y, for nowhere else in the vicinity was
there so attractive a combination of hill and dale, and wood and
water, to compose a landscape.

The little burying-ground, shorn of its original dimensions by
the encroachments of the fatal race that came from the rising sun,
contained less than half an acre, and was situated at the top of a
ravine, running down from the level land, on which the gravestones
were erected, to the Yaupaae, where that river expands itself into
a lake. The sides of the ravine, along its whole sweep upwards, was
covered quite to the top with immense oaks and chestnuts, the growth
of centuries, interspersed with ash trees, while in the colder and
moister part in the centre, the smooth-barked birch threw out its
gnarled branches. There was no undergrowth, and under and between the
limbs of the trees, the eye caught a view towards the south of the
widened Yaupaae and of the islands that dotted its surface, with hills
sweeping round in a curve, and presenting an irregular outline like
that made by the backs of a school of porpoises. Towards the three
other quarters of the compass, a level plain extended for a short
distance, and then was broken up into an undulating surface which rose
into eminences covered with woods that hemmed in the whole. The falls
of the Yaupaae were at a distance of only a few rods, but invisible,
being hidden by the plain that occupied the intervening space, at an
elevation of some forty feet higher than the point where the river,
rushing down its rocky bed, made its presence known by a ceaseless
roar, and seemed to chant a dirge over the vanished greatness of the
tribe.

Here were assembled some sixty or seventy Indians to perform the
rights of sepulture to one of their number. No vestige of their
original wildness was to be traced among them. They were clothed in
the garments of civilization, but of a coarse and mean quality, and
appeared broken down and dispirited. One half, at least, were women,
and at the moment of which we are speaking they were collecting
together from among the blue slate gravestones, where they had been
dispersed, around a newly dug grave. The rites were of a Christian
character, and performed by an elder of one of the neighboring
churches, who offered up a prayer, on the conclusion of which he
retired. The grave was immediately filled, and then commenced a
ceremony of a singular character.

At a given signal the assembled company began with slow and m