The world seemed going to destruction.I could not see anything, the flood poured down savagely.I raised my head, with open mouth, and the most of the American cataract went down my throat.If I had sprung a leak now I had been lost.And at this moment I discovered that the bridge had ceased, and we must trust for a foothold to the slippery and precipitous rocks.I never was so scared before and survived it.But we got through at last, and emerged into the open day, where we could stand in front of the laced and frothy and seething world of descending water, and look at it.When I saw how much of it there was, and how fearfully in earnest it was, I was sorry I had gone behind it.
The noble Red Man has always been a friend and darling of mine.I love to read about him in tales and legends and romances.I love to read of his inspired sagacity, and his love of the wild free life of mountain and forest, and his general nobility of character, and his stately metaphorical manner of speech, and his chivalrous love for the dusky maiden, and the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements.
Especially the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements.When Ifound the shops at Niagara Falls full of dainty Indian beadwork, and stunning moccasins, and equally stunning toy figures representing human beings who carried their weapons in holes bored through their arms and bodies, and had feet shaped like a pie, I was filled with emotion.
I knew that now, at last, I was going to come face to face with the noble Red Man.
A lady clerk in a shop told me, indeed, that all her grand array of curiosities were made by the Indians, and that they were plenty about the Falls, and that they were friendly, and it would not be dangerous to speak to them.And sure enough, as I approached the bridge leading over to Luna Island, I came upon a noble Son of the Forest sitting under a tree, diligently at work on a bead reticule.He wore a slouch hat and brogans, and had a short black pipe in his mouth.Thus does the baneful contact with our effeminate civilization dilute the picturesque pomp which is so natural to the Indian when far removed from us in his native haunts.I addressed the relic as follows:
"Is the Wawhoo-Wang-Wang of the Whack-a-Whack happy? Does the great Speckled Thunder sigh for the war-path, or is his heart contented with dreaming of the dusky maiden, the Pride of the Forest? Does the mighty Sachem yearn to drink the blood of his enemies, or is he satisfied to make bead reticules for the pappooses of the paleface? Speak, sublime relic of bygone grandeur--venerable ruin, speak!"The relic said:
"An' is it mesilf, Dennis Hooligan, that ye'd be takon' for a dirty Injin, ye drawlin', lantern-jawed, spider-legged divil! By the piper that played before Moses, I'll ate ye!"I went away from there.
By and by, in the neighborhood of the Terrapin Tower, I came upon a gentle daughter of the aborigines in fringed and beaded buckskin moccasins and leggins, seated on a bench with her pretty wares about her.
She had just carved out a wooden chief that had a strong family resemblance to a clothes-pin, and was now boring a hole through his abdomen to put his bow through.I hesitated a moment, and then addressed her:
"Is the heart of the forest maiden heavy? Is the Laughing Tadpole lonely? Does she mourn over the extinguished council-fires of her race, and the vanished glory of her ancestors? Or does her sad spirit wander afar toward the hunting-grounds whither her brave Gobbler-of-the-Lightnings is gone? Why is my daughter silent? Has she ought against the paleface stranger?"The maiden said:
"Faix, an' is it Biddy Malone ye dare to be callin' names? Lave this, or I'll shy your lean carcass over the cataract, ye sniveling blaggard!"I adjourned from there also.
"Confound these Indians!" I said."They told me they were tame; but, if appearances go for anything, I should say they were all on the warpath."I made one more attempt to fraternize with them, and only one.I came upon a camp of them gathered in the shade of a great tree, ****** wampum and moccasins, and addressed them in the language of friendship: