[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

We have gotten a new barber in the village.
It is a good thing to have a barber in the country.
You hear all the news, all the weddings, the engagements,
the lawsuits, and other festive matters,
in his aromatic shop. Our former Master Nicholas
has left us suddenly. “Maese Nicolas, quando
barbero, del mismo pueblo.” We miss him very
much. I used to admire his long and learned essay
upon the 'uman 'air. The 'uman 'air, for want of
capillary attraction, could not maintain its place
upon the 'uman 'ead, without the united juices of
one hundred and fifty-five vegetables. So long as
he devoted himself to procuring the necessary vegetables,
and hung his argument upon a hair, he did

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

very well. It was pleasant to doze under his glib
fingers and his vegetative philosophy. But unfortunately
he got into politics. Barbers usually have
excitable temperaments. The barber of our village
became the softest of the softs. He was ready to
argue with anybody, and everybody, in his “garden
of spices.”

One day while I was under his tuition, at the
end of a prolonged debate with one of his sitters,
by way of clinching his point, he did me the honor
of tapping me twice upon the cranium with the
back of his hair-brush. “Sir,” said he (tap), “I
tell you that is so” (heavy tap). In consequence,
I predicted his speedy downfall. Sure enough,
he laid a wager that his candidate would have
a majority in our village over all the rest of the
candidates, and the next election only gave his
candidate two votes. Next day our barber was
missing. Public vandalism had crushed him.

We have procured a new barber. He is in the
dyeing line of business. It is the color, not the
quantity of hair, that engages all his lubricating
efforts. To convert the frost of age into a black or
brown scalp is the highest ambition of his genius.
Not only that: he anticipates time, and suggests

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preventive treatment to younger men. To me he
is excessively tiresome.

I have bought me a new dog. A snow-white
terrier, with rose-colored ears and paws. She is as
white as new-plucked cotton, or February clouds.
All our other dogs, Jack, Zack, and Flora, are
black; Juno, by contrast, looks strikingly white.
One day, I found four black dogs under the porch.
Of the four, I should say Juno was the blackest.
She had been to the barber's on a visit, and he had
given her a coat of his confounded Praxitiles balsam.
Now she is growing out of it, but her present
appearance is so repulsive the other dogs will not
associate with her. Some day I mean to give that
barber a talking to about the matter.

Who that loves nature can forsake the country in
October? Before the leaves fall, before “the flying
gold of the woodlands drive through the air,”
we must visit our old friends opposite—the Palisades.
We must bring forth our boat once more,
and “white-ash it” over the blue river to the
“Chimneys.” “What do you think of it, Mrs.
Sparrowgrass?” Mrs. S. replied, she was willing.
So, then, on Saturday, if the weather be fair, we
will make our final call upon them. The weather

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was fair, the air warm, the sky clear, the river
smooth, the boat in order, and over we went. I
had invited a German gentleman, Mr. Sumach, to
accompany us, on account of his flute. He is a
very good performer on that instrument, and music
always sounds to great advantage upon the water.
When we approached the great cliffs, Mr.
Sumach opened his case and took therefrom the
joints of an extraordinarily large flute. Then he
moistened the joints and put it together. Then he
held it up and arranged the embouchure to his
satisfaction, and then he wiped it off with his handkerchief.
Then he held it up again at right angles,
and an impudent boy in another boat, fishing, told
him he'd better take in his boom if he did not want
to jibe. Then Mr. Sumach ran rapidly through a
double octave, executed a staccato passage with
wonderful precision, and wound up with a prolonged
bray of great brilliancy and power. Then
the boy, by way of jibing himself, imitated the
bleating of a sheep. Then I bent the white ash
oars to get out of the reach of the boy, and the
blisters on my hands became painfully bloated.
Then Mr. Sumach, who had been trilling enough
to make anybody nervous, proposed that we should

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sing something. Then Mrs. Sparrowgrass suggested
“Home, Sweet Home.” Then we commenced
(flute obligato.)

