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

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 straining 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 these was drawn together a
group of women, who still retained their devotional
posture and aspect, but yet casting sidelong
and timid glances toward 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 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,
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 Titanie 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 toward
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 a thousand forms, assuming
as many attitudes of assault and de
fence; 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 highways 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.

But, whatever the code of tactics on which
they were fashioned, we can not 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
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 the
writer, 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

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

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—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 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 a hundredfold;
from the dark, dim light which the stars
forced through 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.

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!

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 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 force. 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 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 parents—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! Yonder 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 yonder 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,
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 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—a man of singular and prompt
courage, greatly earnest and energetic in purpose:
yet calm and self involved.

In every enterprise keeping himself aloof
until the resources of all others were exhausted,
and then, when every eye was turned toward
him as the last sustainer of hope, springing
with alacrity to the front, prepared to match
the emergency with some new and vigorous
suggestion. Bokulla was a thinker no less
than a soldier; not artificially framed by filling
his mind with learned apothegms and pithy instances,
but with a philosophy, the growth of a

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

meditative spirit that brooded over all things
and created wisdom from most. He possessed,
nevertheless, a thoroughly martial and energetic
mind, and found in every path of life, an
accessory to strengthen and adorn that character.
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, oftentimes
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. Defeated, or foiled in any attempt,
his heart plunged, awhile, in the profoundest
and most torturing despair—but only for the
instant—and then, reassuming its lofty strength,
an eagle, unchained, or slipped from its darkened
cage, he rose into the clear, broad sunshine
of a worthier 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 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 souls' 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 crection
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 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. 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 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.

Can it be 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 toward the
funeral-mounds. Attendants send forth, from
marble instruments, shaped like crescents and
highly polished, a slow and mournful music.
Beside the bier of each fallen soldier, walk 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 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

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

faces upward, their feet pointing to the northeast
(perhaps the home of their progenitors) and
their heads toward the more genial southwest.

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.

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
chant, 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 were taking
to their homes. As at the bidding of a god,
the whole people, 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 grey bald eagle, just flown from its neighboring
eyry, 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 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
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 every 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 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 spiritstirring
voice of Bokulla, nor the trump of
war, nor the memory of their fathers' fields or
their fathers' valor, could awaken them to a
sense of what was 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,

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

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—
Awaken! awaken!

The internal and external influence of an
harassment like this could not be otherwise
than large and disastrous. First came the dire
change 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
everything 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
everywhere 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
skulled 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
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 energy which drives a nation
on through toils, battles, and discomfitures, to
prosperity and triumph; that hazardous and alladventurous
daring which pushes doubt aside,
and which, while it questions nothing, strives
at everything, 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. Amid a thousand changes of
nature, man had endured; mountains had been
cleft asunder; 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 outlasted 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 overtop 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 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 countervail a superhuman foree, but they
tottered and fell to the earth before the ideal
presence of Behemoth. He surveyed mountains,
and, in imagination, linked them together, with

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

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
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 barier 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 people.

From one crisis of fear to another, the Mound-builders
passed rapidly, and, as the shades
of night 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. 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 or peril endured, 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 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 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
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!”

The national pulse beat true again, and Bokulla
hastened from village to village, quickening
and firing it. Everywhere the hour of renovation
seemed to have come. Everywhere
ascending their high places, he appealed to
them by memories to which they could not but
hearken. Everywhere 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 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 meantime, all diligence and labor were
to be employed in disciplining, equipping, and

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

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 ready dexterity the breastplate,
with its large, circular bosses of silver,
another, with equal, but less costly felicity,
framed the brazen hatchet, and the steel arrowhead.
In every workshop there were employed
artisans 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.

At 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 mountainside,
there lay a range of shops, in which a
thousand operatives 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 artisans
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 known in Roman
warfare, 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 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 mighty foe. 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 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 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, 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

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

chieftains, and confidence to the obedience of
their legions. Apparently performing duty nowhere,
he fulfilled it everywhere, with a calm
and masterly skill, which, while it was unobserved
by the populace, was an object of admiration
to another 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 one 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 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 the giant machines
which tower yonder, like mountains, above our
dwellings?” cried his companion. “The Spirit
of Evil himself, if imbodied in the frame of the
Brute, must fall before those whirlwind hammers
of brass and tempests of molten copper!”

While he spake, one of the vast oaken structures
had been wheeled out, and his 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 everything before
them.

Although the multitude entertained hearts of
favor and hope toward the project of meeting
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 you 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. They have forgotten, senseless
men! the story of our fathers. They recollect
not how in ancient days the fellow of this vast
Brute (perchance this 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!”

“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 adventure; 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 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 rightgood
men of battle seized their arms and marched
through the territory of their brethren in
solid array.

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 towring 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 menat-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 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 motions

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

of his frame, to wound his legs, or otherwise
annoy and disable him. Behind these followed
an equal phalanx of spearmen, whose allotted
duty it was, with a longer weapon, to gird 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 spearmen 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 corresponding
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 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 burden, behind
these, came innumerable provision and baggage
wagons, provided for the emergency of a protracted
search for the enemy, and a 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, lastly, 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 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 house-top
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
green-sward, the verdure of which was still
wet with 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 footprints, 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
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 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 tesselated with sweet wild

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

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 the 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 Mound-builders),
and chambered in its tabernacles of
everlasting 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 fect. 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 cliffwalled
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, sat 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 closer to the earth. Above, stood in their
ancient stillness, apparently unvoiced 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 ex
tinct, 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 footsteps
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 mendows was in itself
calculated to strike an awe through the bosom
of the advancing army; before it they lay, 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, 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 wildern—,
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

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

streamed from those broad heights far into the
depths of air—above, around, below—lighting
the solitude like new-risen morning-stars.

The pride of war now truly kindled their
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 broadening 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 clear, 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,
island-like, floating in the soft middle sun,
basking in its ray, and 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 ereated, 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 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. Bokul
la 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 Moung-builders, to grow
with his advance. His bulk dilated, till it came
between them and heaven, and filled the whole
circuit of the sky. The firmament seemed to
rest 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 instrument
of power! a mighty and lithe trunk,
which, with swift skill, he coiled and darted
through the air, like a monstrous serpent, arteried
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
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 seabbard. 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,

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

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 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 wellchosen
paths, he hurried them forward. In the
meantime Behemoth had accomplished 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
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 cottonwoods.
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 alarms, 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 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 sprit 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 reascend he should)
the declivity. The attempt was successless;
the trumpet-blast, vainly blown, was borne far
away into the forest, and, echoing from cliff to
cliff, seemed only to vex 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 the emergency his
courage, resolution, and forethought, arose.

