Upon the summit of a mountain which beetled
in the remote west over the dwellings and defences
of a race long since vanished, stood, at the
close of a midsummer's day, a gigantic shape
whose vastness darkened the whole vale beneath.
The sunset purpled the mountain-top, and crimsoned
with its deep, gorgeous tints the broad occident;
and as the huge figure leaned against it,
it seemed like a mighty image cut from the solid
peak itself, and framed against the sky. Below
in a thousand groups were gathered, in their
wonted evening worship, that strange people who
have left upon our hills and prairies so many
monuments of their power, and who yet, by
some mighty accident, have taken the trumpet
out of the hand of Fame, and closed for ever, as
regards their historical and domestic character, the

[figure description] Page 002.[end figure description]

busy lips of tradition. Still we can gather
vaguely, that the Mound-builders accomplished a
career in the West, corresponding, though less
magnificent and imposing, with that which the
Greeks and Romans accomplished in what is
styled by courtesy the Old World. The hour
has been when our own West was thronged with
empires.

Over that Archipelago of nations the Dead
Sea of Time has swept obliviously, and subsiding,
hath left their graves only the greener for
a new people in the present age to build their
homes thereon. But at the time whereof we
write, living thousands and ten thousands of these
ancient denizens were paying their homage to
their deity, and as they turned their eyes in unison,
to bid their customary solemn adieu to the departing
sun, they beheld the huge shape of which we
have spoken. The first feeling which arose in
their bosoms as they looked upon the vision was,
that this was some monstrous prodigy exhibited
by the powers of the air or the powers of darkness
to astonish and awe them.

But as they gazed they soon learned that it had
a fixed and symmetrical form, and possessed the
faculty of life.

[figure description] Page 003.[end figure description]

When they discovered that the huge apparition
was animate indeed, a new terror sprang up in
their soul. They gathered about their mounds,
their places of worship, and on the plain, in
various and fearful groups.

In one spot were collected a company of
priests and sages, the learned and prophetic of
the race, who with intent eyes watched the
mighty spectre; and to gain a clearer conception
of its proportions, scanned its broad and far-cast
shadow and marked the altitude of the sun.
Each one searched his thoughts for some
knowledge applicable to the sudden and vast appearance.

Not far from this group was drawn together
a score of women, who still retained
their devotional posture and aspect, but yet casting
side-long and timid glances towards each
other's countenances as if hoping to discover
there, an interpretation of the spectacle. Children
clung to their garments and looking up
piteously, seemed to ask “if that was not the
God whom they were taught to fear and worship?”
Each moment the awe increased and
spread; from lip to lip the story ran across the
plain and through the walled villages until the

[figure description] Page 004.[end figure description]

spectre embraced in its fearful dominion a circuit
of many leagues.

Each moment conjecture grew more rife and
question more anxious and frequent.

In the opinion of many of the wisest—for
even from their souls superstitious misgivings
were not wholly banished—the apparition which
crowned the mountain was the Deity of the
nation, who had chosen to assume this form as
the most expressive of infinite power and terrific
majesty.

Other nobler spirits, and who drew their
knowledge rather from the intellect than the feelings,
believed it was the reappearance of a great
brute which, by its singular strength, in an age
long past and dimly remembered, had wasted the
fields of their fathers and made desolate their
ancient dwellings.

A tradition still lingered among them, that of
that giant race, which had been swept from the
earth by some fearful catastrophe, one still lived
and might, from a remote and obscure lair, once
more come forth, to shake the hills with his
trampling, and with the shadow of his coming
darken the households of nations.

In the more thoughtful minds of these theorists

[figure description] Page 005.[end figure description]

the vivid and traditionary descriptions of the
mighty herd of brutes which had once tyrannized
over the earth, had left an impression deep,
abiding and darkly colored. The memories of
their progenitors had handed them down as a
Titanic tribe of beings who, in their day, excited
a terror which kindled human fear, and with
it, the best growth of fear, human ingenuity.
They remembered that in that distant age, as
the history ran, a new and majestic race of
heroes, moulded of Nature's noblest clay, had
sprung into life to battle with and finally vanquish
these brute oppressors of their country.

Day faded fast. Its last streaks died away in
the West and yet the solemn shape stood there in
its vast, unmoving stillness. And still the people
retained their postures of wonder and fear, while
in hushed voices they spoke of the occupant of
the mountain. Gray, cold twilight at length
cast its mantle upon the vision, and they scattered
in anxious parties towards their homes. But
with them they bore the image of the huge visitant.
They could not shake it from them.
A general and deep awe had fallen on the multitude,
and even when they sought their slumbers
that giant shape passed before their sealed lids in

[figure description] Page 006.[end figure description]

a thousand forms, assuming as many attitudes of
assault and defence; for from the first, by a
strange instinct, they had looked upon it as their
foe. To watch its movements, for it could be
yet seen, in the clear distinctness of its immense
stature, calm, majestic, silent; to sound the
alarm; if need be to meet it face to face, should
it descend from its pinnacle, the chieftains of the
Mound-builders thought fit to station armed sentries
at various corners of the streets and high-ways
of their towns and cities, on the walls of their
fortresses, and as a more commanding position, on
the summit of their mounds and in the square,
stone observatories which crowned a portion of
them.

The relics of the fortresses and observatories
that night manned by the sentinels of that peculiar
people, still stand and moulder on the soil of
the far west. They are constructed on principles
of military science now lost or inexplicable.(1)

But, whatever the code of tactics on which
they were fashioned, we cannot but admire, in
the midst of our conjectures, their peculiar symmetry,
their number and their duration. Parallel
with the foundations of Rome these walls
went up, far back in the calendar of time, and

[figure description] Page 007.[end figure description]

time-defying, they seem destined to pass down, as
far from the present into a misty and pregnant
future, as the actual history of a populous and
mighty race. Like the lost decades of Livy,
some passages are wanting to their completeness,
but in what stands we may read the power, the
strength, the decay, and the downfall of our own
American ancients. They were men of war and
those ramparts first built against a human enemy
were now occupied to keep at bay a new and untried
foe. From time to time, along the line of
guardsmen went the watchword; the sentries of
different posts occasionally whispering to each
other that the apparition was still visible on the
mountain. Not a few, overwearied with their
fears, slumbered.

The middle watch of the night had come.
The air was dark and still. Not a breath nor
voice broke the universal quiet: when, clear and
sharp, there fell upon the ears of the sleeping
populace, a sound like the crash of sudden
thunder. The earth shook as if trodden by
heavy footsteps, and through the air came a noise
like the rushing of some mighty bulk in violence
and haste. Ponderous hoofs trampled the earth
and drew nigh. It was he—the traditionary brute

[figure description] Page 008.[end figure description]

—Behemoth—and before his irresistible force
fell whatever strove to gainsay his advance.
The whole region trembled as when a vast body
of waters bursts its way and rolls over the earth,
ocean-like, wave shouting to wave, and all crowding
onward with thunderous tumult. In vain was
the solid breast-work; the piled wall was in vain;
in vain the armed and watchful sentry. Like some
stupendous engine of war, he bore down on them,
rendering human strength a mockery and human
defences worse than useless, for as wall, bastion
and tower fell, they redoubled death and ruin
on their builders. With a speed of which no
common celerity can give us a conception he
swept through the towns and villages, the tilled
fields and pleasure gardens of the Mound-builders—
desolating and desolate—none daring
to stand before his feet thus dreadfully advanced.

The trepidation of the day grew an hundred-fold;
from the dark, dim light which the stars
forced through the drifting and solid clouds, they
could but guess vaguely at his bulk, yet out of
their fears and the darkness they wrought an
awful image of vastness and strength. Night
banded with the monster, and terror walked in
their train.

[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]

The morning dawned, and its light fell
upon the face of an early wakened and fear
stricken people. On every countenance was
graven the clear and visible imprint of terror;
but the expression was by no means that of ordinary
alarm, such as is engendered by siege, or
battle or death; nor did it stamp the countenance
with the characters of a daily and familiar fear.

A dread which changed the whole aspect, such
as distorts the features and takes from them their
old, household look, was upon all. In the consternation
and imbecility of the moment messengers
were speeded forth and hurried to and fro
through the many villages of the Mound-builders
bearing tidings to which as answer, they received—
the same tidings in return! The visitation
had been universal; in each one of their five
thousand villages were left like marks of brute
ravage and strength!(2)

Behemoth had been with them all; and his large
footsteps were traced wide over the plain until
they broke off abruptly at its extreme bounds,
and wheeled heavily into the mountains. When
their dismay had subsided from its first flood-tide,
they began to compare observations and consult
with each other. The memories of most were

[figure description] Page 010.[end figure description]

bewildered in endeavoring to recall the occurrences
of the past night; but from what with
their confused faculties, they could grasp, they
were well assured that the whole circuit of desolation
had been accomplished within the passage
of a single hour. And now the time was come
for them to look forth and measure that desolation—
to what side shall they first turn? Everywhere
is some monument of that irresistible
power. In one brief hour he has overthrown
what Time, with his centuries, could not touch.
There at the track of his first foot-prints is a
crushed wall—driven through by some powerful,
and to them as yet unknown, weapon of strength,
which has left its dints upon the shattered fragments.
Massive portions of it have fallen to
powder beneath his weight. Across the path
which he seems to have chosen out to stalk in
rude triumph, through the very heart of their
dwellings, lies a dead guardsman whom his
might must have first dashed to the earth by
some other unconjectured instrument of power,
and then trampled upon, for at every pore the
blood issues in torrents. Against a dwelling—
pinned to its wall—is the corpse of a second
sentinel which seems to have been hurled with

[figure description] Page 011.[end figure description]

scorn by the brute invader into its present abiding-place.
On the threshold of her own home
lies a mother with her child closely clinging to
her neck, its little lips pressed to its parent's—
both smitten into death by a single blow.

