There are few things more delightfully refreshing, amid the fierce fervour of midsummer, than to forsake the stifled, polluted atmosphere of the city for the cool breezes of its forest suburbs. A freshened elasticity seems gliding through the languid system, bracing up the prostrated fibres of the frame; the nerves thrill with renewed tensity, and the vital flood courses in fuller gush, and leaps onward with more bounding buoyancy in its fevered channels. Every one has experienced this; and it was under circumstances like these that I found myself one bright day, after a delay at St. Louis which began at length to be intolerably tedious, forsaking the sultry, sun-scorched streets of [155] the city, and crossing the turbid flood for a tour upon the prairies of Illinois. How delightful to a frame just freed from the feverish confinement of a sick-chamber, brief though it had been, was the fresh breeze which came careering over the water, rippling along the polished surface, and gayly riding the miniature waves of its own creation! The finest point from which to view the little "City of the French" is from beneath the enormous sycamores upon the opposite bank of the Mississippi. It is from this spot alone that anything approaching to a cosmorama can be commanded. The city, retreating as it does from the river's brink—its buildings of every diversity of form, material, and structure, promiscuously heaped the one upon the other, and the whole intermingled with the fresh green of forest-trees, may boast of much scenic beauty. The range of white limestone warehouses, circling like a crescent the shore, form the most prominent feature of the foreground, while the forest of shrub-oaks sweeps away in the rear. For some time I gazed upon this imposing view, and then, slowly turning my horse's head, was upon the dusty thoroughfare to Edwardsville. For the first time I found myself upon the celebrated "American Bottom," a tract of country which, for fertility and depth of soil, is perhaps unsurpassed in the world. A fine road of baked loam extended along my route. Crossing Cahokia Creek, which cuts its deep bed diagonally through the bottom from the bluffs some six miles distant, and threading a grove of the beautiful pecan, with its long trailing boughs and [156] delicate leaves, my path was soon winding gracefully away among those venerable monuments of a race now passed from the earth. The eye is struck at first by the number of these eminences, as well as by their symmetry of form and regularity of outline; and the most familiar resemblance suggested is that of gigantic hay-ricks sprinkled over the uniform surface of the prairie on every side. As you advance, however, into the plain, leaving the range of mounds upon the left, something of arrangement is detected in their relative position; and a design too palpable is betrayed to mistake them for the handiwork of Nature. Upward of one hundred of these mounds, it is stated, may be enumerated within seven miles of St. Louis, their altitude varying from ten to sixty feet, with a circumference at the base of about as many yards. One of these, nearly in the centre of the first collection, is remarked as considerably larger than those around, and from its summit is commanded an extensive view of the scene. The group embraces, perhaps, fifty tumuli, sweeping off from opposite the city to the northeast, in form of a crescent, parallel to the river, and at a distance from it of about one mile: they extend about the same distance, and a belt of forest alone obstructs their view from the city. When this is removed, and the prairie is under cultivation, the scene laid open must be beautiful. The outline of the mounds is ordinarily that of a gracefully-rounded cone of varying declivity, though often the form is oblong, approaching the rectangle or ellipse. In some instances [157] they are perfectly square, with a level area upon the summit sufficient for a dwelling and the necessary purlieus. Most of them are clothed with dense thickets and the coarse grass of the bottom; while here and there stands out an aged oak, rooted in the mould, tossing its green head proudly to the breeze, its rough bark shaggy with moss, and the pensile parasite flaunting from its branches. Some few of the tumuli, however, are quite naked, and present a rounded, beautiful surface from the surrounding plain. At this point, about half a mile from the river-bank, commencing with the first group of mounds, extends the railroad across the bottom to the bluffs. The expense of this work was considerable. It crosses a lake, into the bed of which piles were forced a depth of ninety feet before a foundation for the tracks sufficiently firm could be obtained. Coal is transported to St. Louis upon this railway direct from the mines; and the beneficial effects to be anticipated from it in other respects are very great. A town called Pittsburg has been laid out at the foot of the coal bluffs.127

Leaving the first collection of tumuli, the road wound away smooth and uniform through the level prairie, with here and there upon the left a slight elevation from its low surface, seeming a continuation of the group behind, or a link of union to those yet before. It was a sweet afternoon; the atmosphere was still and calm, and summer's golden haze was sleeping magnificently on the far-off bluffs. At intervals the soft breath of the "sweet South" [158] came dancing over the tall, glossy herbage, and the many-hued prairie-flowers flashed gayly in the sunlight. There was the heliotrope, in all its gaudy but magnificent forms; there the deep cerulean of the fringed gentiana, delicate as an iris; there the mellow gorgeousness of the solidago, in some spots along the pathway, spreading out itself, as it were, into a perfect "field of the cloth of gold;" and the balmy fragrance of the aromatic wild thyme or the burgamot, scattered in rich profusion over the plain, floated over all. Small coveys of the prairie-fowl, tetrao pratensis, a fine species of grouse, the ungainly form of the partridge, or that of the timid little hare, would appear for a moment in the dusty road, and, on my nearer approach, away they hurriedly scudded beneath the friendly covert of the bright-leaved sumach or the thickets of the rosebush. Extensive groves of the wild plum and the crab-apple, bending beneath the profusion of clustering fruitage, succeeded each other for miles along the path as I rode onward; now extending in continuous thickets, and then swelling up like green islets from the surface of the plain, their cool recesses affording a refreshing shade for the numerous herds. The rude farmhouse, too, with its ruder outbuildings, half buried in the dark luxuriance of its maize-fields, from time to time was seen along the route.