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.
He seemed to apprehend every direction
ef 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,
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 call) 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

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

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 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, 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,
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 scull 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 ghostlike 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 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 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 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, while
they have also a tendency to nurse into life
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 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 goodfellowship,
and sometimes even brightened with

p265-108 [figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

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 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 a 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
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 ex
pression of 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 that
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 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 an 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.

It was two hours before sunrise. Through
the wide realm of the populous west not a soul
was stirring, save a single human figure, which
threaded its way through the streets of one of
the great cities of the Mound-builders. This
solitary object moved at a slow, measured pace,
as if its progress was actually retarded by the
weight of the thoughts with which it labored.
The eyes gleamed as if they beheld, afar off,
some enterprise of magnitude and obstinacy
sufficient to call up the whole soul of the man,
and the lines of the countenance worked, and

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

the hands were clenched, as if he was already
employed in the struggle. If one could have
looked into his bosom, he might have seen all
his faculties mustering to the encounter; and,
among other passions, aroused and assembling
there, he might have noted discomfiture and
mortification thrusting in their hated visages,
and lending a keener stimulous and quicker motion
to the current of his thoughts. He might
have also discovered an heroic resolution, almost
epic in its proportions and strength, towering
up from amid the ruins of many cast-down
and desolated projects, and assuming to contend
with unconquerable might.

The solitary figure was that of Bokulla, who
was thus venturing forth, self-exiled and alone,
to discover, in the broad wilderness toward the
sea, whatever means of triumph he might, over
a power that had hitherto proved itself more
than a match for human strength or cunning.
A great spirit had taken possession of the chieftain,
and the shame of an inglorious defeat aided
to kindle the energy of his passions. Over
that defeat he had already pondered, long, and
anxiously. He confessed to himself that he had
formed but a vague opinion of the hugeness and
strength of Behemoth when he had proposed
the battle. But he dwelt in the midst of a terrified
and perishing people. As a man he was
touched by the sufferings and alarms of his nation.
Danger and death were before them, and
no gate of safety or mercy opened. He saw
this people, not only in the present time, but
through a long futurity, scourged and suffering;
the old tottering into a hasty grave, pursued by
a hideous phantom that increased its terrors;
the young growing up with images and thoughts
of fear interwoven with their tender and pliant
elements of being.

Was there no one man, in this whole nation,
who would go forth, in the spirit of martyrdom
and self-sacrifice, and seek, even in the desert
itself, the knowledge that would bring strength
and safety in its wings? It was he that was
now passing away from his country, for a while,
and launching himself in the boundless wilderness
of the west. Championed by doubt and
solitude, he was plunging into a region which
stretched, he knew not whither, and to a fate,
perchance, his heart dared not whisper to itself.
What fruit might spring from this hardy enterprise,
it was vain to conjecture; but he was
determined to gather some knowledge of the
habits, and some information as to the lodgment
of this terrible scourge of his people.
With rapid and firm step, he therefore proceeded
on his way. By secret paths, and through
dark woods, he advanced, and midday brought
him to a spot which overlooked the whole of
the wide territory of the Mound-builders.

He stood upon a cliff which pushed out boldly
from the wooded region that lay behind it,
and hung, like a platform, over a valley and
river that wound round its base. It was covered
in patches with verdure and earth, from
which a few stately trees threw up their branches,
and underneath these Bokulla now stood.

Casting his eye abroad, he beheld a scene
which the boldest fancy of our time can scarcely
conceive, accustomed as we are to think of
the prairies as tenantless and houseless deserts,
and the whole broad west as a wild, unpeopled
region, never disturbed unless by bands of straggling
Indian hunters, or a mad herd of buffalo,
sweeping, like a tornado, over their bosom.
From his lofty stand the self-exiled chieftain
looked down upon a country belting a hundred
leagues, swelling or declining through a glorious
variety of hill, and vale, and meadow, with a
thousand streams intersecting the whole, sometimes
mingling with each other, occasionally
ploughing their way through a genial valley,
or cutting deep into the heart of a mountain,
whose slope was covered with forests. A numerous
population lined their banks, or hovered
on their eminences, whose dwellings and national
edifices reared themselves in the air and
darkened the land with their number. Over
those vast, verdant deeps, the prairies, were
scattered, like islands, countless cities, in whose
suburbs tall towers of granite and marble sprang
to the sky, and resembled the masts of ships of
war just putting out from the shore. In another
direction, a mighty bastion of earth, with its
round, green summit, heaved itself into view,
like the back of some huge sea-monster; and
the long grass of the prairies, swept by occasional
winds, rolled to and fro and furnished
the ocean-like surges on which all these objects
rode triumphant.

Upon this scene Bokulla gazed long and
earnestly, while many dark thoughts, and sad
emotions followed each other like the clouds of
summer through his mind, and darkened his
countenance as they passed. Beneath him he
saw a hundred cities devoted to ruin; tower,
and temple, and dwelling, crumbled to the earth,
and no hand lifted to arrest their fall. A wide
populace was wasting away from a robust and
manly vigor, into a pale and shadow-like decrepitude.
Day by day the august majesty of
a prosperous and ambitious nation dwindled
into a shrunken and counterfeit image of itself.
To them there was now no alternation of sunshine
or shadow; seasons passed without their
fruits; the golden summer no longer smiled in
their midst, and generous autumn departed without
a blessing and unheeded.

To these miserable and suffering realms Bokulla
now bade farewell. His present enterprise
might be without fruit, or fraught with
disastrous and fatal results to himself; yet, in
the strength of nature, he would once more presume
to cope with the dreaded enemy, for he
still believed that man must be triumphant, in
the end, over this bestial domination. To man
the earth was given as his kingdom, and all
tribes and classes of creatures were made his
subjects and vassals. In this faith he turned
away from a scene which suggested so many

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

fearful topics of thought, and bent his course
toward the west, guided by such knowledge as
he already enjoyed, and such marks as occurred
to his observation, determined to avoid the face
of man, and to be familiar only with solitude and
danger, until some new means of triumph were
clearly discovered. Pursuing this resolve, he
pushed forward with speed and energy; plucking,
by the way, wild berries and other natural
fruits as food, and drinking of the cool, shaded
rivulet, his only beverage; for, from the first
moment that he had conceived the thought of
this venturous self-exile, he vowed to cast himself
on nature, and to be received and sustained
by her as her worthy child, or to perish as an
alien and an outcast on her bosom. He had,
therefore, come forth unprovided with food, and
trusting entirely to her bounty for supply.