Look forth from this narrow scene and read
the map of a broader ruin—the traces of a more
fearful mastery! Yon mound, consecrated by
the entombed dust of a generation of sages and
heroes is embowelled, and its holy ashes laid
open to the vulgar air and the strumpet wind.
And yon gardens, once the resort of blooming
beauty and gentle childhood—its walls strew the
ground and its flowers, broken and withered, are
sunken by the massy weight which has spoiled
them, deep into the earth. And lo! that trodden
and miry field, shut in by the standing fragments
of two oblong walls—yesterday morn it was a fair
greensward where strength wrestled kindly with
strength and age looked on approvingly. In
another quarter behold a tall tower of stone is
cast down before the same incomprehensible
might! The enclosure which surrounded and
guarded it is battered to the earth, and about it is
collected at this morning hour not a few of the
chiefs of the Mound-builders, deeply lamenting the

[figure description] Page 012.[end figure description]

overthrow of so scientific and regular a muniment.
Sad words pass from each to each and
they look despondingly into each other's faces,
and find no hope, but rather a triumphant
despair. From among the group which hung
thus powerless and complaining over the shattered
battlement boldly stood forth Bokulla, the most
fearless and energetic chieftain of the nation.

Bokulla was a man of singular and prompt courage,
of great earnestness of purpose and energy
of character; yet modest and unobtrusive.

In every enterprise he kept himself aloof until
the resources of all his co-laborers were exhausted,
and then when all eyes were turned towards
him as the last star of hope, he sprang with
alacrity to the front, prepared to match the emergency
with some new and vigorous suggestion.
Bokulla was a philosopher no less than a soldier;
not artificially framed by filling his mind with
learned apothegms and pithy instances, but with
a philosophy which was the growth of a meditative
spirit that looked into all things and gathered
wisdom from most. He possessed, nevertheless,
a thoroughly martial and energetic mind, and
found in every path of life, some accessory valuable
to strengthen and adorn that character.

[figure description] Page 013.[end figure description]

Unlike, however, the majority of professed militants,
he rarely exhibited the gay buoyancy which is
so generally considered in them, an essential. On
the contrary, even in the maddest onset and in the
high flush of triumph his brow was saddened,
ofttimes with a passing cloud of gloom; the
mark which distinguishes too often those who are
born to be the leaders and benefactors of their race.

The mind of Bokulla partook of another peculiarity
in common with many men of masterly
genius. Whenever defeated or foiled in any attempt,
his heart would be plunged for a moment
in the deepest and most torturing despair—but
only for the moment—and then reassuming its
lofty strength like an eagle unchained or slipped
from its darkened cage, his soul would spring
into the clear, broad sunshine of its former condition.

Such was Bokulla, and when those grouped
around him had each offered his several remark,
and they had mutually mourned over the present
desolation, he stood forth from their midst
and said, “Men! the day is spent with repining,
and the night comes, and with it, perchance, our
dread Enemy. Let us rebuild the wall and show
at least that we can oppose our old strength to

[figure description] Page 014.[end figure description]

his inroads. He has but the instinct of a brute,
we have the reason of men. Let him not, he
cried, “let him not find us, for our soul's sake,
let him not find us greater cravens than yesternight!”

With these words and with the consent of the
chieftains who stood about him, he ordered the
rebuilding of the rampart, and the erection of an
inner one to flank it. Before the passages which
had been previously left free of egress and ingress,
he directed the construction of short and solid
walls which should suffice to arrest access if made
in full front, leaving however side-passages between
the extremities of the main and those of the
newly erected ramparts. Under the authoritative
and cheering voice of Bokulla, the building-tool
and the trenching-iron ply busily. Parties of
laborers hurry from quarter to quarter of the work,
and something like a manly and worthy spirit
seems again to fire their bosoms and lighten their
toil. While some gather together the broken portions
of earth and remould them to their purpose,
others bring from the distance new supplies, and
still others quarry and shape the stone to crown
their summits. Under his quick and

[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

commanding eye the tower of observation goes up and its
defences are restored.

But, while Bokulla and his aids build up the
strong wall to guard the living—is there no duty
and service due to the dead? There is; and
under other guidance the manly forms, which
were laid in the recent encounter, are stretched
for their last repose.

Devoted hands compose their discolored limbs
and bathe them with embalming drugs, while
their kindred, those nearest and dearest in life,
collect—to accompany them in this their last
journey, whatever can consecrate or dignify their
sepulture.(3) Those who have fallen fell in the
defence of the nation, and are therefore worthy of
the nation's honors. Let them be buried then as
becomes heroes of the Mound-builders—bearing
away with them into the Unknown Land tokens
of merit and badges of high desert. Their bodies
are swathed in fine raiment—at their right hand are
placed the weapons of war, grasping which they
fell; at their sides are arrayed mirrors of glass or
metal (according to their rank) in which they
were wont to look for the reflection of their
own martial features when set for the stern service
of war. At their heads are disposed the

[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]

helms which covered them in the day of battle,
and on their now pulseless breasts lie polished
pieces of copper in the form of the cross.(4)

Can it be possible that those antique warriors
were Christian men? That, among them, they
thus cherished trophies of the Crucifixion, and
upheld the ark of that reverend creed? Or at
least some stray fragments of the holy structure
obscurely delivered over to them by paternal or
patriarchal hands? I know not, but this is the
language which their discovered relics speak to
us of the present generation.

Slowly from each dead hero's dwelling winds
forth the solemn procession with its weeping troop
and its religious mourners. Gathering at a central
spot they unite into one body, and thus collected,
take their way towards the funeral mounds. Attendants
send forth from marble instruments,
shaped like crescents and highly polished, a slow
and mournful music.(5) Beside the bier of each
fallen soldier walks his wife and children, while
at its head marches solemnly the priest who, in
life was his spiritual father.

Winding through the villages—over the meadows—
and along the stream-side, they reach the
bank right opposite the mounds in which the dead

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

are to find their final slumber. Descending into
the limpid and shallow stream the bearers gently
dip each corpse beneath the waters—thus purifying
it by a natural sort of baptism from every
earthly grossness, and then they resume their
way—all following with bared ankles through the
placid rivulet. At length they reach the sacred
mound. At its side, toward the East, the earth
is removed, and, turning their faces to the sun,
while the marble breathes forth a higher strain,
the bearers of the dead enter the hollowed mound.

As they enter, the throng chant together a
simple ballad, reciting the virtues and the valor of
the departed, and, at its close recommending them
to the Giver of life and the God of the seasons.
The bier bearers place the mortal remains of the
heroes whom they have borne within the cavity,
upon the earth with their faces upwards, their
feet pointing to the North-east (perhaps the home
of their progenitors) and their heads toward the
more genial South-west.

Thus were the common soldiers, among those
who had fallen buried: but one of that number—
he who had been captain of the guard, and a man
of note among the people, received separate and
more especial rites.

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

His remains were borne apart to a distinct
mound and there—when they were laid out with
the honors of a chief who had lost his life in battle,
martial music breathing from the instruments,
and the whole multitude joining in a
chaunt commemorative (like those recited over
the common soldier) of his valor and character—
they proceeded to burn his body and gather his
ashes into their separate tomb. They then closed
the mouths of all the mounds, and when the
priests had offered a prayer for the peaceful repose
of their dust, the multitude turned toward their
homes.

All was hushed and silent save the gentle tread
of the homeward tending people. The mourning
relatives of the dead had lulled into a temporary
calm their troublous feelings, and wept with composure.
The spirit of peace was over all. Suddenly
a shrill voice was heard to cry, “He comes!”
“He comes!” It proceeded from a child, who,
unobserved, had climbed to the upper window of
one of the stone observatories. The multitude
were arrested by the voice, and turning to the
quarter from which it issued, saw the finger of the
alarmist pointing to a body of woods which lay
a short distance West from the path which they

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

were taking to their homes. As at the bidding of
a god the whole multitude with one accord
swerved round and gazed toward the forest, and
there they beheld—Behemoth. Fixed in an attitude
of astonishment and dread, they stood gazing
and still gazing upon the spectacle—a boundless
and motionless gallery of faces. It was near the
sunset. Overhead in its level light, a gray bald
eagle, just flown from its neighboring eyrie, hung
poised in wonder, as if turned to stone by the
novel sight of so vast a creature. In its motionless
suspension it seemed as if sculptured from the
air while its wings were gilded, like some remains
of the old statuaries, by the golden touch of the
sun.

