales nor liquor, that there ought to be some reason for him. He hasbeen especially numerous off the New England coast. He was sighted offCape Ann in 1817, and several times off Nahant. Though alarming inappearance--for he has a hundred feet of body, a shaggy head, and goggleeyes--he is of lamb-like disposition, and has never justified theattempts that have been made to kill or capture him. Rewards were at onetime offered to the seafaring men who might catch him, and revenuecutters cruising about Massachusetts Bay were ordered to keep a lookoutfor him and have a gun double shotted for action. One fisherman emptiedthe contents of a ducking gun into the serpent's head, as he supposed, but the creature playfully wriggled a few fathoms of its tail and madeoff. John Josselyn, gentleman, reports that when he stirred about thisneighborhood in 1638 an enormous reptile was seen "quoiled up on a rockat Cape Ann. " He would have fired at him but for the earnest dissuasionof his Indian guide, who declared that ill luck would come of theattempt. The sea-serpent sometimes shows amphibious tendencies andoccasionally leaves the sea for fresh water. Two of him were seen inDevil's Lake, Wisconsin, in 1892, by four men. They confess, however, that they were fishing at the time. The snakes had fins and were a matterof fifty feet long. 

When one of these reptiles found the other in his vicinage he raised hishead six feet above water and fell upon him tooth and nail--if he hadnails. In their struggles these unpleasant neighbors made such waves thatthe fishermen's boat was nearly upset. 

Even the humble Wabash has its terror, for at Huntington, Indiana, threetruthful damsels of the town saw its waters churned by a tail thatsplashed from side to side, while far ahead was the prow of the animal--aleonine skull, with whiskers, and as large as the head of a boy of adozen years. As if realizing what kind of a report was going to be madeabout him, the monster was overcome with bashfulness at the sight of themaidens and sank from view. 

In April, 1890, a water-snake was reported in one of the Twin Lakes, inthe Berkshire Hills, but the eye-witnesses of his sports let him off witha length of twenty-five feet. 

Sysladobosis Lake, in Maine, has a snake with a head like a dog's, but itis hardly worth mentioning because it is only eight feet long-hardlylonger than the name of the lake. More enterprise is shown across theborder, for Skiff Lake, New Brunswick, has a similar snake thirty feetlong. 

In Cotton Mather's time a double-headed snake was found at Newbury, Massachusetts, --it had a head at each end, --and before it was killed itshowed its evil disposition by chasing and striking at the lad who firstmet it. 

A snake haunts Wolf Pond, Pennsylvania, that is an alleged relic of theSilurian age. It was last seen in September, 1887, when it unrolledthirty feet of itself before the eyes of an alarmed spectator--again afisherman. The beholder struck him with a pole, and in revenge theserpent capsized his boat; but he forbore to eat his enemy, and, divingto the bottom, disappeared. The creature had a black body, about sixinches thick, ringed with dingy-yellow bands, and a mottled-green head, long and pointed, like a pike's. 

Silver Lake, near Gainesville, New York, was in 1855 reported to be thelair of a great serpent, and old settlers declare that he still comes tothe surface now and then. 

A tradition among the poor whites of the South Jruns to the effect thatthe sea-monster that swallowed Jonah--not a whale, because the throat ofthat animal is hardly large enough to admit a herring--crossed theAtlantic and brought up at the Carolinas. His passenger was supplied withtobacco and beguiled the tedium of the voyage by smoking a pipe. Themonster, being unused to that sort of thing, suffered as all beginners innicotine poisoning do, and expelled the unhappy man with emphasis. Onbeing safely landed, Jonah attached himself to one of the tribes thatpeopled the barrens, and left a white progeny which antedated Columbus'sarrival by several centuries. God pitied the helplessness of theseignorant and uncourageous whites and led them to Looking-Glass Mountain, North Carolina, where He caused corn and game to be created, and whilethis race endured it lived in plenty. 

Santa Barbara Island, off the California coast, was, for a long time, thesupposed head-quarters of swimming and flying monsters and sirens, and noMexican would pass in hearing of the yells and screams and strange songswithout crossing himself and begging the captain to give the rock a wideberth. But the noise is all the noise of cats. A shipwrecked tabbypeopled the place many years ago, and her numerous progeny live there ondead fish and on the eggs and chicks of sea-fowl. 

Spirit Canon, a rocky gorge that extends for three miles along Big SiouxRiver, Iowa, was hewn through the stone by a spirit that took the form ofa dragon. Such were its size and ferocity that the Indians avoided theplace, lest they should fall victims to its ire. 

The Hurons believed in a monster serpent--Okniont--who wore a horn on hishead that could pierce trees, rocks, and hills. A piece of this horn wasan amulet of great value, for it insured good luck. 

The Zunis tell of a plumed serpent that lives in the water of sacredsprings, and they dare not destroy the venomous creatures that infest theplains of Arizona because, to them, the killing of a snake means areduction in their slender water-supply. The gods were not so kind to thesnakes as men were, for the agatized trees of Chalcedony Park, inArizona, are held to be arrows shot by the angry deities at the monsterswho vexed this region. 

Indians living on the shore of Canandaigua Lake, New York, tamed a prettyspotted snake, and fed and petted it until it took a deer at a meal. Itgrew so large that it eventually encircled the camp and began to prey onits keepers. Vainly they tried to kill the creature, until a small boytook an arrow of red willow, anointed it with the blood of a young woman, and shot it from a basswood bow at the creature's heart. It did not enterat once; it merely stuck to the scales. But presently it began to boreand twist its way into the serpent's body. The serpent rolled into thelake and made it foam in its agony. It swallowed water and vomited it upagain, with men dead and alive, before it died. 