Hand in hand thus with liberal Nature, Bokulla
pressed onward until night-fall, when he
halted, and, sheltering himself safely within the
hollow of a rock, he gathered himself for repose.

Thus for many days did this solitary pilgrim
journey on, seeking no other couch but the
overhanging cliff or the sheltering bank, and
finding no other canopy but the broad, open
sky and the green roof of the branching tree.
A constant grandeur of soul sustained him in
the midst of many pressing hardships, and a
noble purpose bore him forward as the winds
propel the eagle that trusts to their strength.
Guided by apparent tracks and obvious landmarks,
about the middle of the afternoon of
the second day he reached a solemn wood, into
the heart of which he made his way.

He was wearied with travel, and seeing the
remains of a large old oak thrusting themselves
up from the tangled and chequered shade, he
seated himself upon them. The wild underwood
and smaller foliage were twisted into a
thousand fantastic shapes, which wreathed
themselves round, and the prodigal forest-flowers
had scattered their colors here and there
so profusely over the seat which the self-exile
had chosen, as to furnish somewhat the appearance
of a cushioned throne. What wonder
if the resemblance struck the excited imagination
of Bokulla, and his eye glanced about the
forest as if in search of attendants that should
hedge this seat of honor round. “Am I alone
here!” half-muttered the chieftain. “Is all
this pleasant realm of air, and this verdurous
spot of earth void and barren! No, no; I am
not in an unpopulous solitude even here. Airy
citizens throng about me in this remote and unfrequented
wood. Busy hopes, immortal desires,
passions, longings, and aspirations that
lengthen like shadows the nearer we approach
the sunset of life. Mighty and tumultuous
wishes and emotions gather around me in this
pathless and woodland region, and tell me I am
not, that I can not be, alone. Shadowy creatures!
which sway us beyond all corporal powers
and instruments—ye swarm now in these
shaded walks—and foremost Ambition and
Fame, glorious twins! stand forth and tower
in cludy stature, grasping at impossible objects
and plucking at the heavens themselves! Immortal
powers and faculties! in these retired
and natural chambers, I know you as the internal
and silent agencies which are to guide
and sustain me through this hardy and venturous
pilgrimage.”

In this wood he found a suitable shelter and
stretched himself for sleep. Notwithstanding
the great cares with which he was oppressed,
the mind of the chieftain was visited by pleasant
dreams; and he was borne far back from
the gloomy and troubled present, into an old
and cheerful time, where everything wore a
countenance of joy, and a golden atmosphere
floated about all. He wandered along the
banks of mighty streams, watching the careless
flight of birds, or the idle motions of their currents,
on which many vessels of gallant trim,
with every sail set, were hastening toward the
sea. Around him a thousand familiar sounds
made the common music of day; trumpets
were sounded in the distance; citizens were
hurrying forth or home on errands of business,
or pleasure, or tender sorrow; and all was
human and delightful. The chieftain himself
seemed to have the heart of youth, and to ramble
onward amid these pleasant scenes of life
as if no morrow was coming, as if the sun that
was now in mid-heaven would never set.

Near the close of the night, this pageant
passed away, and the slumbers of the champion
were interrupted by a loud sound, like that of
a storm gathering in the distance, and which
drew nearer by, increasing every moment
Presently it seemed to cross the western quarter
of the wood with a clashing and tumultuous
noise, resembling that of a great cataract,
and then it passed far to the northwest, and
died away after a long time, like rattling thunder,
among the distant peaks of the mountains.

Nothing could be more alarming to the imagination
than this midnight tumult, and Bokulla
felt that his situation was like that of the
wretched mariner, whose bark is dashed on
the rocks of some inhospitable shore, where
night and the raging winds press on him behind,
and darkness and the wild beast prepare
to fasten on his weather-beaten body as he
strikes the land. But no sound that Bokulla
had ever known could represent the character
of that which rebellowed, and thundered, and
died away. The stormy shouts of a warlike assault,
the furious outcry of popular rage, the
howling of winter winds, all commixed, would be
an imperfect image of its depth, and strength, and
varying loudness. In the morning, disturbed and
perplexed, he girded himself again to his task, and
shaped his course toward that region of the forest
by which the indescribable tumult had
swept. An hour's swift travel brought him to
a large wooded slope, which presented to his
view, in the uncertain light of a sun obscured
by the gray mist of morning, an astonishing
spectacle. A thousand vast old trees, each

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

large enough for the main column of a temple,
were dashed against the upland and lay there,
leaning half-way down, as if they had contested
against overthrow, like mighty ships, blown
over in the harbor of some great city, when the
north has burst upon them and commanded
that they should veil their pennons and highaspiring
standards.

From obvious footmarks he easily discovered
the course which the strength that caused this
desolation had taken, and pursuing the indications
thus furnished, he was soon out upon an
open plain. The region that now spread before
him was a wide and trackless waste, barren,
void of vegetation, and apparently deserted
of nature. Such herbage as lingered about its
borders, was small, scanty, and withered, and
crept gloomily along the dusty banks of dried-up
brooks and rivolets. Over this arid desert,
as Bokulla slowly plodded, he discovered the
same large foot-prints as he had followed all
along, crossing and re-crossing each other,
sometimes diverging and again keeping straight
on, in a manner so irregular and wandering, as
to bewilder him and set any attempt to pursue
them entirely at nought.

In some places the earth was ploughed up
and rent with seams recently made, and in
others it was scattered far and wide, in irregular
and broken heaps. The whole wilderness
presented an appearance as if it had been recently
trampled by some angry and barbaric
puissance, that had swept it from end to end,
like a storm.

What now rendered his situation still
more perplexing, was that which would seem
at first a source of self-gratulation and comfort,
after the fearful sounds of the preceding
night. A dead silence hung all around him,
which was, if possible, more dreary and depressing
than the unearthly noises of midnight.
A soundless and voiceless quiet filled the air,
the sky, and brooded over the inanimate sea of
sand slumbering at his feet.

Through this confused and desolate region,
the chieftain resolved to make his way to the
summit of some one of the mountains that dominated
this arid plain at its farthest extremity,
and thence, as from a citadel, look abroad and
make such discoveries as he might.