Visible above the woods, moving heavily
through the sea of green leaves, like leviathan in
the deep, appeared the dark and prodigious form
of the Mastodon: an awful ridge rolling like a
billow, along the tops of the pine and cedar which
grew beneath him. The boundless bulk moved
through the trembling verdure, like an island
which, in some convulsion of nature, shifts
itself along the surface of the sea. The forest
shook as he advanced, while its scared and

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

barbarous denizens, the prairie wolf, the gopher and
the panther, skulked silently away.

As yet his whole mighty frame was not visible.
Even amid the trepidation and fear of the Mound-builders
a curiosity sprang up to behold the sum
of his vast proportions: to see at once before
them and near at hand the actual dimensions of
that shape whose shadowy outlines had, when
first seen, wrought in them effects so boundless
and disastrous.

Occasionally as the Mastodon glided along, a
green tree-top wavered for a moment in the wind,
leaned forward into the air—and fell to the earth
as if pushed from its hold by the chance-exerted
strength of the great brute. Again, they heard a
crash, and a giant oak which had just now lorded
it over its fellows was snapped from its stem and
cast far forth over the tops of the forest. His
very breath stirred the leaves till they trembled,
and every step of his march denoted, by some
natural appearance, the possession of monstrous
and fearful power.

After stalking through a large tract of woodland
without allowing any greater portion of his
bulk to become apparent, he wheeled through the
forest and descending into a wooded valley

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

disappeared, each step reverberating along the earth
with a deep and hollow sound. It was a long
time ere the Mound-builders resumed their old,
homeward progress, and when they did it was
with alarmed and cheerless spirits. The awe of
the great shadow was upon them. Now more than
ever they felt the folly of gainsaying or attempting
to withstand a Power which shrouded itself in a
form so vast and inaccessible.

From that day forth a gloom settled upon the
minds of the Mound-builders—deep, rayless and
full of fearful omens; for though personal energy
may rescue individuals from that desperate condition,
it is a hopeless and a dreadful thing when nations
become the victims of despair. All the
mighty wheels of life are stopped; all the channels
through which the soul of the people once coursed
are now closed, and, in most cases, closed for ever.
The arteries through which the life-blood once
gushed are deadened, and the warm current is arrested
as if the winter had descended upon it in its
very spring-tide. The Mound-builders were now
fallen into that sad estate. Neither the spirit-stirring
voice of Bokulla; nor the trump of war; nor
the memory of their fathers' fields of their fathers'
valor, could awaken them to a sense of what was

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

due to their manhood or their duty. The Mastodon
seemed resolved to preserve the spell by an
almost perpetual presence. Day after day in the
same gray twilight did Behemoth cast his shadow
from the summit of some near elevation; and
midnight after midnight, at the same cold and
sullen hour, did he descend and force his huge
bulk through the villages of the Mound-builders:
breaking their walls in pieces, rending their
dwellings, disclosing their mounds and despoiling
their pleasure gardens from end to end. He had
become the spectral visitant of the nation;—the
monstrous and inexorable tyrant who, apparently
gliding from the land of shadows, presented himself
eternally to them, the destroyer of their race.
He seemed, in these terrible incursions, to be fired
with a mighty revenge for some unforgiven injury
inflicted on his dead and extinct tribe by the
human family. In the calm and solemn quiet of
night, when fretted labor sought repose and
anxious thought craved slumber, he burst down
from the mountains like thunder and bade them—
“Sleep no more!”

The internal and external influence of an harassment
like this could not be otherwise than
large and disastrous, First came the dire change

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

in the mind itself: when this terrible shadow
glided among its quiet emotions, its familiar habits,
and its household and national thoughts. All
objects that had hitherto occupied a place in the
mind of the people now assumed a new color
and complexion as this portent fell upon them,
in the same manner as every thing in nature
catches a portion of the gloom of twilight when it
suddenly approaches. No angle of the wide
realm of the Mound-builders escaped from the
darkness of fear, and every where the fountains of
social life became stagnant and ceased to issue in
healthy currents, like streams that are silent and
still when light has departed from their surface.

The voice of joy died away into a timid and
feeble smiling; proud and stately ambition fell
humbled to the earth, and love and beauty
trembled and fled before the gloomy shadow
of the general adversary. Men shunned
each other as if from a consciousness of their
abasement, and skulked away from the face of
day, unwilling that the heavens should look in
upon their desolation and shame.

Some abandoned their homes and took refuge
in cliffs and inaccessible precipices; preferring
poverty and exposure to wind and tempest and

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

hostile weather, rather than encounter with a foe
so dreadful and triumphant. The great mass
however lingered in their customary dwellings:
but so thoroughly was every motive to action
numbed and paralyzed, they neglected to repair
the roof that had fallen, the beam that had
decayed, or the foundation that had yielded to
the summer's rain, and innumerable buildings
throughout the whole realm tumbled into ruin,
and many that stood on the borders of rivers,
undermined by the motion of their currents, tottered
and fell into the stream, while their terror-stricken
inmates, in many cases, perished without a
struggle.

The ordinary occupations and duties of life
were performed with feeble hands and vague
thoughts, or entirely deserted.

This mighty and puissant nation, whose
strength was that of a giant and whose glory
rivalled the sun, was stricken by terror into a
feeble and child-like old age. All its proportions
were diminished; its heart was shrunk, and it
dragged on a slothful and decrepid existence amid
the cold and monumental ruins of what had once
been its beautiful domain and its house of honor
and joy. That salient and almost motiveless

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

energy which drives a nation on through toils,
battles and discomfitures, to prosperity and triumph:
that hazardous and all venturous daring
which pushes doubt aside, and which, while it
questions nothing strives at every thing, was
utterly departed.

From the silence and quiet of his studied retirement,
Bokulla beheld the shadow as it slowly and
fearfully crossed the national mind; from the first
he saw the change which was coming over it, and
knew that human wisdom was too weak to arrest
or avert it, unless the great first cause could be
removed. And yet, while others yielded thus
submissively to a meek despair, he, keeping himself
invisible to the general eye, tasked his bold
and liberal mind for some remedy for the evil.
In the calm and dead quiet of his private chamber
he sat from day to day brooding over plans
and enterprises whereby to rescue the nation.

Bokulla entertained a deep founded confidence
in the human character. Himself equipped with
an indomitable will and faculties stout and resolute
as iron, he was assured that by similar qualities
the nation was to be redeemed from thraldom.
Amidst a thousand changes of nature man had
endured: mountains had been cleft asunder;

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

seas had leaped upon continents and marched
triumphantly over every barrier and obstacle;
great orbs had been extinguished, like tapers of an
evening, in the skies; yet man stood steadfast
amid the shock and the mutation. Along
the bleak coasts of inhospitable time he had
voyaged in a secure and upright vessel; on this
ridge of earth he still stood while the visible universe
passed through changes of season, through
increase or diminution of splendors, and through
worlds created or worlds destroyed.

Was man, who thus out-lasted seas, and stars,
and mountains, to be crushed at last by mere brutal
enginery and corporal strength?

Reflections like these wrought the mind of
Bokulla to a condition of fearless and manly
daring, and he brought his whole soul to the labor
of discovering or contriving the means of triumph
or resistance. It may well be supposed that tower
as his thought might, it strove in vain to over-top
the stature or master the bulk of the Mastodon:
what were fosses, and bastions and battlements
to him that moved like a mountain against
opposition. No wall could shut him out: seas
might interpose in vain to cut off his fearful
pursuit of a fugitive people. Resting or in

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

motion that terrible and far-reaching strength would
overtake them and accomplish its purposes of desolation
and ruin.

With this stupendous and inevitable image the
whole might of Bokulla's soul wrestled for a long
time. An untiring invention that kept steadily
on the wing started suggestion on suggestion,
but all unequal to the mighty necessity of the
occasion. He gathered facts on which to build
the fabric of opposition huge enough to counter-vail
a superhuman force, but they tottered and
fell to the earth before the ideal presence of Behemoth.
He surveyed mountains and in imagination
linked them together with wide arches and
empyreal bridges; and compassed the people
round about with rock built circumvallations and
ramparts of insurmountable altitude and strength.
But it would have required ages to complete
the defences suggested by a swift imagination
which would have been equal to their object;
and others which great labor might have more
readily erected, would have been swept away in a
single night by the barbaric invader.

When this conclusion forced itself upon him,
Bokulla felt, for a moment, the pangs of a hopeless
and overwhelming despair. A midnight

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

darkness came over his mind, and it was for a time
as if the sun and the heavens were obliterated
from his view, and as if he were doomed to travel
henceforth a gloomy turnpike where all was sorrow,
and wailing, and terror without end. But
the light gradually broke in upon his soul, and his
palsied faculties began to awaken and cast off
the slumber and the delusion. His reflections, it
is true, had taught him that his countrymen
could act in defence against their vast oppressor
with but frail chance of success. He was satisfied
that a weight and bulk as monstrous as that
of Behemoth would burst their way by their mere
impetuous motion through any barrier or redoubt
they might erect. There was another thought,
however, worthy of all consideration—could not
the Mound-builders, a naturally adventurous and
valiant people, act on the offensive? Abandoning
passive and barbarous suffering, was not battle
to be waged and waged with hope against the
despoiler? This question Bokulla had put
anxiously to himself, and he watched with
an eager eye for some favorable phase of the national
feeling ere he addressed it to the country.

