About Cherokee phoenix, and Indians' advocate. (New Echota [Ga.]) 1829-1834 | View Entire Issue (July 22, 1829)
POETRY. The following beautiful lines form no idle picture of the fancy. How many a fernale, bred up in ease, in affluence and refine ment, and afterwards made happy in the husband of het choice, has been doomed at length to realize the sad reverse here de sceibed. : % SOLILOQUY OF A DRUNKARD’S _ WIFE. . ; #¥*Time was, when much he lov’d me: = When we walk’d out at close of day tin hale ; 2 The vernal breeze—ah, well do I remem ber, . ; How then with careful hand, he drew my mantle 5 Around me; fearful lest the evening dews Should mar my fragile health. Yes, then his eye ‘ v Look’d kindly on me; when my heart was sad, How tenderly he wiped my tears away, ‘While from {;is lips the words of gentle soothing In soft accents fell. 7 How blest my evenings, too; when wintry blasts ‘Were howling round our peaceful, happy dwelling, 0, it. was sweet, the daily task perform’d, By the swept hearth, and cheerful fire, to sit gy “With him I lov’d: to view with glistening eye, ' And a“)zri parent’s fondness, the budding graces : Of our little ones. ***'T'hen ye had a father, . My lovely babes, now more than helpless orphans! ; i , "Thy mother more than widow’s grief has known; ‘. iy Ves, sharper pangs than those who mourn the dead, ’ Seiz*’d on my breaking heart, when first I ¥ knew, 3 5 My lover, husband—oO, my earthly all, Was dead to virtue! When I'saw the man My soul too fondly lov’d transform’d to, brute, A 58 0, it was then I tasted gall and wormwood! "Then, then the world logk’d dreary! fear * ful clouds Quick gather’d round me; dark forebod -3 ings came. "T'he grave before was terror: now it smild; Ilong’d to lay me down in peaceful rest," There to forget my sorrows. But I livid: And O, my God! what yearsof wo have follow?d! I feel my heart is broken. . He who vow’d "T'o cherish me—before God’s altar vow’d— Has done the deed. And shall I then up braid him— The husband of my youthful days—the man - UK For whom I gave my virgin heart away’? Patient I’ll bear itall. > ***Peace, peace, my heart! 3 *T'is almost o’er. A few more stormy blasts, And thFri] this shatter’d, sickly frame will ; all, ~ And sweetly slumber—where the weary iiresty : “ The wicked cease from troubling! % Christian Jour. MISCELLANEOUS. From the United States Gazette. THE PHILOSOPHY OF WOMAN’S RELIGION. He who salutes every passenger, may sometimes receive an yncivil an swer: he who returas no salutation, or intimates an udWvillingness to ex change civdities, might incur the risk of being marked down for a churl. In the way of error, it is hetter.to be pas sive than active;so I find a kindly look for all who pass me, beyond the pre cincts of the city. It costs, indeed, an occasional _penny extraordinary for a mendicant; but the ‘God bless you’ of a human being, must surely have Tost its value, if it will not pass in ex change for so small a sum. ity Eujoying the prime of the day in September last, about two- miles from the city, I chaticed to meet the tood morning’ of a man with a cordial ity that evidently gave me a favora bie estimation with him; and as his occupation was before him, and mine was unknown, I put ceremony aside at once, by asking information upon subjects connected with a farm which it seemed he was cultivating. While he was enlarging upon a topic that was evidently pleasing to him, though I must confess, it had little interest for me, beyond the pleasure of witnessing his an:mation, his wife came to the door with an’infant in her arms. 1 may have done her wrong in neglect; but the child possessed attractions su perior to its parents at that moment; and as if conscious of my feelings, the nursling stretched odt its hands and evinced a desire to approach me. I ‘ Jearned that it was an only son—the last of five, affections that had expan ded over all others, had settled'with‘ intensity upon this—it.was worth all a " parent’s love. I gazed long upon it§ perfect features, the soft blue eyes and full dark lashes;aud as I pressed my lips upon its face, the palmy fra-, grance of its breath was redolent of health. T had won upon the mother’s esteem, by my atr,ntion to her boy but a tear that fell from my eye, warm upon the infant’s breast, show ed her that while I joyed with her in the living I eould in afiiiction"'symp'r thize withher for the dead. I know not how it was, but for sometime there was scarcely a morn ing that 1 did not pass the house in wy ride, and the boy,? thiough not a year old, had learned to expect me. Let those who have no fondness for children, pass on the other side of the way—there is enough in life with “which to amuse themselves; I neither envy them their capacities for other enjoyments, nor would give one of that infant’s smiles of recognition for alt their fancied pleasure. L ~ The equinoctial raivs made sad work with wmy calculation of riding and it was not until the weather be, came settled that 1 was enabled to renew my wonted excursions. It was aboutithree o’clock, P. M. when Tap proached the dwelling of my new ac quaintance; and as its low roof met my sight, the thought occurred whe ther my little blue eyed friend would after a lapse of twogweeks recognise his former acquaintance. I confess | that as I moved towards him, some little anxiety was experienced that he should give