HOME, SWEET HOME!

WITH VARIATIONS.

By this time we had reached the base of the
Palisades.

Now then—here we are! A segment of sand
you might cover with a blanket, and all the rest of
the beach a vast wreck of basaltic splinters! Rocks,
rocks, rocks! From bits not larger than a watermelon,
up to fragments the size of the family tea-table.
All these have fallen off those upper cliffs

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you see rising from the gold, brown, and crimson
of autumnal leaves. Look up! No wonder it makes
you dizzy to look up. What is that bird? Mrs.
Sparrowgrass, that is an eagle!

It was a pleasant thing, after we had secured the
boat by an iron grapuel, to pick our way over the
sharp rocks; now holding by a lithe cedar, now
swinging around a jutting crag by a pendulous,
wild grape-vine, anon stepping from block to block,
with a fine river view in front and below; and then
coming suddenly upon the little nook where lay the
flat stone we were in quest of; and then came the
great cloth-spreading, and opening of the basket!
And we took from the basket, first a box of matches,
and a bundle of choice segars of delicate flavor.
Next two side bottles of claret. Then we lifted out
carefully a white napkin, containing only one fowl,
and that not fat. Then two pies, much the worse
for the voyage. Then two more bottles of claret.
Then another centre-piece—ham sandwiches. Then
a bundle of knives and forks, a couple of corkscrews,
a tier of plates, six apples, and a half bottle
of olives. Then twenty-seven hickory nuts, and a
half dozen nut-crackers. And then came tlie
cheese, and the manuscript.

[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]

Oh, golden November sky, and tawny river!
bland distance and rugged foreground! wild, crimson
vines, green cedars, many-colored, deciduous
foliage, grey precipices, and delicious claret!
What an afternoon that was, under the Palisades!

“Mr. Sumach,” said I, after the pippins and
cheese, “if you will cast your eyes up beyond the
trees, above those upper trees, and follow the face
of the precipice in a direct line for some four hundred
feet perpendicularly, you will see a slight jutting
out of rock, perhaps twenty feet below the top
of the crags.” Mr. Sumach replied, the sun was
shining so brilliantly, just then, upon that identical
spot, that he could see nothing at all. As, upon
careful inspection, I could not see the spot myself,
I was obliged to console myself with another sip of
claret. Yet there it was! Just above us!

“Mr. Sumach,” said I, “I wish you could see it,
for it is one of the curiosities of our country. You
know we have five wonders of the world in America—
the Falls of Niagara, the Natural Bridge in
Virginia, the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, Trenton
Falls, and the Palisades. Now, sir, just above
us, almost at the brink of that dizzy height, there
is a singular testimony of the freaks of nature.

[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]

That tough old rock, sir, has had a piece taken out
of it—squarely out, by lightning probably, and the
remnants of the vast mass now lie around us, covered
with lichens, nutshells, dead leaves, tablecloth,
and some claret bottles. If you will go with
me, some two miles north, there is a path up the
mountains, and we can then walk along the top of
the vast precipice to the spot directly over us.”
Mr. Sumach declined, on the ground of not being
accustomed to such rough walking. “Then, sir,
let me describe it to you. From that jutting buttress
of rock in front, to the opening there, just
back of you, there is a flat platform above us, wide
enough for a man to lie down with his head close
to the inner wall and his feet a few inches over the
precipice. That platform is probably one hundred
and fifty feet long; the wall behind it is some
twenty feet high; there is a little ravine, indicated
by the gap up there, by which you can reach the
platform. Once on it, you will see the wall back
of you is very flat and even, as well as the stone floor
you tread upon.” Mr. Sumach answered, “Very
well?” in a tone of inquiry. “Now,” said I, “here
in this paper is the Legend of the Palisades, and as
we are upon legendary ground, I will read it to

[figure description] Page 168.[end figure description]

you.” Mr. Sumach, with a despairing look at his
giant flute-case, said he would like much to hear it.
So, after another sip of claret, I unrolled the manuscript
and read