From one crisis of fear to another the Mound-builders
passed rapidly, and as the shades of night

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

thicken one upon the other, each aspect of their
condition was gloomier than the former. At
length as darkness deepened and strengthened
itself, light began to dawn in the opposite quarter.
Hardened by custom, and familiar in a
measure with the object of their dread, they now
ventured to lift their pale, white countenances
and gaze with some steadiness of vision upon the
foe.

Naturally of a noble character and constitution,
the Mound-builders needed only that the original
elements of their temper should be stirred by
some powerful conviction to excite them to action.
(6) A new spirit, or rather the ghost of the old
and exiled one, had returned to the nation, and
they now saw before them, unless they resumed
their manhood and generously exerted strength
and council, ages of desolation and fear for themselves
and their children. Were they men and
should no hazard be dared, no toil nor peril encountered
to break the massive despotism that
held them to the earth? Were they the possessors
of a land of sublime and wonderful aspects,
the dwellers amid interminable woods and lakes
of living water, and were no glorious nor resolute

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

energies matured by these, capable to cope with
that which was mighty and awful?

At this fortunate stage of feeling Bokulla appeared.
He clothed the thoughts of the people
in an eloquence of his own. He first painted the
portrait of their past condition in life-like and
startling colors. He told them that from the apparent
size and solidity of the Mastodon, and the
uniform analogy of nature he might endure for
centuries, yea, even beyond the duration of mankind
itself, unless his endless desolation could be
arrested. If they suffered now under his irresistible
sway they might suffer for a thousand years to
come. That vast frame, he feared, decay could
not touch. And in a stature so tremendous
must reside an energy and stubbornness of purpose,
endurable and unchanging.

Next, addressing them from the summit of a
mound, around which many of the people
were grouped in their old worship (some
faint image of which they had kept up through
all their terror) he appealed to them by the sacred
and inviolate ashes that rested underneath his feet.
If old warriors and generous champions, never
dishonored, could awaken from the slumbers of
death and breathe again the pure air of that

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

glorious clime, what voice of denunciation or anger
would they utter!

“Are these men, that creep along the earth,
like the pale shadows of autumn, Mound-builders
and children of our loins? What hath affrighted
them? Look to the mountains, and lo! an inferior
creature, one of the servants and hirelings
of man, hath the mastery. Arouse! arouse!
our sons! Place in our old, death-withered hands
the swords we once wielded—crown us with our
familiar helms and we will wage the battle for
you. Victory to the builders of the mounds!
victory to the lords and masters of the earth!
should be our cry of onset and triumph!”

The national pulse beat true again, and Bokulla
hastened from village to village, quickening
and firing it. Every where the hour of renovation
seemed to have come. Every where ascending
their high places he appealed to them by memories
to which they could not but hearken.
Every where an immense populace gathered
about him and listened to his words as if they
were the inspired language of hope. And when
their souls were fired, as it were, under the fervent
heat of his eloquence, he skilfully moulded
them to his own plan and purpose. He recounted

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

to them the mode, the time and course he thought
fit for them to adopt in seeking battle with
Behemoth.

After consultation with their chieftains, the
levy expected and demanded of each was soon
settled.

They were to venture forth with an army
(easily collected in that populous nation) of one
hundred thousand strong. Bokulla was to be
the leader-in-chief. Approved men were to be
his counsel and aids. The day of setting forth
on the great campaign was fixed; not far distant.
In the mean time, all diligence and labor were to
be employed in disciplining, equipping, and inspiriting
the troops: in burnishing and framing
the necessary armor, and in constructing certain
new engines of war, which Bokulla had invented,
and which might be of use in the encounter
with the terrible foe.

Every village now presented a picture of busy
preparation and warlike bustle. The forges,
whose fires had smouldered in long disuse, were
again rekindled, and their anvils rang with the
noise of a thousand hammers rivalling each other
in the skill with which they moulded the metals
into heroic shapes. While one wrought out with

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

ready dexterity the breast-plate, with its large,
circular bosses of silver, another, with equal, but
less costly felicity, framed the brazen hatchet, and
the steel arrow-head. In every workshop there
were employed artizans in sufficient number to
not only begin with the rude ore and shape it into
form, but also to carry it through every stage of
labor—tipping it with silver—burnishing—ornamenting—
completing them,—affixing leathern
handles to the bosses by which to grasp and
hold the shield, and arranging them in due order
for inspection by the appointed officers.(7)

An another and higher class of laboratories they
were employed in framing and fashioning weapons
for chieftains and warriors of note; swords
of tempered steel and scabbards of silver, capped
with points of other and less penetrable material:
and helmets of copper and shields, with ornamental
and heraldic devices. Some busied
themselves in furnishing large shields of brass,
which they polished with care until they glittered
again—while still farther on, they wrought out
large bows of steel, from which to speed the
barbed arrows prepared by their fellow-workmen.
Farther up, near the mountain-side, there lay a
range of shops in which a thousand operatives

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

constructed military wagons and other vehicles
for the expedition; for they knew not how far it
might extend, nor through what variety of hill
and dale.

To the right of these were gathered artizans
under the immediate superintendence of the
commander-in-chief, who labored at certain vast
and new engines of battle, more especially contrived
for conflict with the vast Brute. These
were large and ponderous wooden structures,
something like the towers used in Roman war-fare,
but, as the strength and stature of the foe
required, of far greater height and stiffness.

They were to be planted on heavy wheels and
of great circumference—placed far apart, so as to
furnish for the whole edifice a broad and immoveable
base. On the outer side, they were armed
with every sort of sharp-edged weapon, cutlass,
falchion, and spearhead, so as to be, if possible,
unassailable by Behemoth. Internally, they were
furnished with great store of vast bows and poisoned
shafts, with which, if such thing might be, to
pierce him in some vulnerable point, or at least to
gall him sorely and drive him at a distance. Besides
these there were suspended, in copious abundance,
divers ingenious implements, each

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

contrived for some emergency of battle, to strike, to
ward, to wound, and to destroy.

Others were building, taller and stronger, at
the summits of which were suspended great masses
of metal and ponderous hammers, tons in
weight, with which to wage a dreadful battery
against the mightyfoe. By some internal machinery,
it was so contrived that these solid weights
of metal could be swung to and fro with fearful
swiftness and violence, by the application of a
small and apparently inadequate power. Another
structure, like these, was prepared, from which to
cast, by means of capacious instruments, large
quantities of molten metals, kept in fusion by
mighty furnaces, to be hurled upon the enemy
from afar, and to descend upon him in sulphurous
and deadly showers, like those which fell on
Sodom and Gomorrah of old.

Day and night, night even to its middle watches,
were devoted to the construction and fabrication
of engines and implements like these: for their
minds were now so anchored on this great enterprise,
that all other ties were cast loose, and in
this alone they embarked every thought and purpose.
The hours hitherto given to repose and

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

sleep, were now made vassals to the new adventure.

It was a magnificent spectacle to see a whole
nation thus gathered under the dark wing of the
midnight, working out battle for their dread adversary.
Athwart the solid darkness which
pressed upon their dwellings, the gleams of swarthy
labor shot long and frequent. Far through
the hills echoed the clangor of armorers, and
the sharp sounds of multitudinous toil, laboring,
each in its kind, toward the redemption of a
people.

Grouped thus about their forges, and hurrying
from one task to another with rapid and quiet
tread, they might have seemed to the eye of
imagination, looking down from the neighboring
heights, to be employed in infernal labor,
and vexing the noon of night with unearthly and
Satanic cares.

But over the wide scene there rested a blessing,
for the smile of Heaven always shines upon the
oppressed who nobly yearn and vigorously strive
to break their chains. The long and bright
hours of day, too, were crowded with their peculiar
duties. The gardens and the enclosed plains,
again restored to their old symmetry and beauty,

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

were now filled with a soldiery which, under the
eye of dexterous leaders, were drilled, deployed,
marshalled, and schooled into new manœuvres,
before this unknown in the wars of the Mound-builders,
and adapted to the character of their
unwonted antagonist. They were taught to
wheel with novel evolutions, to retreat in less
orderly but more evasive movements and marches
than of old, and to attack with a wariness and
caution hitherto unpractised in their encounters
with mortal enemies. Over all the eye of Bokulla
glanced, giving system to the orders of the
chieftains, and confidence to the obedience of
their legions. Apparently performing duty nowhere,
he fulfilled it every where, with a calm
and masterly skill, which, while it was unobserved
by the careless, was an object of admiration to
the higher order of men, who were made the
immediate channels of his influence, and who
were therefore brought more directly under the
spell.

“Upon my soul,” cried the taller of two officers,
who stood near the trunk of a withered
cedar, which overshadowed a wide and deep sunken
well, looking upon one of these novel parades,
“upon my soul, Bokulla hath the power and the

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

knowledge of a God. Out of these men, but
yesterday dumb and torpid with fear, he has
struck the spirit of life, and that with the same
ease as my sword-blade strikes from this dull
stone at my foot, sparks of fire.”