The monster Amhuluk, whose home is a lake near Forked Mountain, Oregon, had but one passion-to catch and drown all things; and when you look intothe lake you see that he has even drowned the sky in it, and has made thetrees stand upside down in the water. Wherever he set his feet the groundwould soften. As three children were digging roots at the edge of thewater he fell on them and impaled two of them on his horns, the eldestonly contriving to escape. When this boy reached home his body was fullof blotches, and the father suspected how it was, yet he went to the lakeat once. The bodies of the children came out of the mud at his feet tomeet him, but went down again and emerged later across the water. Theyled him on in this way until he came to the place where they weredrowned. A fog now began to steam up from the water, but through it hecould see the little ones lifted on the monster's horns, and hear themcry, "We have changed our bodies. " Five times they came up and spoke tohim, and five times he raised a dismal cry and begged them to return, butthey could not. Next morning he saw them rise through the fog again, and, building a camp, he stayed there and mourned for several days. For fivedays they showed themselves, but after that they went down and he saw andheard no more of them. Ambuluk had taken the children and they would livewith him for ever after. 

Crater Lake, Oregon, was a haunt of water-devils who dragged into it anddrowned all who ventured near. Only within a few years could Indians bepersuaded to go to it as guides. Its discoverers saw in it the work ofthe Great Spirit, but could not guess its meaning. All but one of theseKlamaths stole away after they had looked into its circular basin andsheer walls. He fancied that if it was a home of gods they might havesome message for men, so camping on the brink of the lofty cliffs hewaited. In his sleep a vision came to him, and he heard voices, but couldneither make out appearances nor distinguish a word. Every night thisdream was repeated. He finally went down to the lake and bathed, andinstantly found his strength increased and saw that the people of hisdreams were the genii of the waters--whether good or bad he could notguess. One day he caught a fish for food. A thousand water-devils came tothe surface, on the instant, and seized him. They carried him to a rockon the north side of the lake, that stands two thousand feet above thewater, and from that they dashed him down, gathering the remains of hisshattered body below and devouring them. Since that taste they have beeneager for men's blood. The rock on the south side of the lake, called thePhantom Ship, is believed by the Indians to be a destructive monster, innocent as it looks in the daytime. 

So with Rock Lake, in Washington. A hideous reptile sports about itswaters and gulps down everything that it finds in or on them. Only in1853 a band of Indians, who had fled hither for security against thesoldiers, were overtaken by this creature, lashed to death, and eaten. 

The Indians of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas believed that the KingSnake, or God Snake, lived in the Gulf of Mexico. It slept in a cavern ofpure crystal at the bottom, and its head, being shaped from a solidemerald, lighted the ocean for leagues when it arose near the surface. 

Similar to this is the belief of the Cherokees in the kings ofrattlesnakes, "bright old inhabitants" of the mountains that grew to amighty size, and drew to themselves every creature that they looked upon. Each wore a crown of carbuncle of dazzling brightness. 

The Indians avoided Klamath Lake because it was haunted by a monster thatwas half dragon, half hippopotamus. 

Hutton Lake, Wyoming, is the home of a serpent queen, whose breathing maybe seen in the bubbles that well up in the centre. She is constantlywatching for her lover, but takes all men who come in her way to hergrotto beneath the water, when she finds that they are not the one shehas expected, and there they become her slaves. To lure victims into thelake she sets there a decoy of a beautiful red swan, and should thehunter kill this bird he will become possessed of divine power. Should hesee "the woman, " as the serpent queen is called, he will never live totell of it, unless he has seen her from a hiding-place near theshore--for so surely as he is noticed by this Diana of the depths, sosurely will her spies, the land snakes, sting him to death. In appearanceshe is a lovely girl in all but her face, and that is shaped like thehead of a monster snake. Her name is never spoken by the Indians, forfear that it will cost them their lives. 

Michael Pauw, brave fisherman of Paterson, New Jersey, hero of the fightwith the biggest snapping-turtle in Dover Slank, wearer of a scar on hisseat of honor as memento of the conflict, member of the Kersey Reds--hewhose presence of mind was shown in holding out a chip of St. Nicholas'sstaff when he met the nine witches of the rocks capering in the mists ofPassaic Falls--gave battle from a boat to a monster that had ascended tothe cataract. One of the Kersey Reds, leaning out too far, fell astrideof the horny beast, and was carried at express speed, roaring withfright, until unhorsed by a projecting rock, up which he scrambled tosafety. Falling to work with bayonets and staves, the company despatchedthe creature and dragged it to shore. One Dutchman--who was quite atraveller, having been as far from home as Albany--said that the thingwas what the Van Rensselaers cut up for beef, and that he believed theycalled it a sturgeon. 

STONE-THROWING DEVILS

There is an odd recurrence among American legends of tales relating toassaults of people or their houses by imps of darkness. The shadowyleaguers of Gloucester, Massachusetts, kept the garrison of that place ina state of fright until they were expelled from the neighborhood by asilver bullet and a chaplain's prayers. Witchcraft was sometimesmanifested in Salem by the hurling of missiles from unseen hands. The"stone-throwing devil" of Portsmouth is the subject of a tradition morethan two centuries of age, but, as the stone-thrower appears rather as anavenger than as a gratuitously malignant spirit, he is ill treated inhaving the name of devil applied to him. In this New Hampshire port liveda widow who had a cabin and a bit of land of her own. George Walton, aneighbor, wanted her land, for its situation pleased him, and as the oldwoman had neither money nor influential friends he charged her withwitchcraft, and, whether by legal chicanery or mere force is notrecorded, he got his hands upon her property. 

The charge of witchcraft was not pressed, because the man had obtainedwhat he wanted, but the poor, houseless creature laid a ban on the placeand told the thief that he would never have pleasure nor profit out ofit. Walton laughed at her, bade her go her way, and moved his family intothe widow's house. It was Sunday night, and the family had gone to bed, when at ten o'clock there came a fierce shock of stones against the roofand doors. All were awake in a moment. A first thought was that Indianswere making an assault, but when the occupants peered cautiously into themoonlight the fields were seen to be deserted. Yet, even as they looked, a gate was lifted from its hinges and thrown through the air. 