A LEGEND OF THE PALISADES

Long before the white sails of Europe cast their
baleful shadows over the sunny waters of the
western continent, a vast portion of this territory,
bounded by perpetual snows and perpetual summer,
was occupied by two mighty nations of red
men. The Iroquois, by far the most warlike nation,
dominated, with its united tribes, the inland
from Canada to North Carolina, and east and west
from Central Pennsylvania to Michigan; while the
great Algonquin race peopled the sea-board, from
Labrador almost to the Floridas, and extending itself
westward, even to the borders of Oregon, again
stretched away beyond the waters of the Mississippi,
unto the hunting-grounds of the swarthy Appalachians.
This bright river, in those days, flowed downward
to the sea under some dark, Indian name; and
where yonder village glitters with its score of spires
and myriad windows, the smoke of numerous

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campfires curled amidst pointed wigwams, of poles, and
skins, and birch-bark wrought with barbaric characters.

Of the Algonquin tribes, that formerly inhabited
the banks of this mighty stream, tradition has
scarcely preserved a name. A handful of colored,
earthen beads, a few flint arrow-heads, are the sole
memorials of a once great populace. But tradition,
with wonderful tenacity, clings to its legends.
Even from the dross of nameless nations, some golden
deed shines forth, with a lustre antiquity cannot
tarnish. So among the supernatural songs of
the Iroquois we find a living parable.

Long before the coming of the pale-faces, there
was a great warrior of the Onondaga-Iroquois, by
name “The Big Papoose.” He had a round, small,
smooth face, like that of a child, but his arms were
long, and his shoulders broad and powerful as the
branches of an oak. At the council fires he spoke
not, at hunting parties he was indolent, and of the
young squaws none could say, “he loves me.” But
if he spoke not at the council fires, the people knew
the scalps in his wigwam were numerous as the
cones upon the pine tree; and if he cared not for
hunting, yet he wore a triple collar made of the

[figure description] Page 170.[end figure description]

claws of three grizzly bears, and the old braves
loved to sing of the great elk he had pursued and
killed with a blow of his stone axe, when his feet
were as the wings of a swallow. True it was, the
love that is so common to man, the love of woman,
was not in his breast; but the brightest and boldest
maiden's eyes dropped in his presence, and many a
time the bosoms of the young squaws would heave—
just a little. Yet the Big Papoose was the friend
of children. Who bound the tiny, flint arrow-heads
to the feathered shafts, and strung the little bow
with the sinews of deer, and practised the boy-warriors
of the tribe in mimic warfare, and taught them
to step with the foot of the sparrow, and to trap the
fox, the rabbit, and the beaver, and to shout the
death-whoop, the sa sa kuan? Who was it, but
the Big Papoose lying yonder, face downward, on
the frozen crust of the lake, his head covered with
skins, and around him a score of boy-warriors, lying
face downward too, watching the fish below,
through the holes in the ice, that they might strike
them with the pointed javelin, the aishkun? Yes,
he was the friend of children, the Big Papoose!

There was then a very old brave of the Onondaga
tribe; his hair was like the foam of the waterfall,

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and his eyes were deep and dark as the pool beneath
it. He was so old that he could lay his hand
upon the head of a hundred years and say—“boy!”

He it was who had found, far in the north, under
the uttermost stars, the sacred pieces of copper; he
it was who had seen the great fish, so large that a
single one could drink up the lake at a mouthful,
and the great Thunder Water he had seen—Niagara!
and the cavern, big enough to contain all the
Indian tribes, the Iroquois and the Algonquins; and
the stone arch that held up the skies, the sun, and
the moon, and the clouds he had stood beneath, and he
had seen it.

