beast or bird inhabiting that region; the Thermometer which stood at 9o above O at the foot, fell to 4° below 0; while the great peak which was the object of his journey still appear ed at the distance of fifteen or sixteen miles, bare of vegetation and covered with snow, as high again as the portion they had ascended: to all appearance beyond the power of any human being to reach its summit. These and other circumstances compelled their return, after having enjoyed, even at the height they had reached, the sublime spectacle which the Alpine regions present, of a clear heaven around, while the rolling of the clouds below appears like the foaming of the troubled ocean.

"The perpendicular height of this mountain," says Mr. Pike (as taken by Dr. Robinson and himself) "from the level of the prairie is 10,581 feet, and admitting that the prairie is 8,000 feet from the level of the sea, it would make the elevation of this peak 18,581 feet; equal to some, and surpassing the calculated height of others, for the peak of Teneriffe, and falling short of that of Chimborazo only 1,701 feet. Indeed it was so remark able as to be known to all the savage nations for hundreds of miles around, and to be spoken of with admiration by the Spaniards of N. Mexico, and was the boundary of their travels N. W. Indeed in our wandering in the mountains it was never out of sight (except when in a valley) from the 14th of November to the 27th of January."-Note p. 71.

A more accurate measurement of the height of Chimborazo by Mr. Humboldt (who ascended it to the height of 19,300 feet, the highest ever reached on land by any human being) makes it 21,440 feet, and of course 2,589 feet higher than the peak seen by Mr. Pike. Still however the height is exceedingly great and only surpassed by that of the Andes. That the height of the prairie above the level of the ocean is not exaggerated in this statement, will appear extremely probable from the circumstance of its being at the head of several of the largest rivers which intersect the continent of North America. From its neighbourhood on the

north eastern side begin the Yellow Stone (or Pierre Jaune) river, the great south western branch of the Missouri; as well as the La Platte which is tributary to that river. On its south western side it produces the Red River of California; on its east the Arkansaw, and on its south the Rio del Nord of North Mexico. And our author says, that he has no hesitation in asserting, that he can take a position in the mountains, from which he can visit the source of any of those rivers in one day.

From this peak the travellers ascended a short distance up to the sources of the Arkansaw, and then returned by a more western route. Here they struck again a large river, which they congratulated themselves upon finding, thinking it the Red River of the Mississippi, which they were so anxiously seeking. But on tracing it further down, Mr. Pike, upon examining it from the summit of a mountain, recognized it to be his old acquaintance the Arkansaw; and they now re-occupied on the 5th of January the camp which they had

left a month before.

"Here," says our author, "the whole party (which had separated to hunt) being once more joined together, we felt comparatively happy notwithstanding the great mortifications I experienced at having been so egregiously deceived as to the Red River. I now felt at considerable loss how to proceed, as any idea of services at that time from my horses were entirely preposterous. Thus, after various plans formed and rejected, and the most mature deliberation, I determined to build a small place for defence and deposit, and leave part of the baggage, horses, my interpreter and one man, and with the balance, our packs of Indian presents, ammunition, find the Red River, and then send back a tools, &c. cross the mountains on foot, party to conduct the horses and baggage by the most eligible route we could disccver by which time the horses would be so far recovered as to be able to endure the fatigues of a march."

Mr. Pike prosecuted this bold and arduous journey in the depth of winter, over rugged precipices and mountains, during cold so intense as to

disable two of his party from proceeding, (Reaumer's thermometer being once at eighteen and a half below 0) through almost incessant snows, and he was near perishing for want of food. His course was south, up a branch of the Arkansaw, till on the 27th January he arrived upon a stream bearing west, which he fervently hailed as one of the waters of the Red River, and which led him on the 30th January to the banks of a large river that he supposed to be the object of his search, but which in reality was the Rio del Nord; which river Mr. Pike now struck a considerable distance above the most northerly of the Spanish settlements in Santa Fee.

Upon recurring to the valuable maps which accompany this work, it will be seen that in going the southern course that he pursued, he passed about a hundred miles to the westward of the sources of Red River: "which take their rise on the east side of the mountains he crossed, not reaching beyond them, as the Arkansaw was before found to do.

The Rio del Nord, on which river Mr. Pike now found himself, flows from its source through the province of Santa Fee, the most northerly of the provinces of Mexico; and continues afterwards through various other provinces. It rises in the chains in the neighbourhood of the peak we have mentioned; but while all the other great rivers branch off and flow easterly into the Mississippi, or westwardly into the gulf of California, the Rio del Nord, confined by two parallel ranges of high mountains, is like the Nile limited to the valley between, through which it continues till about the latitude of 30°, where it bursts through the eastern chain, and turning south-eastwardly after many windings empties itself into the Gulf of Mexico.