“Who can withstand those giant machines
which tower yonder, like mountains, above our
dwellings?” cried his companion. “The Spirit
of Evil himself, if embodied in the frame of the
Brute, must fall before those whirlwind hammers
of brass and tempests of molten copper!”

While he spoke, one of the vast oaken structures
had been wheeled out, and its ponderous
enginery set in motion, and brought to bear upon
a crag that projected from the mountain near
which it rested. To and fro they swung with
fearful force and velocity, at each blow shattering
vast masses from the rock, and bringing them
headlong down the mountain. At the same time,
not far distant, tons of crude ore were cast into
the furnaces, affixed to the other towers, and hurled
forth upon the prairie in clouds of fire, which,
as they fell upon the earth, scathed and withered
every thing before them.

Although the multitude entertained hearts of
favor and hope towards the project of meeting

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

Behemoth in battle, there were a few who doubted
its wisdom and foreboded a gloomy result.

“The dinging of those anvils,” said an aged
man who sat at the sunset in the front of his
dwelling, to his spouse (no less stricken in years),
who leaned out at the window, “the dinging of
yon anvils is to my ears a mere death-dirge.
Wherefore are the youth of our land to be led
forth on this vain pilgrimage? They are fore-doomed
by the hooting of the owl, which has
been ceaseless in our woods since first it was
planned. The dismal bat and the brown vulture
flap their wings over our bright day-marshallings
in expectancy of a banquet.”

“And as for the chieftain, Bokulla,” continued
his wife, prolonging the dolorous strain of conversation,
“his defeat, if not death, is already doomed
in Heaven. The star which fell but yesternight
luridly athwart his dwelling, foretold that sequel
too well. And his spouse, stumbled she not essaying
but this morning to cross its threshold and
greet the home-return of Bokulla from the distant
villages?”

“This army, five score thousand in numbers,”
reiterated the old man, “will be but as the snow in
the whirlwind before the breath of Behemoth

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

They have forgotten, senseless men! the story of
our fathers. They recollect not how in ancient
days the fellow of this vast Brute (perchance ethis
living one himself) was met by our hunters in the
mountain gorge: that his roar was like thunder
near at hand, and his tread like the invasion of
waters! that they shrunk before him into the
hollows of the rocks as the white cloud scatters
before the sun!”(8)

“I pray Heaven the wife of Bokulla be not widowed,”
echoed his spouse. “The chieftain is a
bold man, and submits but poorly to the lording
of any, be it man or brute.”

“I fear this spirit pricks him on too far in
this emprise; I have warned him secretly,”
concluded the old mound-builder, in a deep and
solemn tone of voice; “I have warned him, but
he scorns my warning. He will not be stayed in
his purpose. I will warn him yet once more, for
he dreams not that he goes out to war with one
who is a giant in instinct as well as in strength!”

The eventful morning of going forth against the
Mastodon came: it was a morning bright with
beautiful auspices. The sky overhead glittered with
its fresh and airy splendors: no cloud dimmed the
world of indescribable blue which hung calm and

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

motionless like heaven itself on high. Occasionally
against its clear canvass a passing troop of
wild-fowl painted their forms, and vanished; or,
a tree-top here and there stood out, pencilled upon
it, with its branches and foliage all distinct. The
sun rode just over the horizon, and through the
innumerable villages of the Mound-builders the
martial trumpet sounded the spirit-stirring alarum.
At the call, one hundred thousand right-good
men of battle seized their arms and marched
through the territory of their brethren in solid
array.

First at the head of the van, drawn in a two-wheeled
chariot of wood, studded with iron and
ornamented with an eagle at each of its four points,
front and rear, and drawn by a single powerful
and jet-black bison, came Bokulla himself. He
stood erect in the vehicle, while his burnished armor
and towering helm flung their splendor far
and wide; in his hand he held no rein but guided
the noble beast by his mere intonations of voice.

Behind Bokulla followed a company of men-at-arms,
each bearing a long and stalwart club,
armed at its heavier extremity with a four-edged
sword or falchion, to the point of which was affixed
a spear-like weapon stiff and keen. Of these

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

there were one hundred, each cased in a mail of
elk-skin, which, while it was flexible and yielded
to every gesture of the body, was yet a sufficient
defence against any ordinary assault. These
were expected, beside guarding and sustaining
Bokulla, to close with Behemoth, and taking advantage
of the unwieldy motion of his frame, to
wound his legs or otherwise annoy and disable
him. Behind these followed an equal phalanx of
spear-men, whose allotted duty it was with a longer
weapon to probe the Brute at a distance, and
draw his attention from any quarter to which it
might appear directed with too much vigor and
chance of danger. In the rear of the company of
spear-men marched a strong body of common soldiers,
bearing the customary Mound-builders' instruments
of war, namely, vast steel bows six feet
or more in length, and quivers filled with correspondent
shafts tipped with poisons, and on their
left arms bearing the usual shield of copper with
bosses of silver. In the rear of these heavily
rolled on two of those newly-invented machines,
which rose like pyramids above the array. These
were drawn by scores of yoked bisons, and driven
forward by private soldiers who walked at
their sides. The earth shook under their

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

lumbering weight. Their bowels were filled with
captains and privates who had charge, each in
his station, of their implements of death. Following
these, in order, marched a numerous squadron,
sustaining over their sinewy shoulders heavy
axes of steel with edges sharp as death, and handles
of immoveable oak. Drawn by a thousand
beasts of burthen, behind these, came innumerable
provision and baggage wagons, provided for
the emergency of a protracted search for the enemy,
and long delay in vanquishing and destroying
him. These were accompanied with troops
and officers. Behind these walked countless varieties
of battle: soldiers, the very conception of
whose armor and weapons is lost in the oblivious
and mouldering past. Rearmost came six other
towers bearing their immense hammers and fiery
furnaces, with ten thousand troops to guard, to
guide them; to select even roads for their progress,
and last to wield their vast forces in the
hour of conflict.

Over the whole floated a hundred bright and
emblematic pennons, while the sonorous metal kept
time to their waving folds as the morning wind
dallied them to and fro. It was a glorious thing
to see ten times ten thousand thus equipped and

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

embattled going forth on that gay morning, to
the war.

Wherever their course lay it was thronged
with the multitude pushing to gain a sight of
Bokulla and his compeers, the solid soldiery and
the stupendous structures. Every window was
filled, every elevation seized on, every housetop
covered by spectators straining their vision to gather
in every appointment and device, banner and
sword, bison, chieftain and all. Ah! well might
their eyes ache to look upon that numerous chivalry!
Well might they hang with lingering
gaze upon the fair cheeks of that youthful array!
Well might their hearts keep time with the onward
steps of that glorious host! Happy is it
for mortals that they can enjoy the pageant of the
present, and have no power to prefigure in it the
funeral procession and the mournful company
into which the future may change it!

As the foot of the last soldier left the territory
of the Mound-builders, the drums and trumpets
sounded a farewell, and the army, taking the right
bank of a rapid stream which ran due West, pursued
its march. The ground over which their
course lay was a smooth and pleasant greensward,
the verdure of which was still wet with

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

the dews of the night. Occasionally it rose into
a gentle elevation which, for the first few miles,
brought the advancing army once again in sight
of the expectant gazers who still kept their posts
upon housetop, tower and mound. At length
from one of these eminences they descended into
a valley which bore them altogether from the view
of the most favorably-stationed looker-out. And
yet, even when their banners and tall structures
had passed wholly from the sight, gushes of
music, fainter and fainter at each note, reached
their ears, and reverberated from the neighboring
cliffs and hill-sides.

Onward they passed through the long vale
which stretched before them, choosing out the
clearest paths, and still keeping their march toward
the occident. In selecting this route they were
guided by large tracks which appeared at remote
strides in the earth, and by frequent signs of devastation—
fallen trees and crushed underwood.

Once they came to a river of great width,
on the near margin of which, at the water's
edge, appeared two large foot-prints, while on
the opposite bank were discovered indentations
equally vast but impressed deeper in the soil,
as if the monstrous Beast had reared on his

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

hindermost feet and with supernatural strength
and agility thrown himself across the intervening
breadth of waters. As there were no bridges
near at hand they were forced to compass the
river by a circuitous route to regain the tracks
which had been espied on the other bank.

After attaining the utter extremity of the vale,
through which the stream in question poured its
tide, they pursued their chosen way into a thick
wood, the path of the Mastodon through which
seemed to have been created by sweeping before
him, with a flexible power, whatever obstructed
his progress. On every side of the huge gap
into which the army now entered, lay prostrate
trees of greatest magnitude; oak, pine and
sycamore. Some, apparently, had been cast on
high, and, descending into the neighboring forest,
left their roots naked in the air, unnaturally
inverted and exposed. And yet, save in the immediate
path of the Desolator, nature smiled
unalarmed and innocent, in its primeval and virgin
beauty. Here and there, shone out in the
forest bright green patches, rising often into gentle
slopes, or softening away into vales as gentle.
Frequently the upland was crowned with
groups of small trees, and the vales were

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

tesselated with sweet wild-flowers. Then they
crossed babbling brooks and rivulets, which ran
across their march with a melodious murmur,
eloquent with reproaches on the warlike task they
were at present pursuing. Again, a large stream,
which had gathered volume from the neighboring
mountains, came rushing down declivities, and
seemed to shout them on to battle.

At times, in the course of this variegated
march, they fell upon open spaces where, for a
small circuit, no tree was to be seen; rich meadows,
the chosen pastures of the wild beings of
the prairies, pranked with red and white clover,
and fragrant as the rose, in their unmown freshness.

Sometimes they passed through sudden and
narrow defiles, overhung by frowning cliffs and
clothed with a dank verdure which seemed
to be the growth of a century. One gorge, in
particular, of this kind, they encountered whose
beetling rocks in their dark and regular grandeur,
looked as if they might have been wrought
out by the hands of the old Cyclops or “Pelasgians
strange.” They seemed to be the solemn
halls of a great race which had its seat of empire
there (beyond even the age of the

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

Mound-builders) and chambered in its tabernacles of ever-lasting
stone. But Nature alone built these halls
for herself, and through them toward the West
she walks at the twilight and morning hour in
pomp and majesty. I see her, her skirts purpled
with evening, and flowing forth in the fresh
breezes of that untainted clime, now pacing those
mighty avenues and recalling, in their awful stillness,
the nations which slumber at her feet. Her
face brightens like a sun, as she meditates over the
empires which have faded from earth into the dust
beneath her; she thinks and kindles in knowing
and remembering that while man is mortal and
perisheth, she is eternal and thrones with God.

The glittering and long-extended host of the
Mound-builders marched on through this cliff-walled
passage, and passed next from all glimpse
of the sun into dense and almost impervious
woods; impervious but for the way hewn out by
the mighty Pioneer in whose tracks they continued
to tread. Gloom, with its midnight wings,
sate on high and brooded over the boundless
thicket.

The very leaves seemed dipped in a deeper
hue of green, and the grass was thick and matted
underneath, as if in that desolate region it clung

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

closer to the earth. Above stood in their ancient
stillness (apparently unbroken for ages) the tall,
sombre trees, while about their trunks venerable
ivies and mosses clung desperately, and mounted
far up toward their topmost branches. Athwart
the solid darkness no wing, save that of a melancholy
owl or bat, clove and furnished to the tenebrous
realm the sign of life or motion. On the
earth no living thing was to be seen, unless amid
the dank grass an occasional toad or serpent, sitting
or coiled on the cold stone. And yet, though
life seemed extinct, or exhibited itself only in reptile
and hateful forms, the Mound-builders, as they
marched on through the gloomy quiet, in pursuit
of their mighty prey, saw, in the dimly discovered
foot-marks which they still followed, a token of
vast and inexplicable power which deepened the
darkness about them and infused a portion of its
weird influence into their souls. And yet with
purpose unshaken, they advanced. Again the
blessed sunshine greeted them, and the low mist
rolled heavily from their minds—and again their
purpose stood out to their inward eye clear and
determinate.

Emerging from the awful woods they came to
a broad prairie across which the large foot-steps

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

were deeply visible. On every side, as far as the
eye could reach, the ample plain was desert and
unoccupied. The innumerable herds of bison
which had once been its tenantry had now, before
the terror of Behemoth, fled away, and the
wild wolf, which once lurked amid the rank
grass, skulked from a Power which seemed to
overshadow the earth. Still there was a province
of animated nature into which the alarm scarcely
ascended: for on high, as in the quiet and fearless
hours of earlier times, the brown vulture and
the bald eagle flew, silently sailing on, or sending
through the air their shrill notes of ecstacy and
rapture. The boundlessness of those mighty
meadows was in itself calculated to strike an awe
through the bosom of the advancing army; before
it they lay—the Map of the Infinite: a vast
table on which, as on the tables of stone the fingers
of an omnipotent had written Majesty,
Power and Eternity. Contemplations like these
were sufficient in themselves to fill the mind
of the armed host with feelings of awe and humility,
but when, over the immense prairie, they
saw evidences that something had passed which
for the moment rivalled Deity; more palpable in
its manifestations, nearer in its visible strength,

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

and less merciful in its might; when the tracks
about them and the desert solitude which Behemoth
had created became thus clearly apparent,
they shrunk within themselves and doubted the
wisdom of their present enterprise.

This feeling however reigned but for a moment.
More manly and martial thoughts soon took their
place, and they pressed on in the path pointed out
with alacrity and courage. The verge of the
plain, which they had now reached, bordered on
a long and high ridge of mountains, which
stretched from the margin of the prairie far West.
Upon these summits they now advanced. Arrayed
in broad and solid columns the army
moved on over the mighty causeway, their trumpets
filling the air with novel music; while the
echo of their martial steps, sounding through the
wilderness, affrighted Silence from his ancient
throne. Against the clear sky their bright banners
flaunted, and high up into the heaven aspired
the warlike tower flashing death from every
point. The gleam of ten thousand swords
streamed from those broad heights far into the
depths of air—above, around, below—lighting
the solitude like “a new-risen sun.”

The pride of war now truly kindled their

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

breasts—fear skulked aside from their heroic way,
and Death, could he have come forth a personal
being, on those clear summits, as their pulses
freshened in treading them, would have been no
phantom.

Through the ranks a soldierly joy prevailed,
and with the rousing drum their spirits beat high.

They had reached the extreme limit of the
mountain ridge, and were preparing to descend
into the plain which broadened at its foot, when,
afar off, they espied, slowly heaving itself to and
fro in the ocean, which sparkled in the mid-day
sun beyond the plain, a vast body which soon
shaped itself to their vision into the form of
Behemoth.

The army halted and stood gazing. The
giant beast seemed to be sporting with the ocean.
For a moment he plunged into it, and swimming
out a league with his head and lithe proboscis
reared above the waters, spouted forth a
sea of bright, blue fluid toward the sky, ascending
to the very cloud, which, returning, brightened
into innumerable rainbows, large and small, and
spanned the ocean. Again he cast his huge bulk
along the main, and lay “floating many a rood”
in the soft middle sun, basking in its ray and

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

presenting in the grandeur and vastness of his
repose, a monumental image of Eternal Quiet.
Bronze nor marble have ever been wrought into
sculpture as grand and sublime as the motionless
shape of that mighty Brute resting on the sea.

Even at the remote distance from which they
viewed him they could catch at times through
the ocean-spray, the sparkle of his small and
burning eye. Once, it seemed for a moment
steadily fixed upon their host as it stood out conspicuously
on the height, and, abandoning his
gambols, Behemoth urged his bulky frame toward
the land. Breasting the mighty surges which his
own motion created, he sought the shore, and as
he came up majestically from the water, a chasm
ensued as if the Pacific shrunk from its limits.
With a gurgling tumult the subsiding waves rushed
into the broad hollow, and continued to eddy
about its vortex.

Meantime Behemoth stood upon the earth,
and rearing on his hindmost feet his foremost
were lifted high in the air, and with a
roar loud and fearful (like the gathering of an
earthquake with its powers of desolation in the
bowels of the earth) he brought them to the plain
with a weight and energy which made it tremble

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

to its utmost verge. He moved on; making
straight toward the army of the Mound-builders.
To the eyes of the astonished host, as he shouted
with his fearful voice, he seemed like a dread
thunder cloud which gathers tone and volume as
it rolls on assaulting with its hollow peals the very
walls of Heaven. Bokulla was undismayed and
calm. He saw that the hour for action had arrived,
and marshalling his troops in proper order,
he led them down a winding and gentle slope
which descended to the plain. A short time
sufficed and they reached the level ground. Disposing
themselves in the preconcerted order, they
awaited the on-coming of Behemoth. The towers
were planted firm on the earth; the pioneers
put forth and the instrumental sounds began.
As an additional thought a battalion of troops
was placed on a level ledge of rocks, on the side
of the mountain, and in advance of the main
army, to gall him as he passed.

On his part there was no delay: with strides,
like those of gods, he stalked forward. And still
he seemed, to the Mound-builders, to grow with
his advance. His bulk dilated, until it came between
them and heaven, and filled the whole circuit
of the sky. The firmament seemed to rest

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

upon his wide shoulders as a mantle. As he neared
upon their view, they saw more of his structure
and properties. His face was like a vast countenance
cut in stone, hewn from the hard granite
of the mountain-side, with features large as those
of the Egyptian sphinx. Before him he bore —
terrible instruments of power! a mighty and
lithe trunk, which, with swift skill, he coiled and
darted through the air, like a monstrous serpent,
instinct with poison and death. Guarding the
trunk were two far extending tusks, which curved
and flashed in the sun like scimitars. Over
his huger proportions fear cast its shadow, and
they saw them as through a cloud darkly. He
moved forward, nevertheless, a vast machine of
war, containing in himself all the muniments and
defences of a well-appointed host. To the cool and
courageous sagacity of the leader he seemed to join
the strength and force of an embattled soldiery:
to sharp and ready weapons of offence he added
the defence of a huge and impenetrable frame.
Through his small and flaming orbs, his soul
shot forth in flashes dark and desperate. His
neck was ridged with a short and stiff mane,
which lent an additional terror to his bulk.

On he came. He neared the host of the

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

Mound-builders. His fearful trunk was uplifted,
and his tusks glanced in the broad beam of day
over the heads of the army. Not a sword left its
scabbard. Not an arrow was pointed. The brazen
hammers and vessels of molten copper, which
had alone been raised, fell back to their places,
powerless and ineffective. The palsy of fear was
upon the whole host. The near and unexpected
vastness of Behemoth awed their souls. Bokulla
alone retained his self-possession, and shouted to
the affrighted squadrons: “Onward! Mound-builders—
cheer up, and onward! the battle may
yet be with us!” It was in vain. The vast proboscis
descended, and crushed with its descent a
whole phalanx. A second sweep, and the mighty
wooden towers, with their hammers of brass,
their molten copper, and their indwelling defenders,
were hurled on high, and rushing to the
earth, strewed the plain with their wreck.

Ten thousand perished under his feet as he
trampled onward. Ten thousand fell stricken to
the earth by the mere icy bolt of fear. The
legion, stationed on the level ledge, were swept
from their post, as the whirlwind sweeps the
dust from the autumn leaf. Twice ten thousand
and more fled up the mountain; across the

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

prairies; and some, in their extreme of trepidation,
sought shelter in the sea. With infinite ruin the
main host lay scattered upon the prairie, shield,
sword, bow, wagon, wagoner, spearsman, and
pioneer. Over the plain, maddened by terror, the
bisons, with their vehicles, following in clattering
haste, galloped, they knew not whither. Of a
body of about fifteen thousand men, Bokulla, collected
as ever, took command, and marshalling
them through a narrow defile, led them up the
mountain, from which the whole army had a few
hours before descended in pomp and glory. Guiding
them along the ridge by new and well chosen
paths, he hurried them forward. In the mean
time Behemoth had perfected his work upon the
squadrons which were left. When the task of
death and ruin was completed, he stood in the
middle of the wreck, and, gazing about, seemed
to seek for some portion of the host on whom
desolation was yet to be wrought. With sagacious
instinct he soon discovered the path
which the missing legions had taken. Instantly
abandoning the plain, he pressed toward the
gap through which the retreating troops had
fled.

Rushing through the defile, he was soon

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

standing on the steps of Bokulla and his flying troops.
Through each narrow pass of rocks the chieftain
skilfully guided them, taking advantage of
every object that might be an obstacle to the monstrous
frame of their pursuer. Sometimes they
mounted a sudden ascent, sometimes hastened
through a narrow vale, or around a clump of
mighty sycamores and cotton-woods. Nevertheless
Behemoth pressed on. Behind them, terrible
as the voice of death, they heard his resounding
roar, and turned pale with affright. They had
reached the crown of a hill, and were compassing
a tall rock, which stood in their way, to descend,
when they heard heavy, trampling steps behind
them, and looking back, they beheld the ponderous
bulk of the Mastodon urging rapidly up the
ascent. Trepidation fastened on the ranks.
Their knees smote together, and many, in the
weakness of sudden fear, fell quaking to the
earth. Some, in their alarm, cast themselves
headlong from the height; some escaped into the
neighboring woods, and two or three, bereft of
sense by terror, fled into the very jaws of the
huge beast himself. A small band only kept on
their way with Bokulla.

Surging up the steep, and down the

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

opposite descent, Behemoth pushed forward, trampling
to the earth those who stood rooted in
his path—statues of despair—and was soon at
the rear of the small flying troop.

He was at the very heels of the pale fugitives;
and Bokulla, placing a trumpet at his lips, blew
a long, loud, and what, in the hour of battle
and under other auspices, would have been an
inspiriting blast, and endeavored to arouse in them
sufficient spirit and strength to bear them to the
shelter of a gigantic crag which stood in their
path. Past this the velocity and impetus of the
brute would inevitably force him, and they might
rest for a moment while he rushed down and reascended
(if re-ascend he should) the declivity.
The attempt was successless: the trumpet-blast,
vainly blown, was borne far away into the forests,
and, echoing from cliff to cliff, seemed only
to awaken the idle air.

From Bokulla, one by one, his followers
fell off, and perished by Behemoth, or crept
into the grass and underwood to die a
more lingering death. At length the chieftain
was alone before his mighty pursuer. And
yet he “bated not a jot of heart or hope, but
still bore up and steered right onward.” With

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

the emergency his courage, resolution, and fore-thought
rose.

He kept his way steadily, and the bison which
drew him nobly seconded his purpose, and exhibited,
as if inspired by the greatness of the
occasion, the power of reason in comprehending,
and a giant's strength in carrying out, the most
expedient means for the rescue of his master's
person. He seemed to apprehend every direction
of Bokulla's at a thought. “To the right—between
yon stout oaks! To the left—onward—
Bokulla is at your mercy!” shouted the rider,
and they swept along like the prophet and his
chariot of fire.—The night had gradually come
on. Palpable twilight now overspread the scene,
and, in a moment, the moon glided to her station
in the zenith.

The woods through which Bokulla passed
were now filled with shadows, which crossing
and blending with each other, would have confused
mere human skill in selecting a path; but
the bison dexterously steered on. With cumbrous
but swift steps Behemoth still pursued,
over hills, vales, mountains.

At length Bokulla reached that very summit
where first the gigantic Phantom had appeared

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

and where the impress of his steps was yet clearly
left. He had just commenced his descent toward
the villages of the Mound-builders, (thousands
of whom looked toward his chariot as he
sounded another peal on his trumpet) and Behemoth
stood behind him. The mighty brute,
from some unconjecturable motive, paused. He
saw the chariot of Bokulla rapidly verging toward
its home. He abandoned the pursuit, but yet
yielded not his purpose of destroying the last of
the army of the Mound-builders; for, loosening
from its base a massy rock, which hung threatening
over the village, he lifted it with his tusks
and pushing it forward, urged it with tremendous
force directly in the career of the chieftain. Thundering
it followed him. It neared his chariot.
Another turn and Bokulla is crushed: but the
Mound-builders shout in one voice “To the right,
Bokulla! to the right!” and turning his chariot
in that direction, he escapes the descending ruin,
though enveloped in the dust of its track.
Emerging quickly from the cloud, and avoiding
the rocky mass, which rushed past him with
terrible fury, Bokulla now reached the bottom of
the mountain, and was surrounded instantly by
innumerable Mound-builders, each with a fearful

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

question on his lips, and the dread of a yet more
fearful answer written in his countenance. Bokulla,
alone and in flight, was a reply to all their
thoughts could imagine or dread of what was
terrible. Gazing upon him for a while in motionless
silence, they at length burst the stupor
which made them dumb, and each one asked for
husband, brother, son,—who had gone forth but
a few days since, full of life and vigor, against
Behemoth. “Death—defeat—and flight!” were
all that escaped from Bokulla, and, breaking his
way through the multitude, he sought his own
home. Gathering about the house of the chieftain,
men, women and children, in large crowds,
they cried out through the live-long night, while
their tears fell for their relatives who had ventured
to the battle, and asked wherefore they came
not back?

The next day, about noon, there rushed into
the village, covered with foam and quaking with
fear, troops of bison, followed by the frame-work
on which the towers and machines of war
had been raised, and clattering through the
streets with their enormous and lumbering wheels
till they reached their stalls—they fell dead. To
some of them a handful of men clung tenaciously,

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

though pale and terror-stricken, and to the rear
of one hung by his feet, which were entangled
in the leathern strap that had bound the frame
together, a lifeless body, the skull of which was
broken by rude and hasty contact with the earth,
while the tufts of hair which remained, were
matted with grass, thorns and mire, gathered as
it was drawn swiftly along through the different
varieties of verdure, marsh, and brambles.

The next day after that, at about night-fall,
there came down the mountains which Bokulla
had descended under circumstances of so much
peril, a lean and tattered company, marshalled
forward by the ghost-like figure of a chieftain,
with a broken helm, husky voice, and swordless
scabbard. They were a portion of the army
which had gone forth with Bokulla, and had been
reduced to their present pale and ragged condition
partly by fear and partly by the want of food
for the two days during which they had wandered
in search of home. Many a wife and mother
shed tears of mingled gratitude and pity as she
looked upon the shattered wreck of her son or
husband, thus cast up from the waves of war.
Two or three days after this, and day by day, for
some week or two, came into the villages of the

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

Mound-builders, single fugitives, or in pairs, when
they had coupled themselves together, that in
this sorrowful fellowship, they might aid each
other in bearing up against terror, hunger and
death.

And even after a month had rolled round, and
tears had been shed and rites performed for the
absentees, two or three strayed home lunatic;
poor idiots, whose brains had been crazed by the
triple assault of fear, famine, and the dread of instant
death under the hoofs of the enemy. From
the account that could be gathered from their
own wandering and confused wits, they had fled
every inch of the way from the battle-ground
under the terrible apprehension that Behemoth
was at their heels. Through brake and through
briar they had hastened; they had scrambled
over rocks and waded wide ponds: they had
climbed trees and rested a little, and then swinging
themselves from the branches, had run miles over
hot and streamless prairies, until they had reached
their native villages, sad, witless idiots!