He was called The White Cloud, and sometimes
when the summer's heat had been too powerful
upon the earth, and the green leaves of the maize
drooped too much, he would bring forth the magic
red pipe, and smoke, and blow the smoke towards
the west, and then the vapors would rise up from
the great lake Ontario, and approach him, and
overshadow him, and the rain would fall, and the
leaves rise up refreshed, and the little birds would
sing loudly in the wet forest. Then, too, would the
Big Papoose sit on the same log with the White
Cloud, and ask him to tell of the mysteries of the

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skies, and the Sachem would chant of the White
Rabbit of the North, the Queen of the Heavens,
that holds dominion over the uttermost stars, and
the snows of winter; that hides in the summer,
when the sun is powerful, that she may rival his
brightness in the season of frost.

One day the Big Papoose said to the old chief—
“Why, oh White Cloud, do you ever blow the
smoke of the calumet towards the west; is there
not rain too in the east?” Then the white-haired
answered—“Because I like not the visions I see
when I blow the smoke towards the east. As the
smoke from the calumet moves westward, I behold
in it nations of red men, moving, and ever moving,
towards the caverns of the sun. But when I blow
the smoke towards the east, I see the red men no
more, but the glitter of mighty waters, and winged
canoes, in size like the lofty hemlocks of the forest,
and potent arrows of fire, that dart forth with clouds
and thunderings. And further and further towards
the east, I see more of the winged canoes,
in number like the leaves that are blown by the
winds of autumn, and the winged canoes bear
many nations, and in the approaching nations I see
not one red man.” “I have dreamed,” replied the

[figure description] Page 173.[end figure description]

young warrior, “of a maiden whose eyes were in
color like yonder lake, and whose skin was beautiful
as the snow at sunset.” “Do you not think of
her often; more than of the women of the Onondagas?”
said the White Cloud. The young warrior
bowed his head. “The time will come,”
said the old chief, “when the woman with blue
eyes will think of the young chief of the Onondagas.”
“When?” said the listener, eagerly. The
White Cloud touched with his finger a young pine,
whose stem was not thicker than a stalk of maize
one moon old, and replied, “When this trunk shall
have grown so a man may stretch his arms around it,
and yet his right hand cannot meet his left, then
will the young chief of the Onondagas live in the
thoughts of the maiden with the skin like the flush
of sunset on the snow.” “You speak truth,” answered
the young chief, “so, too, have I dreamed.”
“Tell me,” continued the white-haired prophet,
“whom do you envy of living men?” “Not one,”
replied the young warrior. “Whom of the dead
do you envy?” “The warriors who are dead in
battle, and yet live famousest in the songs of the
Iroquois.” “Look!” said the prophet. A volume
of smoke arose from the red pipe, and the old man

[figure description] Page 174.[end figure description]

blew it gently towards the east. The Iroquois saw
it spread into a plain, variegated with hills and
rivers, and the villages of his tribe. Then it passed
beyond the boundaries of his nation, and he recognized
the habitations of the Algonquins; he saw
their burial-places, and the stretched skins with the
accursed totems of his hereditary enemies; he saw,
too, the noted warriors of their tribes, the women,
the medicine-men, and the children. Then the
cloud rose up over a mountain, and he looked from
its level summit down upon a sparkling river,
broader than the rivers of his own country, and
beyond, on the opposite side, villages of Algonquin
tribes, the wigwams of the Nepperhans. And he
was standing on the brink of gigantic cliffs, whose
vast shadows lay midway across the sparkling
river; and, as he looked, his foot touched a fragment
of rock, and it fell sheer down from the
summit of the precipice to its base, and struck nothing
as it fell. And just beyond him was a shelf
of rock hanging over a terrible shore—huge splinters
of stone below, under his feet, and as his eyes
wandered up and down the sparkling river, far as
his vision reached, the great shadow of the precipices,
and the savage walls of stone, and the

[figure description] Page 175.[end figure description]

fragmentary shore went on unending. Then the sparkling
river grew dimmer, and the rocks faded from
view, and he saw only the blue sky, and the clouds,
and high up in the east, an eagle. “My son,” said
the white-haired, “you have seen it. To-morrow
night, loosen the thongs of your moccasins beyond
the wigwams of the Iroquois. In the country of the
Algonquins, are those wondrous precipices, and
before seven days you will see the eastern sun
rising over the sparkling river. Take with you
this bag of pigments and painting implements. On
the bare rocks, above the platform you have seen,
inscribe the totem of your tribe, and the record of
your achievements. Go! I say no more.”