Bokulla at length reached the summit of a
high mountain, and looking forth toward the
east, he beheld a mighty region of hill and valley,
whose immensity astonished and overwhelmed
him. In one direction, a hundred
peaks towered one above the other, until the
farthest was lost, it seemed, on the very threshold
of the sky. In another, torrents dashed
through numerous declivities, tearing down
mountains, it almost seemed, in their rage, and
threatening to wash away the very foundations
of the earth, as they leaped over rocks, and
crags, and rugged precipices. Huge passes
and defiles that ploughed their way through the
bosoms of solid mountains, and led down, as it
were, to the central fires, were visible in other
quarters, and exhibited more or less of their
dreary turnpikes, as the sunlight fell upon one
or the other. As Bokulla looked forth, he descried
a dark object moving slowly along a distant
peak. Sometimes it paused, and then again
advanced; at length it plunged down the mountain-side
into a deep and dark valley, but still
some portion of it was apparent; and at intervals,
as it crossed a seam or gap that intersected
the valley, the whole figure came into view.
Thus it wound through the immense region, almost
the whole time conspicuous to the eye of
the gazer, who, however, was unable to discover
its character, so remote was the distance
at which it moved. At length it emerged from
the many defiles and declivities, among which
it had passed, and came out upon the open
plain.

As a numerous fleet of war-ships, all their
canvass spread, double some one of the Atlantic
capes, and come within the ken of the
anxious watcher on shore, so did this vast object
steer round the mountain-base and stand
before the eye of Bokulla. Like a huge fog
that has settled in autumn upon the ground,
and creeps along until it has mastered the earth
with its broad dimensions, so did the stature
and bulk of the Mastodon tower and enlarge as
it drew nigh. Among those mighty peaks, and
along that immeasurable plain, he seemed to
move the suitable and sole inhabitant. Rocks
piled on rocks, and rivers, the parents of
oceans, calling unto rivers as large, and dreadful
summits that hung over the earth and
threatened to crush it, were not its massy plains
and platforms broad enough to uphold mountains
a hundred fold vaster, this was the proper
birth-place and dwelling of the mightiest creature
of the earth.

Amid these great elements of nature, Bokulla
beheld the motions of the Mastodon as he trode
the earth in gigantic sway; and thought swelled
upon tumultuous thought, as waves that break
over each other in the middle ocean, at each
step of that unparalleled and majestic progress.
What wonder, if at that moment he deemed the
great creature before him unassailable and immortal?
Behemoth passed onward, and for the
first time in many hours was lost to the gaze
of the chieftain, as he entered a dark gap in a
great mountain-range far to the east. Intent
on the daring and venturous purpose which
had drawn him forth into the wilderness, he
descended from his lofty station, and shaped his
course to the barriers within which the unconquered
brute had passed. With incredible labor
he toiled over a thousand obstacles; clambering
high mountains, plodding through gloomy
valleys, and compassing, by contrivance sometimes,
sometimes by sheer strength, broad
streams, he found himself at length, as the
night approached, fixed on a lofty ridge, whence
his eye fell upon a spacious amphitheatre of
meadow, completely shut in by rocks and mountains,
save at a single narrow cut or opening.
In the centre of this he beheld Behemoth

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

couchant (his head turned toward the chieftain
himself) like a sublime image of stone in the
middle of a silent lake. Bokulla exhibited no
symptoms of terror or trepidation, and the beast
lay motionless and quiet. Great emotions filled
the breast of the chieftain as he looked upon
the Mastodon reposing in this fortified solitude.
He closely scrutinized the whole circle of mountains,
and took an accurate survey of the gate
which led out into the open country beyond.
Among other circumstances, he observed large
hollows, here and there, in different quarters of
the plain, as if worn there by the constant habitation
of Behemoth; and also, that as the
wind sighed through the branches of trees that
stood in its centre and along its border, the
Mastodon moved up and down the amphitheatre
with a slow and gentle motion, as if
soothed by the sound.

While he was thus engaged, night descended
upon the scene; and the dark hours were to be
passed by Bokulla alone in that far-off wilderness,
and within reach of the mighty and terrible
foe. As well as he might he addressed
himself to sleep; but it was almost in vain, for
it seemed as if the fearful strength beneath was
slumbering at his side, and as if its tall, cold
shadow fell upon him and froze the very blood
in his veins. Armed beings of an inconceivable
and superhuman stature passed and repassed
before his mind; and the vision of a
conflict mightier than any that his mortal eyes
had ever witnessed, in which huge trumpets
brayed and enormous shields clashed against
each other, swept along. Then it changed,
and it seemed as if the mountains rocked to and
fro, and pent winds strove to topple down peaks
and pinnacles, while in their midst one mighty
Figure, neither of man nor of angel, stood
chained, and, in a deep and fearful voice, cried
to the heavens for succor. Perplexed by images
and visions like these, Bokulla wakened
before the dawn, and turned his steps, with
scarce any guide or landmark, toward his own
home.

And now an appalling fate was before the
champion, for he was without food in the very
centre of the desert. The liberal fare upon
which he had at first subsisted, was gone long
ago, and the scanty supply which nature had
lately furnished from hedges and meadows, had
entirely ceased. Barrenness, barrenness, barrenness,
spread all around. After toil and exertion
of body and mind, almost beyond mortal
strength, he seemed likely to perish in the
wastes with the great project that his soul had
conceived unknown to living man. Interminable
and gloomy disasters lowered over his
country if he should perish in the wilderness.
He struggled onward with anguish and hunger
at his heart.

At last, when his strength was fast ebbing,
he came at night-fall upon a vast open plain,
and dragged himself, with a pang in every step,
to a crag that jutted, like a great fang, in its
very centre. Upon this he raised himself, and
with features sternly set against the darkness,
awaited his fate. Narrower and narrower the
great circle of the horizon closed upon him,
binding him where he sat in an inexorable
grasp. A black universe pressed upon him on
every side, and seemed eager to smother him
up in gloom. Against hunger and terrible darkness
and death, he folded his arms. Even then
he strained his gaze through the thick night,
toward the quarter of the sky under which lay
the homes of the Mound-builders, as if to learn
by some light that flickered up in the distance,
whether any, the faintest hope, kindled a fire-side
among them yet. Blackness and infinite
gloom alone swelled about him, and filled the
whole heaven.

No sleep came to his eyes that night, nor
was he altogether wakeful, but lingered in a
middle world, where the images of the new
being and the old held him fast, or yielded him
for a time to the other. At one time, a voice
was at his ear, whispering peace and tranquil
hours henceforth for ever; a voice that came
he knew from a shining face. At another, a
cry, as of one shrieking in excess of pain,
came booming through the dark, and cut all
his human sense of suffering to the quick.

At length the slow morning dawned again,
and looking forward, where he thought he had
discerned a dull marsh stretching to bar his
way, he found instead a long green line of
verdure, smiling freshly in the eye of the light.
In its very midst there stood a calm, brown
bird, reposing with an infinite quietude, with
an eye obliquely turned upward, contemplatively
regarding the sun, and stretching its wings
to catch the warm breeze that rippled past.