The catastrophe now stood out before the
Mound-builders, drawn in bold, strong and fearful
strokes; painted in colors borrowed from the
midnight, and dashed upon the canvass (it almost

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

seemed) by the hand of destiny itself. The malignant
planet which had so long lowered in the
atmosphere, had now burst, and poured from its
womb all that was dreadful, pernicious and enduring.
The earth was now to them a cold,
comfortless prison, into which they were plunged
by an inexorable power, and where they were
doomed to drag through their allotted portion of
life, under the eye of an eternal and terrible foe;
joyless, hopeless and prostrate. The multitude
gave themselves to a quiet and passionless despair.
Bokulla was silent or invisible.

Great occasions beget great men, but what is
singular and rarely noted, they have also a tendency
to nurse into life a swarm of petty spirits,
which take the opportunity, uninvited, to push
themselves into prominent posts. Thus the same
emergency which elicited the resources of Bokulla's
large and fruitful mind, also drew out the
vagaries and absurdities of a puny intellect,
Kluckhatch by name. On account of his dwarfish
size and an unlucky curvature in the legs,
this valorous gentleman had been rejected from
the military companies. Nevertheless he kept a
drum on his own account, with which he was
wont to regale a rabble crowd of urchins and

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

maidens; making a monthly tour through the
villages and refreshing them with the dulcet
sounds. He also wore in this itinerant and volunteer
soldiery of his a small sword; a bright
pyramidal blade of steel with a handle of elk's
horn, the tip of which was surmounted with a
clasp or circlet of silver and ornamented with
the device of an owl hooting. The person of
Kluckhatch was, as I have hinted, pigmean rather
than otherwise. He had a low forehead with
prominent cheek bones, and a broad full-moon
face with large eyes, in which idiocy and self-conceit
predominated, though they were occasionally
enlivened with an expression of mirth and
good-fellowship, and sometimes even brightened
with a humorous conception. On the crown of
his head, to complete his garniture, Kluckhatch
bore a cap of conical figure, with a flattened circular
summit, ending at the apex with a round
button of copper. Attached to the sides of the cap
were two large ear-flaps of deer-skin, or that of
some other indigenous animal, made to cover
ears as large.

“I believe,” said this self-constituted champion,
when every plan suggested and acted upon had
proved fruitless, “I believe,” said he, “I must

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

take this huge blusterer in hand. I look for a
mound of the largest size at least for my memory
if I lay him at length, and a patent of nobility for
my family. Kluckhatch is no fool—is he?”
asked the vainglorious militant, turning with
cocked eye to a shock-headed youth who stood
gaping at his elbow. The boy replied with a
similar squint, and Kluckhatch ran on, detailing at
length, like a crafty plotter, the whole course of
strategy he intended to put in practice against
Behemoth, naming the time when, and the place
where, he expected to achieve his capture at least,
if not his death.

In accordance with this carefully matured plot,
one bright and cold autumn morning Kluckhatch
sallied forth accoutred to a point with dagger, hat
and sword-belt, to which was attached special
ministrant in the anticipated capture, his little
drum, with the melodious sounds of which he expected
to quell and mollify the mighty rage of
Behemoth. Over his right shoulder he bore a
light ladder of pine of great length, with which
he intended to mount to Behemoth's neck and inflict
the fatal wound with his trenchant blade.

Thus armed and accoutred Kluckhatch set
forth. Fortunately on the morning which he

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

chose for his adventure, the Mastodon was not
far off but pastured in a broad open meadow
within sight of the Mound-builders' villages.
When Kluckhatch first beheld him opening and
closing his mighty jaws as he cropped the tall
verdure, his soul trembled within him and vibrated
to and fro, like a mariner's needle, between
the determination to retreat and that to advance.
At length however it settled down true to its purpose.
He marched forward beating a reveillé on
his dwarfish drum, while he whistled faintly as
an accompaniment. He was now within stone's
throw of the monster. He had lowered the ladder
from his shoulder, that he might be better
prepared to scale the sides of the Beast. Behemoth
ceased from the labor of feeding; a moment
his eye twinkled on the puissant Kluckhatch, and
the next, unrolling his trunk, he coiled it about
the slender body of the adventurer, and lifting
him gently from the earth, as gently tossed him
some score of yards into a neighboring pond,
which was about five feet deep, and mantled with
a covering of stagnant water. Into this Kluckhatch
descended and fell amid a noisy company of
large green bull-frogs who were holding a meeting
for general consultation and the expression of

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

opinion. Amid the blustering assembly the
valiant little hero fell. For a time, as he hung
balanced in the air, it was doubtful which
portion of his person would first penetrate the
water.

The levity of his head and the weight of his
splay-feet, at length brought the latter first to the
pool, and dividing the stagnant surface, they sank
through and reached a bottom of mud; still they
sank and continued to settle down deeper and
deeper. Kluckhatch knew not where his descent
would stop, nor where in the end he might arrive.
His feet at last found support just as his chin
reached the waters' edge, and, looking up, the first
object which fell upon his vision was a household
of venerable and contemplative crows who,
seated on a dry tree at the edge of the pool,
seemed to be philosophizing over his mishaps,
in their most doleful discords. One, an old
rake, with only an eye left in his head, appeared
to Kluckhatch, as he leered knowingly
upon him, to be a desperate quiz. When,
after many vain efforts, he had brought his scattered
senses into something like order, reaching
forth one hand he grasped his drum, which
floated at a distance on the pool, and held it up

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

tremblingly, while with the other he drew from
his belt a drum-stick which survived his fall.
Stretching out the hand that held the stick, he
struck up a faint tatoo on the parchment, with the
double purpose of driving off those accursed and
hard-hearted crows, and also to draw help from
the nearest village. To the instrumental sounds
thus elicited he added a humble vocal effort.
Here was a scene for a painter: Kluckhatch, the
drum, and the crows, all in unison, running
down the scale from lofty bass to shrill treble.

The hero soon tired of his toilsome essays at
the two kinds of music under his charge, and putting
forth all his strength in a desperate venture,
he succeeded, scrambling, floundering, and paddling,
in reaching the shore endued in a coat-of-mail,
composed of black slime and green ooze,
with long locks of eel-grass dangling at his heels,
as trophies of his exploit. Satisfied with this
valorous attempt at the capture of the “huge
blusterer,” Kluckhatch skulked home.

Some two months more had passed when a new
enterprise was set on foot by a desperate band, under
the control of two or three daring and reckless
leaders. Their daring, however, was not
the fruit of experience, for they had not been out
with the army against the fearful enemy.

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

The Mastodon, with that attachment to particular
scenes and localities, which even the brute cherishes
to a certain degree in common with man,
had been observed to exhibit a fondness for one
spot, which seemed to be dearer to his mighty
spirit than all others. It was a wide plain, in
whose centre grew a few tall elm trees, where
Behemoth, through the oppressive hours of noon,
was wont to rest. Beside their roots bubbled a
cool rivulet, in which he sometimes cast his limber
trunk and sported with its waters. This was
the spot where the last of his brute brethren had
fallen. Here his gigantic frame fell, and here it
reposed. The earth about Behemoth was the
dust of his mighty bones, and every green thing
which sprang from the mould drew its nourishment
from the great Dead.

The desperate crew, to which we have alluded,
or rather one of their chiefs, conceived a
plan, based on the Mastodon's frequent resort to
this locality, which might eventuate in his destruction.
The chief, with whom it originated,
suggested that five or six bands or bodies of men
should commence mining the earth at a considerable
depth, from so many distinct quarters,
making the ground where Behemoth was

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

accustomed to repose, the common centre of their
operations. They should delve thus far below
the surface until they had reached the spot
in question, that the earth might be sufficiently
solid to bear up the weight of the prodigious
Brute, as he crossed it to and fro: but that, when
they had attained the appointed centre subterraneously,
they should then so far diminish the body
of earth as to leave a mere shell through which
his bulk must needs bear the Mastodon and bring
him to the bottom of the pit, thus prepared for
him, with rapid and deadly haste. The latter
part of the mining, as they approached the centre,
was to be conducted by means of broad
spades attached to long handles, while the miner
stood back in the subterranean halls secure from
the sudden downfalling of the heavy bulk.

The day came to put in trial this desperate invention
for the overthrow of the heroic enemy. A
company of about five hundred men, under five
leaders, went forth to their allotted labor. Day after
day they toiled under the earth. Cautiously in
the morning they sallied out to their duty, and at
night stole back as cautiously to their slumbers.
They had finished the whole plan in detail as
mapped out by its projector; they had hollowed

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

the earth with their far withdrawn instruments of
labor, until the weight of the Mastodon rested at
noon, casting its shadow far east, upheld but by a
thin shelf of earth. They toiled on. With his quick
intelligent ear he heard the click of their many
mattocks, and giving a bold and agile spring—
wonderful for so ponderous a frame—he pressed
his feet strongly upon the mould; it yielded and
fell in with dire ruin, and Behemoth landed beyond
its fatal circle on the bright greensward,
and bellowed forth a fearful roar of triumph and
scorn.

The subterranean toilers, when they heard the
thunderous voice of Behemoth, clear and sonorous
on high, knew that he had escaped; while
not a few of their number, whose fool-hardiness
had carried them too near the falling mass, perished
under it. The remainder, abandoning all
things, fled, dismayed, toil-worn and discomfited,
toward their native villages.

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