Then the White Cloud put the tube of the calumet
to his lips, and as the smoke arose from the
kinikinic, the bowl of the red pipe expanded wider
and wider, and the blue vapor spread out like the
mist that rises from a lake in a midsummer morning.
Then there came a powerful wind from the
east, and the smoke rolled away before it, and was
driven, with inconceivable swiftness, over the Lake
Ontario, until it grew red under the sinking sun,
and passed to the far off hunting-grounds of the
Dacotahs. The young chief watched until it

[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]

vanished, and then turned to his companion. There
was nothing near him but the green grass and the
slender pine the White Cloud had touched with his
finger.

Then the Big Papoose took the bag of pigments
to his wigwam, and prepared for the journey.
Around his broad chest he drew the folds of a gorgeous
hunting-shirt, decorated with many-hued
barbs of the porcupine, and secured it with a gaudy
belt of wampum. His leggings were fringed with
the hair of scalps, and Indian beads and shells of
various colors, and his moccasins were wrought
with quills, tinted like flowers of the prairie. Then
he took from the notched poles of the wigwam his
tufted bow, and a sheaf of arrows tipped with brilliant
feathers, and he thrust the stone axe through
his belt of wampum, and shook once more the slender
spear-staff, with its ponderous head of pointed
flint. And as he passed on beyond the wigwams
of his tribe, the young squaws gazed after him with
wondrous dark eyes, and the old women said,
“Perhaps he will bring with him, when he returns,
a Chenango woman, or a squaw from the blue Susquehanna.”

Twice the moon rose, and he saw the maize fields

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of the Algonquins. Later and later she glittered
over his solitary path by the rocky gorges of the
Delaware. Then he saw in the north the misty
mountains of Shawangonk, and lodges of hostile
tribes without number, and other maize fields,
and at night the camp-fires of a great people.
Then he came to shallow rivers dotted with canoes,
but the streams were less broad than the river of
the Oswegos. And then he saw before him a
sloping upland, and just as the moon and the dawn
were shining together, he stood under tall trees on
the summit, and beneath him was the platform of
rock, and the waters of the sparkling river.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, “I am sorry
to interrupt you, but is not that our boat out there,
going up the river?” “Yes,” added Mr. Sumach,
suddenly leaping up with energy, “and my flute
too, I believe.” “It cannot be,” I replied, “for I
fastened the boat with an iron grapnel,” and, as I
did not like to be interrupted when I was reading,
told Mr. Sumach, very quietly, but severely, he
would find his bassoon just back of our stone table.
The explanation being satisfactory, I was allowed
to proceed with the legend.

[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]

There was a pathway to the platform, as it might
be, a channel for the heavy rains that sometimes
pour from the table-lands of the precipice to the
ravine, and tumble, in a long, feathery torrent over
its rocky breast. It was a narrow passage, with
walls of stone on either side, and ended just a few
feet south of the jutting ledge, so that the young
chief had to leap from the brink of the gorge to
the edge of the platform. Then he looked around,
and behind him rose up the flat surface of thundersplit
rock. Then he walked to the further end of
it, and laid upon the ground his tufted bow and
sheaf of arrows, loosened his belt of wampum, cast
down his terrible stone axe, and leaned his pointed
spear against the vast wall of the terrace. Then he
took from the bag the pigments and the painting
implements, and before mid-day he had sketched
upon the rocky back-ground the vast outlines of
his picture.

