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ttnrai Cabinet, VOL. 11. THE CABINET Is published every Saturday b b t\ L, JlOBl YSOJYi fVarrenton, Geo. at three dollars per annum , which may be discharged by two dollars and fifty cents \f paid within sixty days of the time of subscribing. I'iiiii vSJ lacU’s.xciU FILE. Another in the series of composi tions under the captivating title of First and Last ha-just been received. The scene of the narrative is laid in this country, and its subject is found in The romantic characteristics of the native tribes. The writer represents himself as having left New Orleans in the lat ter part of May, for an over land journey to Savannah, induced chief!) by a wish to satisfy his curios ity as to the manners and customs of garage life. On the twelvth night of his journey, he encamped, alone, near the margin of a deep g)en, knowo ay the name of . Murder Creek % which fearful appellation it received from having been the scene of a tragical event in former times, when thirty poisons there fell beneath the tom a havvk of the savages. Here, in the night, he encounters a well armed In d> ruby whom he is taken prisoner, and conveyed to his cabin, in a remote ami se ret part of the forest. Tin w dls of the wigwam were decorated with weapons and the trophies of its ocup&nt, and among them the captive shuddered to behold the scalps of not Lss than fifteen victims. Sit| ex 1 tainted ‘he Indian, pointing to the bed of buffalo and wild deer skios m one corner of the cabin. I did go,* while he, with the. same stern si len e which lie had all along mantaiu ed, spread before me some milk, vari ous preparations of Indian corn, wild vents in, and softke ; the l.tsi, a not tnpalit&ble dish, being made of the flout’ of Indian corn, gathered wliile green, mixed with honey anti water, fle’seated himself by my side, and partook of the meal. 1 too ate, and with a relish, after my morning's ride, in spite of many uneasy reflections, in deed were gradually becoming s painful, that I was on the point of demanding from my host an explarta tion of his motives for bringing me here, when lie addressed me. 1 know it was a point of Indian politeness not to interrupt a person who is speaking, and I was careful to avoid any breach of decorum. “You are a white man—l found you sleeping you were armed 1 made you defenceless, and then i of fered you the pipe of peace. ♦•A white man found my father defenceless and asleep, and shot him as he slept. 1 was in my mother's womb; hut the blood of my father was gathered, and before the milk ol her bosom was on uy lips, they were urn tie. red with his blood, that I might taste the food of revenge before the ■food of life, “The first word I lisped, was re venge! The first passion I knew, was HATRED OF A WHITE man! The first tune l knelt, to the Gnat Spirit, ii was on my father's g ave, to pray lie would not send fur me till 1 had i loth ed myself in a robe of blood, to greet iny father in the Spirit Country. My prayer was heard. My oath has been kepi. •*Di<l I forget my oath? No. Hid I forget the end for which 1 liven? N v er. The day that saw my first burn in tts mother's arms saw my fust sac rifice to my father's spirit a whim *. an dead at my feet. Three moolis uh r, nno the r j—and in that third moon ■ “ 1 *\ .e ifsidei may Fpare himself the trout, cl searching lor this place. War rein > ov -o .- 21, 1829. —i third, .■ scalps, “.here hangs the proofs that I do not siy the thing which U not, Four snows p issed, aul I return n! me evening from hunting, when : found my cabin burnt down. M mother alone sat weeping anil lane * ing a nntig the ruins. 2 could u seperate the bones of my children my wife from the common heap of blackened ashes, which marked tin* spot where my h ime had stood wh l went forth in the morning. I did n . weep. Rut 1 con folded my motile, all that night, and when the sun arose, I taid, ‘Let us go to the wilderness, SVe are now the last, of oar race. We are alone, and the deserts offers it* solitudes for such!’ “1 left forever the Lake of Thou sand Islands, carrying with me only handful of the ash s with which was mingled the dust of my children and my wife. In uiy progress hither, I visited the great vvjurrtoi* Tecmnsch He was then about to depart from tin borders of Canada, upon a journey of a thousand miles, to invite the Lower Creeks to take up the hatchet in de fence of the British against the \mn tearis and Upper Creeks. I joined him I was iiis companion. I sat with him in the assembh f the grew? council when, by the p wer ol his t lk. he obtained a solemn declaration they would take up the hatchet at his call And they did; end 1 fought by his side when they did. His enemies wre the Americans; mine were tin W'HiTEs; and ny revenge slaked its m tl eir olood, with the same re freshing sense that 1 drink of the sparkling waters of the spring, with out asking its name. Seven of the scalps you see belonged to those who fell b neath any tomahawk; but my arrows Ih-w shi k besides; nor was my gun levelled in vain. ‘•When the Warrior perished, the hope .perished with him ot the gather ing of the Indian nations in some spot, where the while people would not fol- I i\v, and wnefe we might live as our Catners had done. lYruinseU fell. I left my brethren, and l built my cabi in the woods. “li was in the season of the green corn, wiioii the thank-offering is wade to the Great Spirit, tlial a white id-mi came to my door. He had lost liis p.ttii, and the sun was going down. Hy molner shook, for the tear of and alh was upon tier. She sp die to me. Her words were like the hurricarn thitt sweeps tbroug the forest, and opens for itself a way among the hills. Tit* stranger was the same that hid found my father defenceless and a sleep, and who shot him as lie sl rt pt.— Come with me, and learn the rest,*’ Hie Indian arose, went forto, and ent red the forest; I followed, utterly incapable of say ing a word. There was something so strange and over poweringou what 1 had seen and heard —so obscure and excising in what I might still have to see and hc*r; il was so impossible for me to enter into tin* dark feelings of revenge that had h eri avowed, or to applaud the mur derous spirit in which they had been appfas and uy ihis unrelenting savage; while to rebuke either, must obvious!} have been at once hazardous and no availing, that I could only nrdita’t fearfully and silently upon the whole. The course he now took was indi t s-.teU hy no path, but lay thro’ lhi< k underwood, and among tangled bush es; while overhead tin gigantic plain and in pie trees, the lofty cedar, anil the many different spe* ies of oak, formed a verdant roof imperious . the rain which was falling in torrents The fragrance of the woods was deli ’nous, and the notes of irmuirierahl I birds, the cooing of doves, w ith the in- cess am ga nmlsof t oe squirrel, leaping ‘cojii bvMigij to bough in every direc r \ >n, soothed and delighted me, in mite ol the feelings with which I vis oppressed. \t the distance of t > *ut a quarter of a mile from the ibm, 1 observed a small stage, con - cu’ ted between four trees standing ar each oiler, and not more than f ui* or five feet from the ground. On bis stage l saw a human figure exten t h], which, s I afterwards discover* and was the holy of the Indian’s moth •r. By her side was a red earthen vessel or pitpher, containing the bones •f his father, and that ‘'handful of ash s* which he had brought with him from the shores of Lake Ontario, un der the impulse of a sentiment so well known to exist among the Indian tribes -'he desire of mingling their own dust, to death, with thai of their fathers and heir kindled* I noticed, however, that my gu/de passed this ample silvan tepuichre, without once turning his eyes towards it. We cunt ucd our progress through lb'* forest, and I soon began to per- \ c ivc wo were ascending a rising ground, though the dense foliage which hetnned us in on every side irevented me from distinguishing the ‘eight <>r extent of the acclivity. Pre -rnntly, I he.rd the loud din and roar l waters; and we had proceeded in too directionof the sound, whose in ’ ceasing noise indicated our gradual approximaten to it, for rather more slian halt a mlc, when the Indian stop ped, and I fund myself all at once ori ihe brink of i tremendous vv irlpool. I looked down from a height of nearly two hundred feet into the deep ravine below, thro* which the vexed stream bellowed and whirled till it escaped through another chasm, and plunged into the recesses of the wood. It was an awful moment! The profound gloom of the place—the uproar of the eddying vortex beneath—the dark and rugged abyss which yawned before me, where huge, trunks of trees might be seen, tossing and writhing about like things of life, tormented by the vngry spirit of the waters—the un >vflown purpose of the being who had brought me hither, and who stood by ny side in sullen silence, prophetic, t ■ my mind, of a thousand horrible un nagi ings,—formed altogether a combination of circumstances that might have summoned fear into a bolder heart than mine was at that in stant. At length the Indian spoke:— “Do you mark that cedar, shooting on i mid wav from the rock? Hither 1 brought the white man who doomed n e to be burn upon a father’s grave. “1 said to him, You slew my fa ther!’ He shook, as my mother had done; fir the fear of death was then upon him. My father‘B blood hath left a stain upon you which must be washed out in these waters. He would have fled to the Woods, like a wound ed panther; bin I grasped him thus, (winding Ins sinewy arrn tightly a round me) and cried, ‘Come with me to the Spirit World, and hear me tell my father how I have clothed myself, as with a robe, iu the blood of white men, to revenge his death. Come and see him smile upon me, when I point to the blood of his slayer!’ “How he shrieked as 1 sprung with him into the abyss! He rolled from me, and 1 heard the plunge of his bod and * into the roaring gulf below, but the Great Spirit spread forth that cedar, I to catch me in my own decent, for I lay in its green arms, as the young bird in its sheltered nest. Why was I preserved? Why was 1 kept from rriy father? I could not go to him. The canches clung to me; and from the ~-pfhs of the forest there carne a voice lon the wind saying, ‘Return!’ 1 plan- ted my foot on th rocu; t o ■ i. nod I duelled yon upmoai h-ugh; I swung myself on that jetting crag, and reach ed the spot where now I stand.* As bespoke these words, he qnit f ed me, to my infinite relief. We w *re so near the edge of the precipice, and his manner was so energetic, I might almost say convulsed, from the recol lection of his consuinating act of re venge, that I felt no small alarm lest an accidental movement should pre cipitate us both into the frightful chasm, indifferently of a very uncom fortable misgiving to what his real in tentions might be, while holding me so firmly. In what a situation was £ actually placed! In such a spot, ami with a being whose motives I was not only still unable to fathom, but whose wild caprice perhaps might urge him to—l knew not what—if I spoke one unguarded word. After a short poise, however, I ventured to address him; but, while I cautiously gave exp es sion to an opinion from which, if con firmed, I looked to ex'ract consolation for myself. I took especial care to shape what Is id as much to his taste as I could possibly make it. “Ami thus the oath of 3 our child hood was satisfied. You had not only revenged your father's death upon the race of white men, but you had offered up his murderer, as a last sacrifice, to his memory, and your own vengeance.* • A last SAcrifi e!’ in exclaimed, his leal urea briglitoing with exultation. “Why was I bid to return, if the great purpose for which I bud lived was completed? In my cabin I can count five scalps of white men strm k by this arm since the murderer sunk beneath these, waters. Bnt lie continued, with asiert sole unity of manner,'this lay sees the last I have lived long e nougli, else—’ and lie fixed his eyes steadfastly upon ine, yon bad not lived to hear me say so. 1 track’ and y 01, last night from the going down of the, sun. Twice my gun was levelled; twice l drew my arrow‘s head to its point, once my hatchet glittered in ttie moon. But my arm failed me, and there was a sadness over my spirits. I watched you as you slept. Not. even the thought that so my fath er slept, could make ine strike. I left you; and in the dep.li of the f rest cast inys If to the earth, to ask ‘be Great Spirit what he would have me to do, if it was to be that I could riot sh and your blood A voice, like that whi Ii s i<J ‘Return* carne again upon the inind, I heard it-—I obeyed it Fol low, and behold my last sacrifice.'* [The Indian turned from the spot, and, before the eyes of the unwilling spectator, consuinated his purpose, by an a* t of self immolation among the remains of his kindred.] SCRAPS OF C ISOLATION. When things go wrong in spite of all your endeavors, ‘give it up,’ and console yourself with the reflection that ‘whatever is, is right.’ When your friends forsake you, and enlist on th side of y dr enemies, rejoice that you have discovered their true characters, and that you are no longer liable to their hypocrisy. Whe you meet with any sudden or unexpected disaster, comfort your self with the assurances that it was what no human discernment coold have foreseen, or human effort thwart ed. When you are ill, reflect that sick ness is what all men are liable to, and millions are in the same condi tion. When you have lost all your sub stance by knavery or calamity, con sider that you have no longer the care on your mind of preserving your property, and Uiere‘B but a penny dis? No f.