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WM. C. RICHARDS, EDITOR. ©riginal soctn). For the Southern Literary Gazette. THE PAINTER’S CHORUS. DEDICATED TO THE NEW-YORK SKETCH CLUB. BY T. ADDISON RICHARDS. Princes may dwell in regal state, And kneeling courtiers ’round them wait; The purple and the gold to them To us, the throne in Beauty’s realm ! Chorus. All Nature’s charms, forever new, From morning sun to evening dew; Treasures of earth, and sea, and air— All that is lovely bright and fair — Is ours! Let conquerors seek the martial hum Os trumpet, clarion, fife and drum; We hear far sweeter strains than these In sighings of the idle breeze! Misers may count their hoarded gold, And leave their treasures still untold, While we possess the richer dower Os glittering skies at sunset hour. We have bright stores of silvery sheen Upon the brow of Night’s fair queen; ’Tis ours to ken her mystic voice, And in its gentle tones rejoice. Our jewels the blue ocean pave, And dance upon the crested wave ; For us, the barque that wooes its airs, Rich arcosies of beauty bears. Our amethysts bedeck the dawn, ,Our emeralds stud the grassy lawn; And we resplendent sapphires trace Through all the wide empyreal space. We’ve diamonds pure which none outvie In sparkle of fair woman’s eye; Upon her cheek our rubies rest, Our pearls lie nestled on her breaat. • We’ve haughty palaces in air; Proud monarchs may not boast more fair: And countless elfin spirits still, With eager haste, perform our will . Chorus. Oh silver, gold and jewels rare, Scatter’d thro’ sea, and earth, and air; Gay palaces in fairy-land, And myriad spirits at command, Are ours. - ( For the Southern Literary Gazette. SONG OF THE ANE, BY CHARLES SOUTH MAN. Let the poet-lord Bepraise the sword That gleams on Conquest’s tracks ; Be’t mine to prolong A humbler song The lay of the Woodman’s Axe. In the ruddy flood Os battle’s blood Its splendour ne’er was dimm’d, For a gentler fame Awaits its name Than e’er the soldier hymn’d. Like a pioneer, With words of cheer, It breaks the forest’s gloom, And biddeth the rose Its leaves unclose And in the desert bloom! And the palace dome, Or peasant’s home, It rears with brave command; For no tow’ring oak Its lusty stroke Could ever yet withstand. Ho! the Axe is king Os the wildwood ring, And of the monarch trees ; For before his blow They bow them low That laugh at the mountain breeze. 2ln jJUustrateir llUckltj Journal of 33cllc$-£cttrco, Science emir tljc slrts. And its trophies bright Are truth and light, And Plenty’s golden store ; For no drop of teen E’er dims the sheen That flash’d in days of yore ! Then praise to the king Os the wildwood ring, The woodman’s shining Axe ; For a gentler fame Awaits its name Than the sword on Conquest’s tracks ! Athens, Georgia. fegenirs of the Heir Ittett. For the Southern Literary Gazette. THE GHOSTLY MAN-EATER. BY CHARLES LAN MAN. There is an idea existing among the Chip peway Indians, which corroborates a state ment made by Henry R. Schoolcraft, in his 11 Notes on the Iroquois,” relative to the be lief that there once existed among the Abo riginal Tribes, a species of vampire, or ghost ly man-eater. The Chippeways do not as sert that there ever lived more than one of these unearthly beings; but they pretend that such an one did, and does exist, and that he has his residence upon an island in the centre of Lake Superior—which island can never be seen by mortal man, excepting when dark ness has settled upon the world. The stories they relate of his appearaace and deeds, are horrible in the extreme, and resemble much the creations of a mind suffering under the in fluence of the nightmare. For example, they describe this monster as possessing the mate rial appearance of the human form —but of such a nature as not to be susceptible to the touch. He is said to have the body of a ser pent, with human legs and arms —all sup plied with immense nails, which he employs for the double purpose of digging up the earth, and dissecting the bodies upon which he feeds ; his head is like that of the wolf, and his teeth of a peculiar sharpness. The deeds which he performs are worthy of his personal appearance —and some of them are as follows: When the Indian moth er, during a long journey, has lost her infant child, and placed it on the rude scaffold, that she may return to it at some future day, the Ghostly Man-Eater only waits until she is fairly out of his sight, and then proceeds to the sacred place, and feasts himself upon the tender flesh and blood of his victim. And therefore it is, that the traveller sometimes sees, in the remote wilderness, fragments of human bones scattered on the ground, as if a wolf had been suddenly interrupted, while devouring his prey. But the Man-Eater sometimes enters the house, or half-buried re ceptacle of the dead; and, after digging his way to the decaying body, coils himself up, as if in delight, and gluts his appetite with the unholy food. How it is that he travels, with lightning speed, from one distant place to another, has never been ascertained ; but the strange sounds which the Indian occa sionally hears, high in the air above his wig wam, is thought to be the song of the Man- Eater, as he hurries upon the wings of the wind, from a recent banquet, to his mys terious island on the Lake. But I once heard a legend in the Chippe way country, which accounted for the origin of the man-eating monster —and I now record it in the English tongue, for the benefit of those who feel an interest in the mythology of the Indian, and the peculiarities of his mind. The individual from whom I obtain ed this story was named Ka-yon-kee-ma, or ATHENS, GEORGIA, SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1848. the Swift Arrow ; and his words, as near as I can remember them, were as follows : I ask the white man to listen. At an ear ly period in the history of the world, an old Indian hunter and a little boy, who was his grandson, lived in an isolated cabin on the north shore of Lake Superior. They were the only remnants of a once powerful tribe of Indians, whose name is not now remembered. It was the middle of a long and dreary win ter, and the entire country was covered with snow, to the height of the tallest wigwam.— The section of country where resided the hun ter and child was particularly desolate, and destitute of almost every species of game; and while the former was too feeble to wan der far, after necessary food, the latter was too young and inexperienced. The very wood which the unequal pair collected to keep them warm, was brought to their cabin with the greatest difficulty; and the thought occasionally entered the old man’s mind, that the Great Spirit was about to give him up to the pains of starvation. He uttered not a murmur, however; but, as he reflected upon his impending fate, he bit his lips with a scornful smile. One, two and three days had passed away and the old man, as well as the child, had not tasted a particle of food. But, on the even ing of the fourth day, the boy came tottering into the comfortless lodge and threw at the feet of his grandfather the lifeless body of a white partridge, which he had fortunately killed with his own arrow. Immediately was the bird divested of its feathers —and, while yet its very blood was warm, it was devoured by the starving man and child. — Sweet was the slumber of the noble boy on that night —but, as the story goes, that aged man was visited by a dreadful dream at the same time, which made him a maniac. Another day was nearly gone, and the un happy pair were standing in front of their wigwam watching the western sky, as the sun enlivened it with his parting beams.— The old man pointed to the bright picture, and told the boy that there was the gateway to the Spirit Land, where perpetual summer reigned, and game was found in great abun dance. He spoke too of the child’s father and mother, and of his little brother, whom he described as decked out in the most beau tiful of robes, as they wandered through the forests of that distant, shadowy land. The boy, though suffering with the pangs of hun ger, clapped his little hands in glee, and told his grandfather that it would make him very happy if he could go to the land of perpetual summer. \nd then it was, that the old man patted the boy upon his head, and told him that his desires should be realized before the sun again made its appearance above the snow-covered mountains and plains of the east. It was now the hour of midnight. In tensely cold was the wind which swept over the wilderness, but the sky was very blue, and studded with many stars. No sound broke upon the air, save the occasional groan of the ice along the lake shore, and the his sing whisper of the frost. Within the Indi an lodge, which was the very home of deso lation. the child was sweetly sleeping, envel oped in his robes, while the old man bent over the burning embers as if in despair.— Some inhuman thought had crazed his brain, and he was nerving himself for an unheard of crime. One moment more, and in the dim light of that lonely lodge, gleamed the polish ed blade of a flinty weapon —a sudden groan was heard —.and the Indian maniac was feed ing upon the body of his child. I have given the white man a sorrowful VOLUME I.—NUMBER 3, history, but it is one which the Chippeway nation believe. On the morning which fol lowed the event, I have now narrated, a par ty of Indian hunters came to the cabin of the unknown man, and they found him lying dead upon the ground, with the mangled re mains of the boy at his side. This was the most terrible deed which ever happened in the Chippeway country —and the one which so greatly offended the Great Spirit, that he pronounced a curse upon the man who had destroyed his child for food—and he, there fore, doomed him to live upon the earth for ever, tormented with an appetite which noth ing can ever appease, but the decaying flesh of the human race. ©riginal SEranolcttions. For the Southern Literary Gazette. LIIiUSSA’S LAMP. A STORY FROM THF. GERMAN. BY MARY E. LEE. [CONCLUDED from our last.] “It was in the year 1220, when king An dreas, returning from Palestine, passed through Bavaria, and was entertained for some time, at the court of Prince Asan.— Among his favorite Knights, was Miloknerr von Dub, a young Bohemian of noble birth, whose tall, slender figure, raven black hair falling far down his shoulders, long dark eyelashes, and sharply cut, but not unhand some features, betrayed him at the first glance to be one of that race. Among the Bulga rian Magnates, and one of the mightiest of the Bannerers, was Bohoriz, chief cup-bearer to king Asan, whose territory extended for miles, at the foot of the Balkan mountains, and who took a lively interest in Miloknerr, on account of his deceased wife, who was also a Bohemian by birth. On a closer ac quaintance, Bohoraz discovered that the youth was a distant relation of his deceased partner, one of whose ancestors had been the favorite dependant of the Fairy Libussa; and at length, he became so attached as to invite the young knight to visit him at his Castle, which lay in the midst of the mountains; and as a great inducement, offered a boar hunt, which he described as a most exciting pas time. As King Andreas intended remaining a month longer at Asan’s court, his follower gladly accepted the invitation, and after a long journey through lonely woods, and mountain passes, they at length reached a lodge, only a few hours distance from Boho riz’ castle, around which lay his favorite hunting ground, since here was the residence of herds of elks, boars and bisons. The hunt commenced on a cloudy autumn morn ing. Several hundred tattered Hungarian serfs, were posted around a forest, almost a mile in circumference, and which was inter spersed with swamps and woodland. Milok nerr chose his place by an old oak, several hundred steps from his host, and at a bow shot distance from a swamp, overgrown with weeds and briars. The master of the hunt now blew his horn as a signal to commence, and soon the shouts of drivers and the yelp ing of hounds, w r ere heard in the distance. Miloknerr, with his outstretched bow in hand, and his spear placed on the gnarled oak beside him, waited the coming sport. — Soon a fox trotted in the distance; a herd of deer rushed by next, followed by a monstrous boar. Miloknerr raised his bow with the in tention of sending an arrow at the animal, the gnashing of whose teeth sounded like the