It was at the moment when he had completed
the totem of his tribe, when he was nearest the
gorge and furthest from his weapons, that a fawn
darted from the chasm to the plateau, gathered up
its affrighted form at sight of him, and then sprang
sheer over the brink. The next instant an

[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]

Algonquin warrior leaped upon the ledge. A startled
look at the Iroquois—a contemptuous glance at the
pictograph—two panther bounds—and the hereditary
foes were struggling in a death-grapple upon
the eaves of the precipice. Sometimes they leaned
far over the brink, and then unitedly bent back,
like twin pine trees over-blown. Both were unarmed,
for the Algonquin had not suspected an
enemy in a place where the foot of Iroquois had
never trod, and the weapons of his adversary were
distant from them a bow-shot. So, with terrible
strength, and zeal, and skill, each sought to overthrow
the other, until in the struggle they fell, still
clutched together, upon the rocky floor of the battle-ground.
There, with tremendous throes and
throbs of anger, they lay, until the shadows of the
cliffs had stretched far over the bosom of the sparkling
river.

“Let us rise,” said the Algonquin. The warriors
rose to their feet and stood gazing at each other.

There they were upon that terrible brink, within
reach of each other. A touch of the hand would
have precipitated either upon the fragmentary
shore below.

“Let us not perish,” said the Algonquin, “like

[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]

the raccoon and the fox, starving in the death-lock,
but let us die like braves.”

The Iroquois listened.

“Do you go,” continued the Algonquin, “tell
the warriors of my tribe to come, that they may
witness it, and I will leap with you from this ledge
upon the death below.”

The Iroquois smiled.

“Stay,” added the Algonquin, “I am a child.
Do I not know the fate of an Iroquois who would
venture within the camp of my people? Remain
you, until my return, that the history of my deed
may be inscribed with that you have pictured upon
these rocks.”

The Iroquois smiled again, and said, “I.wait.”

The Algonquin bounded from the parapet and
was gone.

Left to himself, the Iroquois collected together his
painting implements, and filled with brilliant colors
the outlines he had sketched upon the wall. Then
he cast his spear far into the sparkling river, and
sent the stone axe circling though the air until it
splashed far out in the stream, and he broke the
tufted bow with his powerful arms, and snapped
his feathered arrows one by one. Then he girded

[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]

on his gorgeous belt of wampum, and waited. Of
whom was he dreaming as he sat beneath the shadow
of the pictograph? Was it not of the blue-eyed
maiden with cheeks like the flush of sunset
on the snow?

The Iroquois waited. Then he heard a murmur,
as of the wind stirring the leaves, then the rush of
rapid footsteps, and, as he started to his feet, the
cliffs above him were thronged with Algonquin warriors.
There was silence for an instant, and then
an hundred bows were bent, an hundred bowstrings
snapped, an hundred arrows converged
through the air and struck him! But as he turned
to hurl defiance at his enemies, a lithe form
bounded upon the parapet—it caught the figure
studded with arrows and tottering upon the brink
in its arms—and screamed into the dying ears—
“I am here, oh, Iroquois!” and then, except the
pietograph, nothing human remained upon the
platform of the Palisades!

When I had finished the legend, Mr. Sumach
startled the echoes with a burst of fluting that defies
description. So I set to work resolutely to pack up
the basket, for I thought such a place as the one

[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]

we were visiting did not require the aid of art to
make it interesting. After the packing was finished,
we started off for the boat, Mr. Sumach tooting
over the rocks in a marvellous manner, until
we came to the place where some climbing was
necessary, and there I had the satisfaction of seeing
the flute dislocated and cased, and then it fell in
the water, when Mr. S. had some trouble to get at
it. When we got to the place of anchorage, we
found the tide had risen and the grapnel under water,
but no boat; so I suppose the other end of the
rope had not been tied to the ring in the bow.
We had a pretty walk, though, to Closter, and hired
another boat. As our boat was brought home next
day it was no great matter; but I wished the person
who found it for us had found also the oars
and the thole pins.

p529-192

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