Here, after a journey of upwards of 1500 miles, Mr. Pike's attention was directed to preparing for his return home on the bosom of the sup

posed Red River; and while making his preparations, he formed a stockade in the neighbourhood of a place on the river the description of which reminds us of the delightful valley of Abyssinia which the venerable pen of the great moralist has described in the Tale of Rasselas.

'On the 5th of January the Doctor and myself went out to hunt, and after chasing

some deer for several hours without suc cess, we ascended a high hill which lay S. of our camp, from which we had a view of all the prairie and rivers to the north of us; it was at the same time one of the most sublime and beautiful prospects ever presented to the eyes of man. The prairie lying nearly north and south was probably sixty miles by forty-five. The main river bursting out of the western mountain, and meeting from the north east a large

branch which divides the chain of mountains, proceeds down the prairie, making many large and beautiful islands, one of which I judged contains a hundred thou sand acres of land, all meadow ground, covered with innumerable herds of deer. About six miles from the mountains which cross the prairie at the south end, a branch of twelve steps wide pays its tribute to the main stream from the west. Four miles below is a stream of the same size which enters on the east: from the entrance of this down was about three miles to the junction of the west fork, north, while the main river winds along which waters the foot of the hill on the in meanders on the east. In short, this view combined the sublime and beautiful; the great and lofty mountains covered with eternal snows, seemed to surround the luxuriant vale crowned with perennial flowers, like a terrestrial paradise shut out from the view of man.'

The stockade, however, after be ing completed with considerable labour, as well as their preparations to descend the supposed Red River, became totally useless, by the occurrence of an event which first apprized them of their being on the Rio del Nord, and within the limits of the Spanish territory: for on the 16th of February they were discovered by some Spanish spies, and on the 26th of the same month were visited by a Spanish military force, consisting of an hundred infantry and dragoons un

der the command of two lieutenants. They had instructions from the Governour of New Mexico, to cause the American party to march to Santa Fee, under the engagement of enabling them to proceed home. To this our traveller after some hesitation consented, and marched out of his stockade on the 27th of February, on his route to Santa Fee, with which he concludes the second part of his tour. In order to give a continued narrative of this tour, we have omitted till now the following interesting description of the Wishtonwish Prairie Dogs, some of which Mr. Pike killed in October, shortly after his first arrival upon the Arkansaw.

or

'The Wishtonwish of the Indians, Prairie Dogs of some, or Squirrels, as I should be inclined to denominate them, reside on the prairies of Louisiana in towns or villages, having an evident police established in their communities. The sites of their towns are generally on the brow of a hill near some creek or pond, in order to be convenient to water, and that the high ground which they inhabit may not be subject to inundation. Their residence being under ground is burrowed out, and the earth answers the double purpose of keeping out the water, and affording an elevated place in wet seasons to repose on, and to give them a further and more distinct view of the country. Their holes descend in a spiral form, and therefore I could never ascertain their depth; but I once had a hundred and forty kettles of water poured into one of them, in order to drive out the occupant, but without effect. In the circuit of their villages they clear off all the grass, and leave the earth bare of vegetation; but whether it is from an instinct they possess, inducing them to keep the ground thus cleared, or whether they make use of the herbage as food, I cannot pretend to determine. The latter opinion I think entitled to a preference, as their teeth designate them to be of the graminivorous species, and I know of no other substance which is produced in the vicinity of their positions, on which they could subsist, nor do they extend their excursions more than half a mile from the burrows. They are of a dark brown colour, except their bellies which are white. Their tails are not so long as those of our grey squirrels, but shaped precisely like theirs; their teeth, head, nails, and body are the perfect squir.

re

rel, except that they are generally fatter than that animal. Their villages some.

times extend over two and three miles square, in which there must be innumerable hosts of these, as there is generally a burrow every ten steps, in which there are two or more, and you see new ones partly excavated on all the borders of the town. We killed great numbers of them with our rifles, and found them excellent meat, after they were exposed a night or two to the frost, by which means the rankness acquired by their subterraneous dwelling is corrected. As you approach their towns, you are saluted on all sides by the cry of Wishtonwish (from which they derive their name with the Indians) uttered in a shrill and

piercing manner You then observe them

all retreating to the entrance of their burrows, where they post themselves, and regard every, even the slightest, movement that you make. It requires a very nice shot with a rifle to kill them, as they must be killed dead; for as long as life exists they continue to work into their cells. their towns, as they abound with rattleIt is extremely dangerous to pass through snakes, both of the yellow and black species; and, strange as it may appear, I have seen the Wishtonwish, the rattlesnake, the horn-frog, with which the prairie abounds (termed by the Spaniards the cameleon, from their taking no visible sustenance) and a land tortoise, all take refuge in the same hole. I do not pre. tend to assert that it was their common place of resort, but I have witnessed the above facts more than in one instance.'