Walton ventured out, but a volley of stones, seemingly from a hundredhands, was delivered at his head, and he ran back to shelter. Doors andwindows were barred and shuttered, but it made no difference. Stones, toohot to hold a hand upon, were hurled through glass and down the chimney, objects in the rooms themselves were picked up and flung at Walton, candles were blown out, a hand without a body tapped at the window, locksand bars and keys were bent as if by hammer-blows, a cheese-press wassmashed against the wall and the cheese spoiled, hay-stacks in the fieldwere broken up and the hay tossed into branches of trees. For a long timeWalton could not go out at night without being assailed with stones. Bell, book, candle, and witch-broth availed nothing, and it was many aday before peace came to the Walton household. 

In 1802 an epidemic of assault went through the Berkshire Hills. Theperformance began in a tailor's shop in Salisbury, Connecticut, at elevenof the clock on the night of November 2, when a stick and lumps of stone, charcoal, and mortar were flung through a window. The moon was up, butnothing could be seen, and the bombardment was continued until afterdaylight. After doing some damage here the assailants went to the houseof Ezekiel Landon and rapped away there for a week. Persons were struckby the missiles, and quantities of glass were destroyed. Nothing could beseen coming toward the windows until the glass broke, and it was seldomthat anything passed far into a room. No matter how hard it was thrown, it dropped softly and surely on the sill, inside, as if a hand had put itthere. Windows were broken on both sides of buildings at the same time, and many sticks and stones came through the same holes in the panes, asif aimed carefully by a gunner. 

A hamlet that stood in Sage's ravine, on the east side of the Dome of theTaconics, was assailed in the same way after nightfall. One house wasconsiderably injured. No causes for the performance were ever discovered, and nobody in the place was known to have an enemy--at least, a maliciousone. 

At Whitmire Hill, Georgia, the spot where two murders were committedbefore the war, is a headless phantom that comes thundering down on thewayfarer on the back of a giant horse and vanishes at the moment when theheart of his prospective victim is bumping against his palate. At times, however, this spook prefers to remain invisible, and then it is a littleworse, for it showers stones and sods on the pedestrian until his legshave carried him well beyond the phantom's jurisdiction. 

The legends of buried treasure, instanced in another place, frequentlyinclude assaults by the ghosts of pirates and misers on the daring oneswho try to resurrect their wealth. 

Forty-seven years ago, in the township of St. Mary's, Illinois, two ladsnamed Groves and a companion named Kirk were pelted with snowballs whileon their way home from a barn where they had been to care for the stockfor the night. The evening had shut in dark, and the accuracy of thethrower's aim was the more remarkable because it was hardly possible tosee more than a rod away. The snowballs were packed so tightly that theydid not break on striking, though they were thrown with force, and Kirkwas considerably bruised by them. Mr. Groves went out with a lantern, butits rays lit up a field of untrodden snow, and there was no sound exceptthat made by the wind as it whistled past the barn and fences. Towarddawn another inspection was made, and in the dim light the snowballs wereseen rising from the middle of a field that had not a footprint on it, and flying toward the spectators like bullets. They ran into the fieldand laid about them with pitchforks, but nothing came of that, and notuntil the sun arose was the pelting stopped. Young Kirk, who was badlyhurt, died within a year. 

The men of Sharon, Connecticut, having wheedled their town-site from theIndians in 1754, were plagued thereafter by whoops and whistlings and thethrowing of stones. Men were seen in the starlight and were fired upon, but without effect, and the disturbances were not ended until the Indianshad received a sum of money. 

Without presuming to doubt the veracity of tradition in these matters, anincident from the writer's boyhood in New England may be instanced. Thehouse of an unpopular gentleman was assailed--not in the ostentatiousmanner just described, yet in a way that gave him a good deal of trouble. Dead cats appeared mysteriously in his neighborhood; weird noises aroseunder his windows; he tried to pick up letters from his doorstep thatbecame mere chalk-marks at his touch, so that he took up only splintersunder his nails. One night, as a seance was about beginning in his yard, he emerged from a clump of bushes, flew in the direction of thedisturbance, laid violent hands on the writer's collar, and bumped hisnose on a paving-stone. Then the manifestations were discontinued, forseveral nights, for repairs. 

STORIED SPRINGS

Like the Greeks, the red men endowed the woods and waters with tutelarysprites, and many of the springs that are now resorted to as fountains ofhealing were known long before the settlement of Europeans here, thegains from drinking of them being ascribed to the beneficence of spiritguardians. The earliest comers to these shores--or, rather, the earliestof those who entertained such beliefs--fancied that the fabled fountainof eternal youth would be found among the other blessings of the land. Tothe Spaniards Florida was a land of promise and mystery. Somewhere in itsinterior was fabled to stand a golden city ruled by a king whose robessparkled with precious dust, and this city was named for theadventurer--El Dorado, or the Place of the Gilded One. Here, they said, would be found the elixir of life. The beautiful Silver Spring, near thehead of the Ocklawaha, with its sandy bottom plainly visible at the depthof eighty feet, was thought to be the source of the life-giving waters, but, though Ponce de Leon heard of this, he never succeeded in fightinghis way to it through the jungle. 

In Georgia, in the reputed land of Chicora, were a sacred stream thatmade all young again who bathed there, and a spring so delectable that aband of red men, chancing on it in a journey, could not leave it, and arethere forever. 

In the island of "Bimini, " one of the Lucayos (Bahamas), was another sucha fountain. 

Between the Flint and Ocmulgee Rivers the Creeks declared was a spring oflife, on an island in a marsh, defended from approach by almostimpenetrable labyrinths, --a heaven where the women were fairer than anyother on earth. 

The romantic and superstitious Spaniards believed these legends, andspent years and treasure in searching for these springs. And, surely, ifthe new and striking scenes of this Western world caused Columbus to"boast that he had found the seat of paradise, it will not appear strangethat Ponce de Leon should dream of discovering the fountain of youth. "

The Yuma Apaches had been warned by one of their oracles never to enter acertain canon in Castle Dome range, Arizona, but a company of them forgotthis caution while in chase of deer, and found themselves between wallsof pink and white fluorite with a spring bubbling at the head of theravine. Tired and heated, they fell on their faces to drink, when theyfound that the crumbling quartz that formed the basin of the spring wasfilled with golden nuggets. Eagerly gathering up this precious substance, for they knew what treasure of beads, knives, arrows, and blankets theMexicans would exchange for it, they attempted to make their way out ofthe canon; but a cloudburst came, and on the swiftly rising tide all wereswept away but one, who survived to tell the story. White men havefrequently but vainly tried to find that spring. 

In Southwestern Kansas, on a hill a quarter-mile from Solomon River, isthe Sacred Water, pooled in a basin thirty feet across. When many standabout the brink it slowly rises. Here two Panis stopped on their returnfrom a buffalo hunt, and one of them unwittingly stepped on a turtle ayard long. Instantly he felt his feet glued to the monster's back, for, try as he might, he could not disengage himself, and the creaturelumbered away to the pool, where it sank with him. There the turtle godremains, and beads, arrows, ear-rings, and pipes that are dropped in, itswallows greedily. The Indians use the water to mix their paint with, butnever for drinking. 

The mail rider, crossing the hot desert of Arizona, through the cacti andover holes where scorpions hide, makes for Devil's Well, under ElDiablo--a dark pool surrounded with gaunt rocks. Here, coming when thenight is on, he lies down, and the wind swishing in the sage--brush putshim to sleep. At dawn he wakens with the frightened whinny of his horsein his ears and, all awake, looks about him. A stranger, wrapped in atattered blanket, is huddled in a recess of the stones, arrived there, like himself, at night, perhaps. Poising his rifle on his knee, the riderchallenges him, but never a sign the other makes. Then, striding over tohim, he pulls away the blanket and sees a shrivelled corpse with a facethat he knows--his brother. Hardly is this meeting made when a hail ofarrows falls around. His horse is gone. The Apaches, who know nogentleness and have no mercy, have manned every gap and sheltering rock. With his rifle he picks them off, as they rise in sight with arrows atthe string, and sends them tumbling into the dust; but, when his lastbullet has sped into a red man's heart, they rise in a body and withknives and hatchets hew him to death. And that is why the Devil's Wellstill tastes of blood. 

Among the Balsam Mountains of Western North Carolina is a large springthat promises refreshment, but, directly that the wayfarer bends over thewater, a grinning face appears at the bottom and as he stoops it rises tomeet his. So hideous is this demon that few of the mountaineers havecourage to drink here, and they refuse to believe that the apparition iscaused by the shape of the basin, or aberrated reflection of their ownfaces. They say it is the visage of a "haunt, " for a Cherokee girl, whohad uncommon beauty, once lived hard by, and took delight in luringlovers from less favored maidens. The braves were jealous of each other, and the women were jealous of her, while she--the flirt!--rejoiced in thetrouble that she made. A day fell for a wedding--that of a hunter with adamsel of his tribe, but at the hour appointed the man was missing. Mortified and hurt, the bride stole away from the village and began asearch of the wood, and she carried bow and arrows in her hand. Presentlyshe came on the hunter, lying at the feet of the coquette, who waslistening to his words with encouraging smiles. Without warning thedeserted girl drew an arrow to the head and shot her lover through theheart--then, beside his lifeless body, she begged Manitou to make herrival's face so hideous that all would be frightened who looked at it. Atthe words the beautiful creature felt her face convulse and shrivel, and, rushing to the mirror of the spring, she looked in, only to start back inloathing. When she realized that the frightful visage that glared up ather was her own, she uttered a cry of despair and flung herself into thewater, where she drowned. 

It is her face--so altered as to disclose the evil once hid behindit--that peers up at the hardy one who passes there and knows it as theHaunted Spring. 

The medicinal properties of the mineral springs at Ballston and Saratogawere familiar to the Indians, and High Rock Spring, to which Sir WilliamJohnson was carried by the Mohawks in 1767 to be cured of a wound, wascalled "the medicine spring of the Great Spirit, " for it was believedthat the leaping and bubbling of the water came from its agitation byhands not human, and red men regarded it with reverence. 

The springs at Manitou, Colorado (see "Division of Two Tribes"), werealways approached with gifts for the manitou that lived in them. 

The lithia springs of Londonderry, New Hampshire, used to be visited byIndians from the Merrimack region, who performed incantations and dancesto ingratiate themselves with the healing spirit that lived in the water. Their stone implements and arrow-heads are often found in adjacentfields. 

The curative properties of Milford Springs, New Hampshire, were revealedin the dream of a dying boy. 

A miracle spring flowed in the old days near the statue of the Virgin atWhite Marsh, Maryland. 

Biddeford Pool, Maine, was a miracle pond once a year, for whoso bathedthere on the 26th of June would be restored to health if he were ill, because that day was the joint festival of Saints Anthelm and Maxentius. 

There was a wise and peaceable chief of the Ute tribe who alwayscounselled his people to refrain from war, but when he grew old the fieryspirits deposed him and went down to the plains to give battle to theArapahoe. News came that they had been defeated in consequence of theirrashness. Then the old man's sorrow was so keen that his heart broke. Buteven in death he was beneficent, for his spirit entered the earth andforthwith came a gush of water that has never ceased to flow--the HotSulphur Springs of Colorado. The Utes often used to go to those springsto bathe--and be cured of rheumatism--before they were driven away. 