After a delightful drive of half an hour the second group of eminences, known as the "Cantine Mounds," appeared upon the prairie at a distance of three or four miles, the celebrated "Monk Hill," largest monument of the kind yet discovered in North America, heaving up its giant, forest-clothed [159] form in the midst.128 What are the reflections to which this stupendous earth-heap gives birth? What the associations which throng the excited fancy? What a field for conjecture! What a boundless range for the workings of imagination! What eye can view this venerable monument of the past, this mighty landmark in the lapse of ages, this gray chronicler of hoary centuries, and turn away uninterested?

As it is first beheld, surrounded by the lesser heaps, it is mistaken by the traveller for an elevation of natural origin: as he draws nigh, and at length stands at the base, its stupendous magnitude, its lofty summit, towering above his head and throwing its broad shadow far across the meadow; its slopes ploughed with yawning ravines by the torrents of centuries descending to the plain; its surface and declivities perforated by the habitations of burrowing animals, and carpeted with tangled thickets; the vast size of the aged oaks rearing themselves from its soil; and, finally, the farmhouse, with its various structures, its garden, and orchard, and well rising upon the broad area of the summit, and the carriage pathway winding up from the base, all confirm his impression that no hand but that of the Mightiest could have reared the enormous mass. At that moment, should he be assured that this vast earth-heap was of origin demonstrably artificial, he would smile; but credulity the most sanguine would fail to credit the assertion. But when, with jealous eye, slowly and cautiously, and with measured footsteps, he has circled its base; when he has surveyed its slopes and declivities from every position, and has [160] remarked the peculiar uniformity of its structure and the mathematical exactitude of its outline; when he has ascended to its summit, and looked round upon the piles of a similar character by which it is surrounded; when he has taken into consideration its situation upon a river-bottom of nature decidedly diluvial, and, of consequence, utterly incompatible with the natural origin of such elevations; when he has examined the soil of which it is composed, and has discovered it to be uniformly, throughout the entire mass, of the same mellow and friable species as that of the prairie at its base; and when he has listened with scrutiny to the facts which an examination of its depths has thrown to light of its nature and its contents, he is compelled, however reluctantly, yet without a doubt, to declare that the gigantic pile is incontestibly the workmanship of man's hand. But, with such an admission, what is the crowd of reflections which throng and startle the mind? What a series of unanswerable inquiries succeed! When was this stupendous earth-heap reared up from the plain? By what race of beings was the vast undertaking accomplished? What was its purpose? What changes in its form and magnitude have taken place? What vicissitudes and revolutions have, in the lapse of centuries, rolled like successive waves over the plains at its base? As we reflect, we anxiously look around us for some tradition, some time-stained chronicle, some age-worn record, even the faintest and most unsatisfactory legend, upon which to repose our credulity, and relieve the inquiring solicitude of the mind. But [161] our research is hopeless. The present race of aborigines can tell nothing of these tumuli. To them, as to us, they are veiled in mystery. Ages since, long ere the white-face came, while this fair land was yet the home of his fathers, the simple Indian stood before this venerable earth-heap, and gazed, and wondered, and turned away.

But there is another reflection which, as we gaze upon these venerable tombs, addresses itself directly to our feelings, and bows them in humbleness. It is, that soon our memory and that of our own generation will, like that of other times and other men, have passed away; that when these frail tenements shall have been laid aside to moulder, the remembrance will soon follow them to the land of forgetfulness. Ah, if there be an object in all the wide universe of human desires for which the heart of man yearns with an intensity of craving more agonizing and deathless than for any other, it is that the memory should live after the poor body is dust. It was this eternal principle of our nature which reared the lonely tombs of Egypt amid the sands and barrenness of the desert. For ages untold have the massive and gloomy pyramids looked down upon the floods of the Nile, and generation after generation has passed away; yet their very existence still remains a mystery, and their origin points down our inquiry far beyond the grasp of human ken, into the boiling mists, the "wide involving shades" of centuries past. And yet how fondly did they who, with the toil, and blood, and sweat, and misery of ages, upreared these stupendous piles, anticipate [162] an immortality for their name which, like the effulgence of a golden eternity, should for ever linger around their summits! So was it with the ancient tomb-builders of this New World; so has it been with man in every stage of his existence, from the hour that the giant Babel first reared its dusky walls from the plains of Shinar down to the era of the present generation. And yet how hopeless, desperately, eternally hopeless are such aspirations of the children of men! As nations or as individuals, our memory we can never embalm! A few, indeed, may retain the forlorn relic within the sanctuary of hearts which loved us while with them, and that with a tenderness stronger than death; but, with the great mass of mankind, our absence can be noticed only for a day; and then the ranks close up, and a gravestone tells the passing stranger that we lived and died: a few years—the finger of time has been busy with the inscription, and we are as if we had never been. If, then, it must be even so,

St. Clair Co., Illinois.

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