evidence of pleasure at my return. I had furnished my pockets with some trifles for him, and anticipated his pleasure at the recep tion—the delight with which he would reach forward to cateh them, and the pleasure that would dance in his eye or play around his mouth, as he re- | ceived the tokens of my affection. His mother too, had ever shown so much gratification at my fondness for her little boy, that I promised myself pleasure in her delight. Pursuing these anticipations, I arriv ed by a short turn in the road, directly in front of the dwelling without discov ering a member of the family. The stopping of the horse in front of the house, 1 thought would soon bring some one to the door. I waited several | minutes—no one appeared. = The family might be absent, or perhaps sick; the last thought determined me; so dismounting 1 opened the wicket gate and proceeded under an arbor of grape vines to the house. The front door was open, and I entered. The parlor was vacant; and as | cressed it I saw the door of a side room opened. I turned towards it—and the cause of the ufwonted silence of the habitation lay before me. On a table against the wall of the room resteda coffin. With a single step I was at its side; =| T looked in it; it contained the inani- I mate form of my little favorite. For a moment I turned away in the agony of disappointment: Ilooked again—it I was too true; and my hopes, childish almost as those T had excited in him lay blighted. As Igazed upon the cold remains before me, my feelings sub=s | sided, and I recovered that tone swhich’ l the well regulated mind never loses. It was but to divest myself of those acquired feelings. concerning death, and the child that lay before me, was as lovely and as deserving admiration as whea alive. The beautiful glossi ness of his prominent forehead, was set off by the fine silky hair that stretched in a semicircle toward the temples. There was a transparency in the skin through which the blue veins showed with wonderful distinctness; and the budding whiteness of the teeth was discernible between the slightly open- | ed lips; and his little hands were crosssed below his breast—their beau ty had not departed, but the eyes, as I gazed upwards gleamed glassy be tween the lids, through their long dark lashes; and as the light trickled through the veins near the window, 1 sometinmes thought that life was re turning to animate the lovely features on which I gazed. . I stooped to press | a kiss upon its face—it was cold, and the tears that I dropped upen it, trick ed off as if they had fell upon polished marble. As I raised my head from the coffin, my eyes met those of the mother.—We gaze upon the dead with regret for their loss, we look upon the inanimate cerps of an infant, and mourn that it sois soon snatched away; we dwell with fondness upon its features, treasure the memory of its beauties, and sigh that we can no long er enjoy them. But when wesee thdse whom the bereavement has left childless - standing by us in the dignity of grief, the silent cause of sorrow yet stretched before them, we spring al most with awe from their presence. Such for a moment were my feelings. I wished myself absent from the scene that was about to ensue; but the ex tended hand of the afflicted pavent, satisfied me that retreat would have been crielty or cowardice. I pressed the hind ‘of the mother in the ardor of sympathy, and our tears fell fast «upon - the snowy shroud of the out stretched infant. She leaned forward and buried her face with his in the narrow coffin.—Fearing the effects of this paroxysm of grief uponthe mo ther, I would have withdrawn her. ‘Let me alone,” said she; ‘I know by whom I have been affiicted, and in my sorrow I will not sin; neither will 1 charge God foolishly.’—But in my ‘darling’s sickness, he lay night day upon my knees, until he died; and the kind officiousness of neighbors has kept me from asolitary indulgence of grief until now. Let me then, ere they shut him out of my sight for ev er—let me once more feel his face imprinting its features bn my cheek; though it be cold asdeath. 1 came to yield up in silence and solitude, my child, to him who gave it—but not without the feelings and grief of a mother. ‘I have bowed to the chas tisement—l have even kissed the rod that smote me; but I have not mista ken stoicism for resignation, nor of fered the Lord anunfeeling for a sub missive mind. Four times has the hand of Heaven visited me in afilic tion and 1 have not murmured; and now when the last lamb of the flock is taken,, I have inthe hour of prayer and solitude, exclaimed——‘the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,’ and when the passion of grief shall have subsided when the cords of af fection now torn asunder, shall have ceased to bleed, and mourning shall have become woven into the tissue of life, instead of being, as now, its whole web, then perhaps, I may add, ——tblessed be the name of the Lord.’ But oh! so lovely, so bright in prom ise, of all that a parent’s heart can ask, and to lie now so cold’—— Again the mother threw herself upon_the coffin and nestled her face with that of her infant. Isaw that was no time to offer consolation. She had restrained her grief during the presence of her neighbours, and now {hat she thought herself alone she had | come from her chamber to indulge a a mother’s grief. In a short time the people of the vicmity where seen gathering towards the house, with a view of attending the funeral. The mother impressed a new kiss upon the lips of her dead child; she uttered one more burst of grief and shrunk to her chamber. In a little while they screwed down the coffin lid, and a slight bustle de noted preparations for procession to the grave. I followed among the ve ry few whom the occasion had called together; and aswe entered the city of the dead, I saw by the little heap of fresh turned earth, where the tene ,A:ldent of my little favorite was prepar- The line of followers assembled round the little grave, and the coffin lay at its mouth.—At length the hoarse rumbling of the cords, and the sup-{ pressed sounds of clods falling far down upon the coffin, told that the dust had been committed to dust. 1 locked for the officiating clergyman, and others appeared to await his service —there was none. It was now that 1 feared for the firmness of the mother; she had been almost distracted by grief when her child lay befor her, in her own house—what could sustain her when she looked down into the deep pit, and saw it there girt in with the dampness of the grave, lying cold and stretched out, for ever to be se parate from her gaze; and to become the comdpanion and prey of worms. The father stepped forward, and looking down upon his child, he with drew with clamorous grief. The mo | ther advanced, and stamding wpon a little eminence of fresh earth, she gazed silently down. I could not see her face; but when she raised her head to retire, an expression of agony was passing from her features; her lips remained firmly closed, and her eyes were inflamed. _As she stef)‘ped from the grave, she uttered in scarce ly an audible voice, I shall go unto him, but he shall return no more to me.*’ If there is one who reads this sketch, and feels that it is sometimes good to share in the sorrows of others, let him go forth asl have done; he will find abundant food for sympathy, number less scenes in nature, that will move and instruct more than the wildest bodings forth of fancy. 4 From tl_@ Scotsman. : BEIGHT OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENT. This subject is worthy of more consideration than we were able to bestow upon it in ourreview of Cap-| tain Chapperton’s - last Expedition; ‘& we have now to offer. a few further observations Uponit. lltis an mter esting fact, that the barometer. has now been carried quite across the African continent, and that we are “thus supplied with more correct ideas of the elevation of the soil in that re gion than in some others which are much more accessible. In the first expedition the party cenveyed a bar ometer with them from Tripoli to 'Kouka, in latitude 12 3-4; and the last journey presents us with an un broken series of observations from-the coast of Guinéa north, to Kane in lat. 13. All these, however, are not of equal value. As the atmosphere has its fluctuations within the tropics, though not so great as in our climate, dependence can be placed only on suites of observations continued for sev eral days; & evenjthese are not free of anomalies. We think we can dis cern clerical errors, too, in the jour nal, and tlis furnishes an additional reason for distrusting isolated,observa tions. The interioro f the African continent at its broadest part, thus appears to present a surface, varying {rom 1000 to 1700 feet in height, and averaging about 1300—a degree of elevation surprisingly small considering the great extent of the country. Even in our own narrow isle, the plain which connects the basins of the Forth and Clyde, along which the road pass es from. Edinburgh to Glasgow, is a bout 800 feet in height. The low part of Switzerland has an_elevation of 1700 or 1800 feet, and Bavaria nearly as much. -On the other hand, the table land of Mexico is about 6000 or 7000 feet in height, and the central plateau of Asia, the great plain of Thibet, is believed to rise 12,000 feet above the sea. In the desert, rain sometimes does not fall once in three, four or six years, and even m Bournou and Hou sa, we find from the Journal, there is rarely a shower, except in August, when it rains almost daily. The small size of the river Yeou, which is not larger than the Tweed, though it draws its waters from a country of greater extent than all Scotland, is a | proof of the geneval dryness of the | climate. The prevailing winds are | from the North-east and South-west. During the rainy season, and imme diately after it the country is exceed ingly unhealthy, and swarms of in sects leave the traveller no rest.— There is a species of ant so vora cious, that in a single night they will eat the clothes of a man’s body, and leave him naked. Soudan is, inshort; one ®f the least attractive countries on the face of the globe. It is probable that this low eleva "{ion, and the general want of interior mountains,is the chiel cause of the ste rillity of N. Africa. The Sahara, or Grat Desert, is in fact surrounded with a fence of mountains, so placed as to intercept all the adqueous vapor ex haled from the ocean on its two sides. Within the tropics rain most general ly comes from the east; and here it is caught on its passage by the Abyssin ian chain, which rises ahove the line of perpetual snoy. The western prolongation of this chain arrests the vapor brought by the oceanal south west winds from the Gulf of Guinea; while the moisture which comes from’ the Atlantic with the west and north west is precipitated upon Mount At las. The lands on the sides and at the foot of all these mountains is well watered and fruitful, and at every is olated spot in the Desert where springs rise or rain frequeatly falls, productive soil is often found. llfa lofty chain like the Andes or Himala ya, had traversed Africa about the northern tropic; or if the country, without having great chains, had con sisted of table land 6000 or 7000 feet high like Mexico, it would in all prob ability have had as large a propor tion of good soil as Europe or Amer ica, and the Sahara would not have existed. It is a curious question, whether the march of civilization will at any future time supply man with power to conquer the sterility of the Great Desert? Without pre { tending to solve this problem, we { may observe, that if M. Cordier’s statement is to be trusted, a very sin gular fate is preparing for this most useless portion of the inhabited globe. | He informs us, that according to ob | servations made by the French Savans ‘ at the ruins of Tanis, the northern continent’ of Africa appears to be sub siding into the ocean at the rate es one foof in a century. As the mean height is only about 1300 feet, it fol lows that if this subsidence is really in progress, the Desert will be vearly covered in 130,000 and entirely submerged in 200,000 years. - When this takes place, the Mediternean «u --nited with the Indian ocean through the Red Sea, will reach to the moun-, tains of Gibbel Kumra in the 10th parallel; Mount Atlas will assume the form of a long elevated island like Su matra; fishes will play in the gardens of the Hesperides, and glide round the ‘pyramids; and perhaps some new con tinent rising from the bosom of the sonthern ocean, will open an equally large and a far happier theatre for for the industry of civilized man.— ‘We do not mean to affirm the certain ty of Africa having sunk in time past, ' as M. Cordier infers, and still less to maintain that, supposing his state ment to be correct, the subsidence will go on for the long period men tioned; but this we would, that if the’ country alluded to is in its progress ive annihilation, it is the region of the’ world which could best be spared. EFFECTS 'OF GAMING. A friend upon whom we place the’ most perfect reliance, has communi cated the following facts, which are said to have created considerable sensation among - the friends . of the parties. Their publication may be productive of good ef fects, and may lead many a thought less mind to profitable reflection. ‘A young gentleman of this city, living with his widowed mother in Broadway, above Canal-street, had been for several months in the hab it of coming home at late hoursin the night, often keeping his mother waiting until one or two o’clock.— Her advice, given in the mildest man ner, had no effect upon him, and his restoration to regular and virtuous habits was only effected by the fol lowing singular occurrence. One_ night, rather earlier than his hour of’ returning home, his mother heard the footsteps of a person running up the stairs, whom she supposed to be her son. As usual she went tomeet him, but instead of meeting her son, she was seized by a genteel drgised young man, who snatched an elegant gold wateh from her side, and made his escge before the screams of the la dy brought her servant to her assist ance. Shortly after the son came home, and found his mother in a most distressing state of fear and indispos ition. During a subsequent conver sation, she remarked that the robber resembled in his general appearance a young companion of her son, who had often called to see him. The son was much surprised, and admitted that he had that evening been in com pany with the individual alluded to, who had lost all his money at play, and had left the house at which they usually met, at an early hcur, much dejected. He could not however be lieve that a person whom he consid ered of unimpeachable honor and in tegrity would commit such an act. But the conviction of his mother that she was not mistaken, and her de sire that he should take measures to discover whether her suspicions were unjustly founded, induced him to en deavor to ascertain their correctness. The next night they met again at the gaming table. The son took his friend aside and mentioned the occur rence. The young man burst into tears and confessed that he was the robber. He declared that he had pawned the watch, and that the mon ey he was venturing at play was the proceeds. He solemnly abjured gam ing fyom that time, begging his friend to save him from disgrace and de struction, by keeping the sccret, and promising.in a week to redeem and return the watch to its owner. He was as good as his word. The two young men are now correct in their habits, and often meet at the lady’s house. They enjoy each other’s so« ciety and friendship, and endeavor to, find pleasure in the paths of virtue and respectability. This statement is vouched for by our friend, who informs us that it was given him by the lady from whom the watceh was taken. LETTERS REMAINING m the Post Office at New Echota, July 1, 1829. ‘Woalter S. Adair, Pleasant Combs, “Ar chibald R. S. Hunter, Esq. Richard Rush. S. A. WORCESTER, P.-M. July 8, 1829. 14 3. N. Y. Siatesman.