Spring River, Arkansas, is nearly as large at its source as at its mouth, for Mammoth Spring, in the Ozark Mountains, where it has its rise, has ayield of ninety thousand gallons a minute, so that it is, perhaps, thelargest in the world. Here, three hundred years ago, the Indianshad gathered for a month's feast, for chief Wampahseesah'sdaughter--Nitilita--was to wed a brave of many ponies, a hundred of whichhe had given in earnest of his love. For weeks no rain had fallen, and, while the revel was at its height, news came that all the rivers had gonedry. Several young men set off with jars, to fill them at theMississippi, and, confident that relief would come, the song and dancewent on until the men and women faltered from exhaustion. At last, Nitilita died, and, in the wildness of his grief, the husband smote hishead upon a rock and perished too. Next day the hunters came with water, but, incensed by their delay, the chief ordered them to be slain insacrifice to the manes of the dead. A large grave was dug and the lastsolemnities were begun when there was a roaring and a shaking in theearth--it parted, and the corpses disappeared in the abyss. Then from thepit arose a flood of water that went foaming down the valley. Crazed withgrief, remorse, and fear, Wampahseesah flung himself into the torrent andwas borne to his death. The red men built a dam there later, and oftenused to sit before it in the twilight, watching, as they declared, thefaces of the dead peering at them through the foam. 

During the rush for the California gold-fields in the '50's a party tookthe route by Gila River, and set across the desert. The noon temperaturewas 120, the way was strewn with skeletons of wagons, horses, and men, and on the second night after crossing the Colorado the water had givenout. The party had gathered on the sands below Yuma, the men discussingthe advisability of returning, the women full of apprehension, the youngones crying, the horses panting; but presently the talk fell low, for inone of the wagons a child's voice was heard in prayer: "Oh, good heavenlyFather, I know I have been a naughty girl, but I am so thirsty, and mammaand papa and baby all want a drink so much! Do, good God, give us water, and I never will be naughty again. " One of the men said, earnestly, "MayGod grant it!" In a few moments the child cried, "Mother, get me water. Get some for baby and me. I can hear it running. " The horses and mulesnearly broke from the traces, for almost at their feet a spring had burstfrom the sand-warm, but pure. Their sufferings were over. The watercontinued to flow, running north for twenty miles, and at one pointspreading into a lake two miles wide and twenty feet deep. Whenemigration was diverted, two years later, to the northern route and tothe isthmus, New River Spring dried up. Its mission was over. 

LOVERS' LEAPS

So few States in this country--and so few countries, if it comes tothat--are without a lover's leap that the very name has come to be aby-word. In most of these places the disappointed ones seem to have goneto elaborate and unusual pains to commit suicide, neglecting many easyand equally appropriate methods. But while in some cases the legend hasbeen made to fit the place, there is no doubt that in many instances thestory antedated the arrival of the white men. The best known lovers'leaps are those on the upper Mississippi, on the French Broad, JumpMountain, in Virginia, Jenny Jump Mountain, New Jersey, Mackinac, Michigan, Monument Mountain, Massachusetts, on the Wissahickon, nearPhiladelphia, Muscatine, Iowa, and Lefferts Height. There are many otherdeclivities, --also, that are scenes of leaps and adventures, such as theFawn's Leap, in Kaaterskill Clove; Rogers's Rock, on Lake George; therocks in Long Narrows, on the Juniata, where the ghost of Captain Jack, "the wild hunter" of colonial days, still ranges; Campbell's Ledge, Pittston, Pennsylvania, where its name-giver jumped off to escapeIndians; and Peabody's leap, of thirty feet, on Lake Champlain, where TimPeabody, a scout, escaped after killing a number of savages. 

At Jump Mountain, near Lexington, Virginia, an Indian couple sprang offbecause there were insuperable bars to their marriage. 

At the rock on the Wissahickon a girl sought death because her lover wasuntrue to her. 

At Muscatine the cause of a maid's demise and that of her lover was theseverity of her father, who forbade the match because there was no war inwhich the young man could prove his courage. 

At Lefferts Height a girl stopped her recreant lover as he was on his wayto see her rival, and urging his horse to the edge of the bluff sheleaped with him into the air. 

Monument Mountain, a picturesque height in the Berkshires, is faced onits western side by a tall precipice, from which a girl flung herselfbecause the laws of her tribe forbade her marriage with a cousin to whomshe had plighted troth. She was buried where her body was found, and eachIndian as he passed the spot laid a stone on her grave--thus, in time, forming a monument. 

"Purgatory, " the chasm at Newport, Rhode Island, through which the seabooms loudly after a storm, was a scene of self-sacrifice to a hopelesslove on the part of an Indian pair in a later century, though there is anolder tradition of the seizure of a guilty squaw, by no less a personthan the devil himself, who flung her from the cliff and dragged her soulaway as it left her body. His hoof-marks were formerly visible on therocks. 

At Hot Springs, North Carolina, two conspicuous cliffs are pointed out onthe right bank of the French Broad River: Paint Rock--where theaborigines used to get ochre to smear their faces, and which theydecorated with hieroglyphics--and Lover's Leap. It is claimed that thelatter is the first in this country known to bear this sentimental andtragically suggestive title. There are two traditions concerning it, onebeing that an Indian girl was discovered at its top by hostiles who droveher into the gulf below, the other relating to the wish of an Indian tomarry a girl of a tribe with which his own had been immemorially at war. The match was opposed on both sides, so, instead of doing as most Indiansand some white men would do nowadays--marry the girl and letreconciliation come in time, --he scaled the rock in her company andleaped with her into the stream. They awoke as man and wife in the happyhunting-ground. 