We must not omit a description of a new species of bird caught by our traveller.

'It was of a green colour, almost the size of a quail, had a small tuft on its head like a pheasant, and was of the carnivorous species: it differed from any bird we ever saw in the United States. We kept him with us in a small wicker cage, feeding him on meal, until I left the interpreter, on the Arkansaw, with whom I left it. We at one time took a companion of the same species and put them into the same cage, when the first resident never ceased attacking the stranger until he killed him.'

We shall conclude this part of our author's tour, with some ideas which naturally occur from an attention to

the scene of his travels.

of the Missouri, presents numerous features peculiar to itself, which strongly distinguish it from the country to the eastward of the former river. Its rivers are of greater size and of larger extent, and it presents many varieties of animals which were unknown to the forests that formerly shaded our present abodes. But what most remarkably distinguishes it from the country between the Mississippi and the Atlantic, is the vast extent of untimbered country, which, except occasionally upon the borders of its streams, pervades its whole extent. The states at present peopled, (as well as several that remain yet to be settled) presented in their original situation, a continued, thick, and shady forest. Although this required from the settler the arduous labour of clearing off its prodigious trunks, before he could raise an ear of corn or a blade of grass, yet the soil manured by the vegetable mould of several centuries, amply repaid him for all his toils. But in the tract we have mentioned, a sandy and barren soil is incapable of rearing timber in the first instance, and we are astonished in coming from the Atlantic states to find vast tracts of country as clear and open as meadows, which we find upon examination to be in general of a dry and sandy soil, destitute of moisture, and wholly incapable of that produce which rewards the labour of the husbandman here. In the neighbourhood of the streams, it is true, a rich soil is found, covering even the prairies; in some places more extensive than in others: thus from the Missouri to the head of the Osage river, a distance, in a straight line, of probably three hundred

miles, the country, says our author, will admit of a numerous, extensive, and compact population: but from thence on the rivers Kanse, La Platte, Arkansaw, and their numerous branches, it appears to be possible to introduce only a limited population. And the immense tracts lying be tween these and the other streams of that country, present a barren soil, without timber for the various necessities of life, parched and dried up for eight months of the year, and making the opinion formed by our author still more likely to be justi fied when the neighbouring country is opened to the influence of the sun, that these vast plains of the Western hemisphere may become in time equally celebrated as the sandy desarts of Africa; for I saw in my route in various places tracts of many leagues, where the wind had thrown up the sand in all the fanciful forms of the ocean's rolling wave, and on which hot a speck of vegetable matter existed."

While, therefore, there is room enough for the surplus of our popu lation to expand, and for the imagination to indulge itself in the prospect of immense countries yet to be the smiling abodes of civilized man, the prospect is not unbounded. We shall be shut in on the west by a sandy ocean, as on the east by a watery sea: and our settlers confined on the west to the borders of the Missouri and Mississippi will, perhaps more fortu nately for our union, be constrained to leave the uncultivable prairies to the sparse and wandering aborigines of the country.

(To be continued.)

with the taste for English lore, and the liberal curiosity which seeks for information respecting all men of talent. "It was the original intention of the compiler," he tells us, "to have given a complete metrical translation of the Book of Psalms, selected from all the different versions which he could meet with," This, however, he relinquished, being convinced by diligent investigation, that, a very large proportion of the Psalms have never yet had justice done to the beauties of their poetry. Instead of this, therefore, he gives a selection of such as he deemed most worthy to meet the public eye, whether published before, or remaining till now in MS.

the case we shall produce it. Its own merit will speak sufficiently for it.

PSALM L.

"Th' uplifted eye, and bended knee
Are but vain homage, Lord, to thee;
In vain our lips thy praise prolong,
The heart a stranger to the song.
Can rites, and forms, and flaming zeal,
The breaches of thy precepts heal?
Or fast and penance reconcile
Thy justice, and obtain thy smile?
The pure, the humble, contrite mind,
Thankful, and to thy will resigned,
To thee a nobler off'ring yields
Than Sheba's groves, or Sharon's fields;
Than floods of oil, or floods of wine
Ten thousand rolling to thy shrine,
Or than if, to thine altar led,
A first-born Son the victim bled.

'Be just and kind,' that great command
Doth on eternal pillars stand:
This did thine ancient prophets teach,
And this thy well beloved preach " P. 102.

Whoever may be the author of this, it is not surpassed by any in the collection for simple elegance. We very much long to tell the compiler's name, but not being authorized so to do, we forbear. If our commendation can remove the hesitation of diffidence, we very cordially bestow it. We have seldon seen a compilation of the same extent by which we have been more gratified.