A new pleasure shot into the soul of the
champion, beholding this easy mirth of nature—
this so-great repose: the bird heaving itself
sluggishly on the wing, crept lazily off through
the air; and, regarding it, while his mind was
thus gently moved, a sound, as of a beautiful
hoof set upon the earth, struck upon his ear.
He turned back, and at the spot from which
the bird had taken flight, there stood a steed,
so young, so smooth, so shapely in every limb,
and so like a happy creature of darkness in
every line of its glossy black, that Bokulla
mused upon it as upon a vision.

Tranquil as the air it stood, its head uplifted
only and drinking in the sky, with its neck
stretched far away toward the home of the
champion. Bokulla knew the omen, and with
a spirit fresh and unbroken he stood beside the
steed, and at a bound was his master.

Away they flew—the crag, the plain, the
sky dying behind them at a thought. Gently
through fair green glades—at a bound over vales
and rugged steeps—swiftly past stupendous
peaks, that held aloft their dazzling snow-sheets,
as with a mighty tented staff—along a heavy
river that strove to run an even race with
them,—past cataracts that burst on the wilderness
in crashing peels—they speeded on. Over
hills, through forests, and along stream-sides,

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

the wondrous flight kept on all that day and all
that night too (Heaven in its deep providences
knew how), when, at the next day's dawn, upon
a mountain-brow the steed stayed his steps,
and a populous city burst upon the gaze of Bokulla,
directly at his feet. The steed stood
still in the immoveable quiet in which the chieftain
first beheld him—silent, gentle, beautiful,
the calm counter-image to Behemoth. Wide
upon the plain below the scattered Mound-builders
stood about, striving to worship as of
old; and as their lifted look fell upon the new
vision, they clapped their hands for joy, and
shouted like men before whose shipwrecked
gaze land suddenly springs to view. It showed
to them fair, beautiful indeed, but when,
breaking the spell of silence and quietude that
held him, the steed hastened down the mountain-side,
and galloped through their streets,
they beheld the rider—his features gaunt and
unearthly, his hair streaming wildly to the
wind—they fled from his steps with a new
fear.

Some sought refuge in their dwellings,
while others rushed out to gaze upon him
as he scampered, wild and spectre-like, along
the distance; and others gathered together,
and, in subdued voices, conjectured or canvassed
the character of the sudden apparition.
Many wild guesses and shrewd suggestions
were ventured.

“This is a fiend of the prairie,” said one, “he
that rambles up and down the big meadow,
blowing his horn, and who calls the wolves and
goblins together when a carcass is thrown out
or a traveller perishes in crossing them.”

“It is a lunatic, escaped from his friends,”
said a second, “who has been out, seeking his
wits in the mountains.”

“You are wide of the mark, my good sirs,”
said another, a sharp-eyed little man, glaring
about and looking up at the windows, as if
afraid of being overheard; and the group
pressed more closely about him, as if expecting
a communication of great weight and shrewdness—
“a whole bowshot wide of the mark—it
is the keeper of Behemoth!”

At this they all turned pale and lifted up their
eyes in astonishment, and admitted that nothing
could be nearer the truth.

By this time Bokulla had reached his own
door, and, throwing himself from his steed of
the desert, prepared to enter in; but, ere he
could effect this object, several stout citizens
pressed before him and arrested his steps.

“Wherefore is this?” said the foremost,
“will you rush into a house of mourning in
this guise? Know you not that this is the
mansion of Bokulla the champion—and that his
widow is in sackcloth and tears within? Begone
elsewhere, madman!”

This remonstrance was seconded by another,
and a third, until it swelled so high that the
crowd would have seized him, and wreaked
some injury upon his person, had he not succeeded
in obtaining a moment's pause; and,
standing on an elevation, he shouted out,
“Peace, Mound-builders, it is Bokulla before
you!”

At this declaration many began to recognise
in the shrunken features and toil-worn frame
before them, their great champion and chieftain,
and a shout was raised, “Life and health
to Bokulla, the father of his country!” “Pleasant
dew fall upon him!” “Long may he tread
the green earth under his feet!” and many national
invocations and blessings.

The rumor now spread rapidly abroad, and
the cry was taken up, wherever it reached, and
renewed with hearty goodwill, for all were rejoiced
at the return of their great leader, whom
some had considered lost for ever, and who all
admitted was the only one that could contend,
with any chance of success, against their barbaric
foe. Even the little group of gossips that
had construed him into a fiend, a lunatic, and
the keeper of Behemoth, but a moment before,
now rushed eagerly forward, and were among
the first to welcome him back, the sharp-eyed
little man invoking a special blessing on his
pleasant countenance, which looked, he said,
“like that of a saving angel!” Escaping from
these numerous tokens of admiration and regard,
Bokulla withdrew into his dwelling, and
the crowd, after lingering about for many hours
to glean such information as they might of his
absence and to catch a view of his person, at
length dispersed, each, he knew not why, with
a lighter heart, and more joyous look, than
had fallen to his lot for many long and weary
months.—

From the dwelling of Bokulla let us turn our
steps, for a while, toward the suburbs of the
city, and enter the sick-chamber of Kluckhatch,
the blusterer. The adventure of that valiant
pretender against Behemoth had been accompanied
with serious, and, from the aspect they
at present assumed, perhaps fatal consequences.
The alarm of spirits which he had
suffered, together with the dreary submersion
in the pool, had thrown the adventurer into a
violent ague. Day by day the malady became
more tyrannical, and the mind of Kluckhatch
more fretful and restless. His soul seemed,
like the sun, to expand as it approached its final
eclipse, and nature, who, at his birth, had
exhibited the art and skill of a bottle-conjurer
in crowding so puissant a spirit into so narrow
a body, now seemed at a loss to drive the obstinate
tenant from its residence. The little man
clung more desperately to life the more forcible
the attempt made to wrest it from him. The
pale ague assailed him with its whole band of
forces; throttling him by the throat, as it were,
it essayed, by rough and uncourteous usage, to
shake the vital spirit from him, but it adhered
closer and closer, and the attempt of nature to
cast off the pigmy militant, resembled that of
a horse, in whose flank, on a midsummer's day,
a burr has chanced to fix itself; he feels annoyed
and irritated—he whisks the hairy brush
to and fro—he runs—he gallops—he rears—he

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

plunges, but all in vain, the barbarous annoyance
clings to him with the more zeal, until, at
some quiet moment, it drops gently from its
hold, and disturbs him no more. Thus stood
the account between nature and Kluckhatch.
In his bed he lay, trembling like an earthquake
or an ocean, under the coverlid. After a while
the ague relaxed, and the fever came on; and
then he sat up in his couch, and grasping a
wooden sword, which had been made to amuse
his sick and distempered fancy, he made airy
thrusts and lounges, and called out as if he
were plunging it deep in invisible ribs, or hacking
at the head of some monstrous chimera.
Then, again, he would appear to seize the end
of some palpable object, and, drawing it along,
would measure and cut off pieces of a yard in
length at a time. It was evident, from the whole
tenor of his strange action, that the Mastodon
was in his phantasy; and this was amply confirmed
by his breaking out, after the fever had
partially subsided, into the following wild invectives,
with a gasp between each, into which
his soul seems to have thrown its whole collected
powers.