In 1700 there lived in the village of Keoxa, below Frontenac, Minnesota, on the Mississippi River, a Dakota girl named Winona (the First Born), who was loved by a hunter in her tribe, and loved him in return. Herfriends commended to her affections a young chief who had valiantlydefended the village against an attack of hostiles, but Juliet would noneof this dusky Count de Paris, adhering faithfully to her Romeo. Unable tomove her by argument, her family at length drove her lover away, and usedother harsh measures to force her into a repugnant union, but shereplied, "You are driving me to despair. I do not love this chief, andcannot live with him. You are my father, my brothers, my relatives, yetyou drive from me the only man with whom I wish to be united. Alone heranges through the forest, with no one to build his lodge, none to spreadhis blanket, none to wait on him. Soon you will have neither daughter, sister, nor relative to torment with false professions. " Blazing withanger at this unsubmissive speech, her father declared that she shouldmarry the chief on that very day, but while the festival was inpreparation she stole to the top of the crag that has since been known asMaiden's Rock, and there, four hundred feet above the heads of thepeople, upbraided those who had formerly professed regard for her. Thenshe began her death-song. Some of the men tried to scale the cliff andavert the tragedy that it was evident would shortly be enacted, and herfather, his displeasure forgotten in an agony of apprehension, called toher that he would no longer oppose her choice. She gave no heed to theirappeals, but, when the song was finished, walked to the edge of the rock, leaped out, and rolled lifeless at the feet of her people. 

When we say that the real name of Lover's Leap in Mackinac isMechenemockenungoqua, we trust that it will not be repeated. It has itslegend, however, as well as its name, for an Ojibway girl stood on thisspire of rock, watching for her lover after a battle had been fought andher people were returning. Eagerly she scanned the faces of the braves astheir war-canoes swept by, but the face she looked for was not amongthem. Her lover was at that moment tied to a tree, with an arrow in hisheart. As she looked at the boats a vision of his fate revealed itself, and the dead man, floating toward her, beckoned. Her death-song soundedin the ears of the men, but before they could reach her she had goneswiftly to the verge, her hands extended, her eyes on vacancy, and herspirit had met her lover's. 

From this very rock, in olden time, leaped the red Eve when the red Adamhad been driven away by a devil who had fallen in love with her. Adam, who was paddling by the shore, saw she was about to fall, rushed forward, caught her, and saved her life. The law of gravitation in those days didnot act with such distressing promptitude as now. Manitou, hearing ofthese doings, restored them to the island and banished the devil, whofell to a world of evil spirits underground, where he became the fatherof the white race, and has ever since persecuted the Indians by proxy. 

On the same island of Mackinac the English had a fort, the garrison ofwhich was massacred in 1763. A sole survivor--a young officer namedRobinson--owed his life to a pretty half-breed who gave him hiding in asecluded wigwam. As the spot assured him of safety, and the girl was hisonly companion, they lived together as man and wife, rather happily, forseveral years. When the fort had been built again, Robinson re-enteredthe service, and appeared at head-quarters with a wife of his own color. His Indian consort showed no jealousy. On the contrary, she consented tolive apart in a little house belonging to the station, on the cliff, called Robinson's Folly. She did ask her lover to go there and sit withher for an hour before they separated forever, and he granted thisrequest. While they stood at the edge of the rock she embraced him; then, stepping back, with her arms still around his neck, she fell from thecliff, dragging him with her, and both were killed. The edge of the rockfell shortly after, carrying the house with it. 

Matiwana, daughter of the chief of the Omahas, whose village was near themouth of Omaha Creek, married a faithless trader from St. Louis, who hadone wife already, and who returned to her, after an absence among his ownpeople, with a third, a woman of his own color. He coldly repelled theIndian woman, though he promised to send her boy--and his--to thesettlements to be educated. She turned away with only a look, and a fewdays later was found dead at the foot of a bluff near her home. 

White Rocks, one hundred and fifty feet above Cheat River, in FayetteCounty, Pennsylvania, were the favorite tryst of a handsome girl, thedaughter of a well-to-do farmer of that region, and a dashing fellow whohad gone into that country to hunt. They had many happy days there on thehill together, but after making arrangements for the wedding theyquarrelled, nobody knew for what. One evening they met by accident on therocks, and appeared to be in formal talk when night came on and theycould no longer be seen. The girl did not return, and her father set offwith a search party to look for her. They found her, dead and mangled, atthe foot of the rocks. Her lover, in a fit of impatience, had pushed herand she had staggered and fallen over. He fled at once, and, under achanged name and changed appearance, eluded pursuit. When the War of theRebellion broke out, he entered the army and fought recklessly, for bythat time he had tired of life and hoped to die. But it was of no use. Hewas only made captain for a bravery that he was not conscious of showing, and the old remorse still preyed on him. It was after the war thatsomething took him back to Fayette County, and on a pleasant day heclimbed the rocks to take a last look at the scenes that had beenbrightened by love and saddened by regret. He had not been long on itssummit when an irresistible impulse came upon him to leap down where thegirl had fallen, and atone with his own blood for the shedding of hers. He gave way to this prompting, and the fall was fatal. 

Some years before the outbreak of the Civil War a man with his wife anddaughter took up their residence in a log cabin at the foot of SunriseRock, near Chattanooga, Tennessee. It seemed probable that they had knownbetter days, for the head of the household was notoriously useless in theeyes of his neighbors, and was believed to get his living through"writin' or book-larnin', " but he was so quiet and gentle that they neverupbraided him, and would sometimes, after making a call, wander into hisgarden and casually weed it for him for an hour or so. The girl, Stella, was a well-schooled, quick-witted, rosy-cheeked lass, whom all theshaggy, big-jointed farmer lads of the neighborhood regarded withhopeless admiration. A year or two after the settlement of the family itbegan to be noticed that she was losing color and had an anxious look, and when a friendly old farmer saw her talking in the lane with a lawyerfrom Chattanooga, who wore broadcloth and had a gold watch, he waspuzzled that the "city chap" did not go home with her, but kissed hishand to her as he turned away. Afterward the farmer met the pair again, and while the girl smiled and said, "Howdy, Uncle Joe?" the lawyer turnedaway and looked down the river. It was the last time that a smile wasseen on Stella's face. A few evenings later she was seen standing onSunrise Rock, with her look bent on Chattanooga. The shadow of nightcrept up the cliff until only her figure stood in sunlight, with her hairlike a golden halo about her face. At that moment came on the wind thesound of bells-wedding-bells. Pressing her hands to her ears, the girlwalked to the edge of the rock, and a few seconds later her lifeless formrolled through the bushes at its foot into the road. At her funeral thepeople came from far and near to offer sympathy to the mother, garbed inblack, and the father, with his hair turned white, but the lawyer fromChattanooga was not there. 

The name of Indian Maiden's Cliff--applied to a precipice that hangsabove the wild ravine of Stony Clove, in the Catskills--commemorates thesequel to an elopement from her tribe of an Indian girl and her lover. The parents and relatives had opposed the match with that fatal fatuitythat appears to be characteristic of story-book Indians, and as soon asword of her flight came to the village they set off in chase. Whilehurrying through the tangled wood the young couple were separated and thegirl found herself on the edge of the cliff. Farther advance wasimpossible. Her pursuers were close behind. She must yield or die. Shechose not to yield, and, with a despairing cry, flung herself into theshadows. 

Similar to this is the tale of Lover's Leap in the dells of the Sioux, among the Black Hills of South Dakota. 

At New Milford, Connecticut, they show you Falls Mountain, with the cairnerected by his tribe in 1735 to chief Waramaug, who wished to be buriedthere, so that, when he was cold and lonely in the other life, he couldreturn to his body and muse on the lovely landscape that he so enjoyed. The will-o'-the-wisp flickered on the mountain's edge at night, andflecks of dew-vapor that floated from the wood by day were sometimesthought to be the spirit of the chief. He had a daughter, Lillinonah, whose story is related to Lover's Leap, on the riverward side of themountain. She had led to the camp a white man, who had been wanderingbeside the Housatonic, ill and weak, vainly seeking a way out of thewilderness, and, in spite of the dark looks that were cast at him andher, she succeeded in making him, for that summer, a member of the tribe. As the man grew strong with her care he grew happy and he fell in love. In the autumn he said to her, "I wish to see my people, and when I havedone so I will come back to you and we shall be man and wife. " Theyparted regretfully and the winter passed for the girl on leaden feet. With spring came hope. The trails were open, and daily she watched forher white lover. The summer came and went, and the autumn was thereagain. She had grown pale and sad, and old Waramaug said to young EagleFeather, who had looked softly on her for many years, "The girl sickensin loneliness. You shall wed her. " This is repeated to her, and thatevening she slips away to the river, enters a canoe, casts away thepaddle, and drifts down the stream. Slowly, at first, but faster andfaster, as the rapids begin to draw it, skims the boat, but above thehoarse brawling of the waters she hears a song in a voice that sheknows--the merry troll of a light heart. The branches part at Lover'sLeap and her lover looks down upon her. The joyous glance of recognitionchanges to a look of horror, for the boat is caught. The girl rises andholds her arms toward him in agonized appeal. Life, at any cost! He, witha cry, leaps into the flood as the canoe is passing. It lurches against arock and Lillinonah is thrown out. He reaches her. The falls bellow intheir ears. They take a last embrace, and two lives go out in the growingdarkness. 

GOD ON THE MOUNTAINS

From the oldest time men have associated the mountains with visitationsof God. Their height, their vastness, their majesty made them seem worthyto be stairs by which the Deity might descend to earth, and they stand inreligious and poetic literature to this day as symbols of the largestmental conceptions. Scriptural history is intimately associated withthem, and the giving of the law on Sinai, amid thunder and darkness, isone of the most tremendous pictures that imagination can paint. Ararat, Hermon, Horeb, Pisgah, Calvary, Adam's Peak, Parnassus, Olympus! How fullof suggestion are these names! And poetic figures in sacred writings arefull of allusion to the beauty, nobility, and endurance of the hills. 

It is little known that many of our own mountains are associated withaboriginal legends of the Great Spirit. According to the Indians ofCalifornia, Mount Shasta was the first part of the earth to be made. TheGreat Spirit broke a hole through the floor of heaven with a rock, and onthe spot where this rock had stopped he flung down more rocks, with earthand snow and ice, until the mass had gained such a height that he couldstep from the sky to its summit. Running his hands over its sides hecaused forests to spring up. The leaves that he plucked he breathed upon, tossed into the air, and, lo! they were birds. Out of his own staff hemade beasts and fishes, to live on the hills and in the streams, thatbegan to appear as the work of worldbuilding went on. The earth became sojoyous and so fair that he resolved at last to live on it, and hehollowed Shasta into a wigwam, where he dwelt for centuries, the smoke ofhis lodge-fire (Shasta is a volcano) being often seen pouring from thecone before the white man came. 

According to the Oregon Indians the first man was created at the base ofthe Cascade Range, near Wood River, by Kmukamtchiksh, "the old man of theancients, " who had already made the world. The Klamaths believeKmukamtchiksh a treacherous spirit, "a typical beast god, " yet that hepunishes the wicked by turning them into rocks on the mountain-sides orby putting them into volcanic fires. 

Sinsinawa Mound, Wisconsin, was the home of strange beings who occupiedcaverns that few dared to enter. Enchanted rivers flowed through thesecaves to heaven. The Catskills and Adirondacks were abodes of powerfulbeings, and the Highlands of the Hudson were a wall within which Manitouconfined a host of rebellious spirits. When the river burst through thisbulwark and poured into the sea, fifty miles below, these spirits tookflight, and many succeeded in escaping. But others still haunt theravines and bristling woods, and when Manitou careers through the Hudsoncanon on his car of cloud, crying with thunder voice, and hurling hislightnings to right and left as he passes, the demons scream and howl inrage and fear lest they be recaptured and shut up forever beneath theearth. 