“This huge bully; this fleshly continent;
this vagabond traveller; this beast mountain;
this tornado in leather; this bristly goblin;”—

“Pray be calm, Kluckhatch,” whispered the
shock-headed youth, who stood at his bedside,
terrified and quaking.

“This huge, moving show; this two-horned
wonder; this tempest of bull's-beef; this land-leviathan;
fiend; wood-elf; this devil's ambassador;
this territory of calves'-hide, stretched
on a mountain; this untanned libel on leather-dressers;
this unhung homicide;”—

“Uncle Kluckhatch,” again interrupted his
attendant, “Uncle Kluckhatch, wherefore do
you rail after this fashion? you but madden
your fever.”

“This empire of bones and sinew; this monstrous
government on legs; this tyrant with a
tail; this rake-helly; this night-brawler; this
measureless disgust; this lusty thresher, with
his endless flail; this magnified ox; this walking
abomination; this enormous discord, sounding
in base; this huge, tuneless trombone;”—

The sick dwarf fell back on his pillow, exhausted,
his lips still moving as if laden with
other bitter epithets of denunciation. His hour
now rapidly drew nigh; his strength gradually
ebbed away, and, at length, the conviction
that he must die forced its way into the heavy
brain of Kluckhatch. In a few words he made
his humble, and, of course, lean will. “I leave,”
said he, to his gaping companion, “I leave to
you my fame, my virtues, and my drum!” He
then gave directions for his burial, which, if
obeyed, would make it a spectacle rare and unexampled;
and, rising once more in his bed,
he said he wished to expire in a sitting attitude.

The last sinking wave of life was dying upon
the shore. His simple attendant had taken
in his hand, to survey its fashion and its prop
erties, the testamentary bequest of his departing
friend.

“Strike up! strike up, once more!” exclaimed
Kluckhatch, as his eye kindled with the
gleam of death, and as the first sounds rolled
from the drum under the obedient hand of its
new possessor, the spirit of the pretender, mingling
with them, left the earth.

The second morning after his death, at an
early hour, the funeral procession set out from
the domicil of Kluckhatch for the tomb of his
forefathers, a snug family vault, just beyond the
skirts of the town. Under the direction of the
shock-headed youth, who enacted the master of
ceremonies, the solemn cavalcade was drawn
up, and proceeded in the following order:

First, led on by the legatee himself, in front
of whose person hung suspended the testamentary
drum, hobbled slowly along a sorry and
cadaverous jade, which had been the pack-saddle
of Kluckhatch in his strolling tours. One
eye of the sad creature was wholly closed and
useless, but the other, as if to make amends,
was a sea-green orb of twice the ordinary dimension,
and, with its ample circle of white,
blazed like the moon crossing the milky-way
in the sky. His lank, hollow body bore clear
evidence of the neglected meadows and scant
mangers of the Mound-builders; for he had
been on fast, broken by occasional spare morsels,
for more than a month, and glided along
in the procession like a spectre. Behind this
monkish-looking beast followed a low wagon
or four-wheeled cart, drawn by a pair of venerable
and spiritless bisons, in which sat the
blusterer himself, erect and in the costume of
every-day life, his strange red coat shining like
a meteor, conspicuous from afar, while his conical
cap nodded gayly to the one side or the
other, as the wind swayed it. The strange
whipster held the reins firmly between his skeleton
fingers, and exhibited on his countenance
a broad, ghastly grin, which, at the first view,
startled the beholders, but after they had recovered
from the shock, caused them to burst into
a hearty laugh. On each side of the vehicle
thus strangely driven, marched, in serious order,
six sturdy men, each bearing a huge rustic
pipe or whistle, wrought of reed, on which
they blew soft and melancholy music. Behind
the wagon, the favorite dog of Kluckhatch,
crestfallen and whining, was led in a string.
In the rear of this faithful mourner followed the
friends and admirers of the deceased, and after
these scrambled a promiscuous rout of his town'speople,
of every variety, age, sex, and hue.

Creation itself, both overhead and on the
earth, was something in unison with the grotesque
obsequies. In one quarter of the sky,
which resembled the bottom of a rich sea, suddenly
disclosed, a vast cloud, like a whale,
floundered and tumbled over the azure depths.
In another, the clouds lay piled in heaps of
shining silver; here they assumed the form of
a shattered wreck, fleecy vapors standing out

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

as mast or bowsprit, with evanescent bars for
rigging, and there a black and jagged mass of
them, stretched along like a reef of dangerous
and stubborn rocks. Lower down, a small, dismantled
fragment, mottled with white, sunlit
scales, represented a mackerel, at full length,
opening his mouth and biting at the tail of a
cloudy grampus that stood rampant just over-head.
In the midair, drawn thither by the strangely
exposed remains of Kluckhatch, a sable-coated
troop of ravens kept the procession company,
occasionally demanding, in coarse, rude clamors,
their reversionary right in the deceased.
Now and then a timid bird put forth his head
from the trees and bushes at the roadside, and
twittering for a moment, and seeming to smile
at the defunct rider, hopped back into its cool
hiding-place.

In a little while they reached the place of
burial, a small, suburban vault, the passage to
which, through a wooden door, led down to a
score of cells or apartments, all of which, save
one, were occupied. Over the entrance to the
vault stood the weather-bleached skeleton of a
robustious ancestor of Kluckhatch, balancing
on one of his short, stout legs, flourishing
the other as if in the act of going through a
pirouette, and holding, in his outstretched right
hand, the effigies of an owl, the favorite family
bird and device.

For what reason, or whether for any, the little,
queer skeleton occupied this position, it
would be now difficult to decide. Perhaps, in
his lifetime, he had been a hard, weather-beaten
hunter, who preferred to be left thus in the
free, naked air, and under the open sky, which
during life he had enjoyed without stint or circumscription.
Passing underneath the figure
of this portentous guardian, and through the
passage, they bore the mortal remains of the
last of the Kluckhatches, and placed them in
their upright posture in the only cell which remained
untenanted. The moment it was known
that the corse was deposited in its final place
of rest, the twelve stout whistlers let off four
successive volleys of their peculiar music; the
dog came forward and howled, and the shock-headed
youth stood at the entrance of the vault
sobbing and weeping, while the beast, whose
halter he held in his hand, silently devoured
the drumhead and looked inside for further viands.
A few moments more and the door was
closed for ever between the world and Kluckhatch.—

The unexpected departure of Bokulla from
their midst had been a source of fruitful and
anxious speculation to the Mound-builders.
They were conscious of his absence, as if the
great orb itself had left the skies and deprived
the earth of its light and influence. His presence
diffused among them the only cheerful ray
that enlightened their gloomy condition; and
although his recent enterprise had proved disastrous,
they were satisfied that the great chieftain
would promptly grasp the first favoring cir
cumstance, and energetically use it against the
fearful foe.

Of the causes of his absence none were advised,
nor as to the direction his steps had taken.
Some dreaded lest he had gone forth to
perish by his own hand in the wilderness; and,
by these, scouts had been dismissed in every
quarter, to bring back the fugitive warrior, or
his body, for honorable sepulture, if he had perished.
The agitation and fear, excited by the
causeless and unexplained absence of Bokulla,
were only less than those occasioned by the terrible
presence of the Mastodon. His return,
therefore, was welcomed with every demonstration
of rejoicing. Lights were displayed,
as glad signals, from every tower; processions
and cavalcades were formed to make triumphal
marches through the realm, and bodies of citizens
constantly gathered under the window of
the chieftain, to express their delight at his return.
During a whole week this universal festivity
was sustained, and it seemed as if the
flower of national hope once more blossomed
in their midst. Merry games were celebrated
in their gardens; religious worship again assumed
its robe, and walked forth with serene
and placid features in the traces of its early
duty.

What gave additional animation to this unwonted
scene was, that Behemoth, during its
continuance, ceased to sadden or alarm them
with his presence; it may have been that the
dazzling splendor of the illumination, and the
loud sound of innumerable instruments all
playing together, kept him back.

About two weeks after the return of the self-exiled
chieftain, and at the close of their joyous
celebrations, he appeared before the Mound-builders,
and declared “that his strange and
unexplained absence had not been without its
uses. Nature,” he said, “had put forth her
mighty hand and generously furnished the
means of deliverance. Liberty was now before
them, but it must be attained through many
perils and through toil, sanctified, perchance,
with blood. Like the swimmer that nears the
shore, they must now buffet the wave of hostile
fortune with their sternest strength. It might
be that once more the firm and smiling continent
of joy, of honor, and peace, could be
reached. If so, Heaven should be praised with
a deep sense of gratitude, and the realm should
ring through all its borders with sounds of glorious
triumph!”

He then stated that he had discovered in his
wanderings a mighty meadow where Behemoth
was wont to pasture; and that if they would
choose a delegation to visit it in company with
himself, he would endeavor to point them to a
sure and safe method of subduing the enemy.

At this suggestion the populace shouted
loudly, and echoed the name of Bokulla with
the most eager and fervent expressions of admiration.
They readily appointed three eminent
citizens to accompany him. The next

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morning they set out, and having in due course
of time reached the locality, they selected an
elevation which commanded the whole prospect
at once.

All admitted, as they looked upon the high
walls that girt the broad and spacious meadow,
and on the single narrow opening which led
from the enclosure, that nature had furnished
an extraordinary aid toward the capture of the
invincible brute. Far around on both sides
from the central position which they occupied,
the stupendous upright battlement of mountains
stretched—a peak here and there shooting
up an immense tower, and a crag occasionally
thrusting itself forth from the general mass of
perpendicular rocks, like the quaint head of a
beast, or the rugged and ugly features of a human
being, as the fancy chose to give it shape
and likeness. The whole hedged in a meadow
covered with a fertile growth of tall, rich verdure—
dotted by a few scattered trees—and intersected
by a stream of considerable breadth
and depth, which flowed through its centre,
and formed an outlet in a narrow passage underneath
the mountains. The natural opening
leading from this broad enclosure, was about
five hundred feet wide, and walled on either
side by gigantic fragments of stone, from whose
huge posterns it seemed as if in an earlier age
of the world an immense gate may have swung
and shut in captives of mighty size and fearful
guilt. Nothing could be conceived a more secure
and dreadful prison than these vast walls
of rock: and no solitude could be more dreary
than one thus fortified as it were by nature,
and made sublimely desolate by barriers and
enclosures like these.

All felt, thus gazing, the grandeur of the
thought presented to their mind by Bokulla,
and they turned and looked upon the countenance
of the chieftain, as if they expected to
discover there features more than human. Bokulla
stood silent.

“The thought is mighty and worthy of Bokulla!”
at length, exclaimed one of his companions,
a man of generous and ardent heart;
“here we triumph or the story of our life closes
in endless defeat, and our fate makes us and
ours perpetual bondmen.”

“Who is it,” interposed a second of less sanguine
temper, “who is it that dare visit the
panther in his den? or grasp the thunder from
its cloud on the mountain-top?—It were as safe
to climb into the eagle's nest as disturb this
monstrous creature in his lair!”

“Terrible as the north when it lightens and
is full of storms—inexorable as death, will be
the encounter!” cried a supporter of the second
speaker—“I would sooner plunge headlong
from a tower, than venture within this guarded
enclosure!”

“What say you, my friends!” cried Bokulla,
springing to his feet, “what say you to an embassy
to the brute on bended knee? I doubt
not if we came as humble worshippers and suppliants,
and consented to choose him as our na
tional idol, he would abate something of his
fierceness!”

“Now heaven and all good planets forbid!”
cried his companions with one accord.

“Nothing better and nothing nobler, then,
may be tried, than the great suggestion of Bokulla!”
said the first speaker. “Here let us
wrestle with fate and die, then, if die we must,
in this broad and open arena, where the heavens
themselves, and the inexorable stars, shall be
witnesses of our struggle!”

Taking up their position on an elevated rock,
shaded by trees which overlooked the whole
scene, they consulted as to the most proper and
speedy method of accomplishing their purpose.

After a consultation of several hours, during
which the sun had fallen far in the west, and
after weighing anxiously every circumstance
that could have bearing or influence on the
event, they determined in their open councilchamber,
amid the solemn silence of the wilderness,
that an attempt must be made to imprison
Behemoth in the vast, natural dungeon
at their feet, by building a stout wall across its
present opening.

And furthermore, that it would be matter of
afterthought to decide, if successful in the first,
by what means his death was to be wrought.
Their resolves had scarcely taken this shape,
when a heavy shadow fell suddenly in their
midst, as if a thick cloud had covered the sun;
and looking forth for its source, they beheld
Behemoth walking silently and ponderously
along the ridge of the opposite mountains.
They arrested their deliberations, and rising in
a body, watched the progress and actions of the
brute. In a short time he descended from the
summit, and attaining its foot by a sloping and
broad path, in a moment presented himself at
the gap, which conducted into the mountainous
amphitheatre. Stalking through, he advanced
to its far extremity, and stretching himself on
the bank of the stream, and in the cool shadow
of the mountains, he prepared for repose.

His companions had already learned from
Bokulla, that the Mastodon was in the habit of
paying long periodical visits to this place, and
of feeding, for considerable periods of time, on
its abundant and savory verdure. Nothing
could have been more opportune to their consulation
than the arrival of Behemoth. His
sudden coming was an argument for activity
and despatch.

The fifth day from this, the Mound-builders
arrived in considerable numbers, in a wood
near the amphitheatre, bringing with them in
wagons the tools and implements required in
the proposed labor. They immediately set
about the task, and commenced hewing large
blocks of stone and dragging them to the mouth
of the gap, but not so near as to obstruct it.
The whole body of workmen that had come
from the Mound-builders' villages had labored
at this task for a week, and they found that in
that time sufficient stone had been hewn to
build the wall from base to summit. Each

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

block was more than twelve feet square, and
through its centre was drilled a hole of some
six inches diameter, in which to insert bars of
metal, to bind them more firmly together.

As soon as they were prepared to commence
the erection of the wall, which was the most
critical part of their labors, four or five separate
bands of musicians were stationed at the farther
end of the enclosure, and near to Behemoth:
for they knew, from Bokulla's report,
that the Mastodon, mighty and terrible as he
was, could be soothed by the influence of music,
adroitly managed.

The moment the work of heaving the vast
square blocks one upon the other began, the
musicians, at a given signal, commenced playing,
and during the progress of the labor, ran
through all the variety of gentle tunes: so that
the wall, like that of Amphion, sprang up under
the spell of music. So cunningly did the
different bands master their instruments, that,
at three different times, when the Mastodon
had turned his step toward the gap at which
the Mound-builders labored, they lured him
back, and held him spell-bound and motionless.

The blocks were hoisted to their places by
cranes, and the utmost silence was observed in
every movement; not even a voice was lifted
to command, but every direction was given
with the pointed finger. No one moved from
his station during the hours of toil, but each
stood on his post and executed his portion of
the task like a part of the machinery. And yet
there was no lack of spirit; every one labored
as if for his own individual redemption, and
one who beheld them plying amid the massive
fragments of granite, silent and busy, might
have thought that they were some rebellious
crew of beings brought into the wilderness by
a genius or necromancer, and there compelled,
speechless and uncomplaining, to do his bidding.

They labored in this way for more than a
month, and at the end of that time, Bokulla
proclaimed from its summit that the wall was
completed. At the announcement, the whole
host of artisans and laborers, and innumerable
women and children, who had come from the
villages, sent up a shout that rent the air. Behemoth
heard it, and, listening only for a moment,
browsed on among the tall grass as if
regardless of its source and its object. In a
few days, however, after the music had ceased
its gentle influence, and the supply of pasturage
began to be less luxuriant, the Mastodon
made progress toward the old outlet, with the
determination of seeking food elsewhere.

He, of course, sought an outlet in vain, and
found himself standing at the base of an immense
rampart, which shot sheer up two hundred
and fifty feet in air. He surveyed the
structure, and soon discovered that it was no
trifling barrier, but a mighty pile of rocks, that
showed themselves almost as massive and firm
as the mountains which they bound together.
At first, Behemoth thought, although it would
be idle to attempt to shake the whole mass at
once, that yet the separate parts might be removed
block by block. With this purpose he endeavored
to force his white tusks between them,
but it was in vain; they were knit too firmly
together to be sundered. At length, the great
brute was maddened by these fruitless efforts,
and retreating several hundred rods, he rushed
against the wall with tremendous strength and
fury.

The Mound-builders, who overlooked the
structure, trembled for its safety, but it stood
stiff, and the shock caused Behemoth to recoil
discomfited, while the earth shook with
the weight and violence of the motion. Over
and over again these assaults were repeated,
always with the same result. Wearied with
the attempt, the Mastodon desisted, and returned
to feed upon the diminished pasturage,
which he had before deserted. He had soon
browsed on it to its very roots, and began to feed
on the commoner grass and weeds, scarcely palatable.
In a day these had all vanished, and he
turned to the trees which were here and there
scattered over the meadow. These he devoured,
foliage, limb, and trunk.—In a few
days they were wholly exhausted, and the enclosed
plain was reduced to a desert—pastureless,
herbless, and treeless.

The impatience and wrath of Behemoth now
knew no bounds. He saw no possible mode of
escape from this dreary and foodless waste.
Around and around the firm colosseum which
enclosed him, he rushed, maddened, bellowing,
and foaming.

At times, in his fury, he pushed up the almost
perpendicular sides of the mountains and
recoiled, bringing with him shattered fragments
of rock and large masses of earth, with fearful
force and swiftness. Around and around he
again galloped and trampled, shaking the very
mountains with his ponderous motions, and filling
their whole circuit with his terrible howlings
and cries. The Mound-builders who stood
upon the wall, and on different parts of the
mountains, shrunk back affrighted and awe-stricken
before the deadly glare of his eye, and
the fearful and agonizing sound of his voice.

Day by day he became more furious, and his
roar assumed a more touching and dreadful
sharpness. All sustenance was gone from the
plain; the whole space within his reach furnished
nothing but rocks and earth, for he had
already drunk the stream dry to its channel.

The mighty brute was perishing of hunger in
the centre of his prison.

His strength was now too far wasted to admit
of the violent and gigantic efforts which he
had at first made to escape from the famine-stricken
enclosure, and he now stalked up and
down its barren plain, uttering awful and heart-rending
cries. Some of the Mound-builders
who heard them, and who saw the agonies and
sufferings of Behemoth, although he had been
their most cruel enemy, could not refrain from
tears. So universal is humanity in its scope,
that it can feel for everything that has life.

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