The White Mountains were held in awe by Indians, to whom they were homesof great and blessed spirits. Mount Washington was their Olympus andArarat in one, for there dwelt God, and there, when the earth was coveredwith a flood, lived the chief and his wife, whom God had saved, sendingforth a hare, after the waters had subsided, to learn if it were safe todescend. From them the whole country was peopled with red men. Yet woebetide the intruder on this high and holy ground, for an angered deitycondemned him to wander for ages over the desolate peaks and through theshadowy chasms rifted down their sides. The despairing cries of thesecondemned ones, in winter storms, even frightened the early whitesettlers in this region, and in 1784 the women of Conway petitioned threeclergymen "to lay the spirits. "

Other ark and deluge legends relate to the Superstition Mountains, inArizona, Caddoes village, on Red River, Cerro Naztarny, on the RioGrande, the peak of Old Zuni, in Mexico, Colhuacan, on the Pacific coast, Mount Apaola, in upper Mixteca, and Mount Neba, in Guaymi. TheNorthwestern Indians tell of a flood in which all perished save one man, who fled to Mount Tacoma. To prevent him from being swept away a spiritturned him into stone. When the flood had fallen the deity took one ofhis ribs and made a woman of it. Then he touched the stone man back tolife. 

There were descendants of Manitou on the mountains, too, of NorthCarolina, but the Cherokees believe that those heights are bare becausethe devil strode over them on his way to the Devil's Court House(Transylvania County, North Carolina), where he sat in judgment andclaimed his own. Monsters were found in the White Mountains. Devil's Den, on the face of Mount Willard, was the lair of one of them--a strange, winged creature that strewed the floor of its cave with brute and humanskeletons, after preying on their flesh. 

The ideas of supernatural occurrences in these New Hampshire hillsobtained until a recent date, and Sunday Mountain is a monument to thedire effects of Sabbath-breaking that was pointed out to severalgenerations of New Hampshire youth for their moral betterment. The storygoes that a man of the adjacent town of Oxford took a walk one Sunday, when he should have taken himself to church; and, straying into the woodshere, he was delivered into the claws and maws of an assemblage of bearsthat made an immediate and exemplary conclusion of him. 

The grand portrait in rock in Profile Notch was regarded with reverenceby the few red men who ventured into that lonely defile. When white mensaw it they said it resembled Washington, and a Yankee orator is quotedas saying, "Men put out signs representing their different trades. Jewellers hang out a monster watch, shoemakers a huge boot, and, up inFranconia, God Almighty has hung out a sign that in New England He makesmen. "

To Echo Lake, close by, the deity was wont to repair that he mightcontemplate the beauties of nature, and the clear, repeated echoes werehis voice, speaking in gentleness or anger. Moosilauke--meaning a baldplace, and wrongly called Moose Hillock--was declared by Waternomee, chief of the Pemigewassets, to be the home of the Great Spirit, and thefirst time that red men tried to gain the summit they returned in fear, crying that Gitche Manitou was riding home in anger on a storm--whichpresently, indeed, burst over the whole country. Few Indians dared toclimb the mountain after that, and the first fruits of the harvest andfirst victims of the chase were offered in propitiation to the deity. AtSeven Cascades, on its eastern slope, one of Rogers's Rangers, retreatingafter the Canadian foray, fell to the ground, too tired for furthermotion, when a distant music of harps mingled with the cascade's plash, and directly the waters were peopled with forms glowing with silver-white, like the moonstone, that rose and circled, hand in hand, singing gayly asthey did so. The air then seemed to be flooded with rosy light andthousands of sylvan genii ascended altars of rock, by steps of rainbow, to offer incense and greet the sun with song. A dark cloud passed, daylight faded, and a vision arose of the massacre at St. Francis, aretreat through untried wilderness, a feast on human heads, torture, anddeath; then his senses left the worn and starving man. But a trapper whohad seen his trail soon reached him and led him to a friendly settlement, where he was told that only to those who were about to take their leaveof earth was it given to know those spirits of fountain and forest thatoffered their voices, on behalf of nature, in praise of the Great Spirit. To those of grosser sense, on whom the weight of worldliness stillrested, this halcyon was never revealed. 

It was to Mount Washington that the Great Spirit summoned Passaconaway, when his work was done, and there was his apotheosis. 

The Indians account in this manner for the birth of the White Mountains:A red hunter who had wandered for days through the forest without findinggame dropped exhausted on the snow, one night, and awaited death. But hefell asleep and dreamed. In his vision he saw a beautiful mountaincountry where birds and beasts and fruits were plenty, and, awaking fromhis sleep, he found that day had come. Looking about the frozenwilderness in despair, he cried, "Great Master of Life, where is thiscountry that I have seen?" And even as he spoke the Master appeared andgave to him a spear and a coal. The hunter dropped the coal on theground, when a fire spread from it, the rocks burning with dense smoke, out of which came the Master's voice, in thunder tones, bidding themountains rise. The earth heaved and through the reek the terrified mansaw hills and crags lifting--lifting--until their tops reached above theclouds, and from the far summits sounded the promise, "Here shall theGreat Spirit live and watch over his children. " Water now burst from therocks and came laughing down the hollows in a thousand brooks and rills, the valleys unfolded in leaf and bloom, birds sang in the branches, butterflies-like winged flowers flitted to and fro, the faint andcheerful noise of insect life came from the herbage, the smoke rolledaway, a genial sun blazed out, and, as the hunter looked in rapture onthe mighty peaks of the Agiochooks, God stood upon their crest.