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The broad leaves spread, the small buds grew,

How slow they seemed to be;

At last there came a tinge of blue,— "T was worth the world to me!

At length the perfume filled the room,
Shed from their purple wreath;
No flower has now so rich a bloom,
Has now so sweet a breath.

I gathered two or three, they seemed
Such rich gifts to bestow;

So precious in my sight, I deemed
That all must think them so.

Ah! who is there but would be fain
To be a child once more;

If future years could bring again

All that they brought before.

My heart's world has been long o'erthrown,

It is no more of flowers;

Their bloom is past, their breath is flown,

Yet I recal those hours.

Let nature spread her loveliest,
By spring or summer nurst;
Yet still I love the violet best,

Because I loved it first.

L. E. L.

THE LAST OF HIS TRIBE.

THE forests of North America are now unceasingly groaning beneath the axe of the backwoodsman; and it is no uncommon spectacle to behold a village smiling on the spot which a few months before was an almost impenetrable forest, or the haunt alone of the wild beast and the savage.

"Great changes," exclaimed I, as I alighted at the door of a log building, in front of which swung a rude sign, to arrest the steps of the traveller. "A few years ago there was scarcely the trace of a white man to be seen, where I now behold a flourishing town, and a numerous colony of inhabitants, a large tract of the forest enclosed, and corn shooting up, amid the dying trunks of its aboriginal trees."

"Our village thrives," was the laconic remark of a tall, slender personage, who was lounging against the sign-post of the village inn, around which half-a-dozen idlers were assembled.

“True; civilization has made rapid strides, but the red men, I perceive, have not yet disappeared from among you." (Four or five Indians were lying stretched upon a bank, at a short distance from the inn door, basking in the rays of the setting sun).

"Not yet," was the reply. "They come into the village to sell their peltries; but at present they are not very well satisfied with the intercourse we have had together."

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'How so; do you take advantage of their ignorance of the value of their merchandise?"

"Possibly we do; but that is not their chief cause of dissatisfaction. They still prefer their council-grove and summary punishment, to our court-house and prison."

“Court-house and prison! Cannot so small a community as this be kept together without the aid of such establishments?"

"I know not; but few communities, however small, are willing to try the experiment. As yet our prison has had but one tenant, and to his fate may be attributed the surly deportment of yonder savages. They belong to the same tribe."

I expressed a curiosity to hear the particulars of his story. My loquacious friend led the way into the tavern, where, as soon as we were seated, he commenced his account in nearly the following words:

"Tangoras was the chief of a neighbouring tribe of Indians. He is now advanced in years, but still retains

much of the vigour of youth. Brave, expert in the chase, patient of fatigue, and beloved by his people, his voice is a law; for he is looked upon as the sole remaining example of what the tribe was before the Whites appeared among them.

"He seems to have beheld the progress of civilization with the same feelings that the shipwrecked mariner watches the approach of the wave that is to wash him from the rock on which he has attained a foothold. The land of his fathers had been wrested from him; he defended it bravely, until resistance was found to be fruitless; and when he became subject to the laws of the pale faces, he viewed their proceedings as tyrannical, and himself as little better than a slave.

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They told him that his condition would be ameliorated, but they would not suffer him to be happy in his own way; and, unluckily for the old chief, every one has his own peculiar mode of defining the term; for, although most people imagine they comprehend its meaning, it is a phrase on which scarcely two persons can be found to agree.

"When he complained of the injustice done him, they urged that the earth was given to man to cultivate, and that he who refuses to fulfil the condition, loses his title to it. In vain did the old Indian argue, from the same authority, that the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the field, were also given for man's use, and that he therefore preserved his hunting-grounds inviolate; that he

cultivated as much as his wants required; and that he who does more, brings a curse rather than a blessing upon his fellows, by introducing among them luxury and its attendant evils.

"They also told him, that the Christian religion confers upon its professors, who are the immediate heirs of heaven, a right to the soil, paramount to any human claim. The old chief, as he bowed to the decision, calmly replied, 'While you, who profess superior knowledge, are taught to pursue a line of action, as perfect as can come within the comprehension of human intellect, wherever the Cross has appeared, instead of awakening the best feelings of your nature, the demon of destruction seems to have been roused within you, and death and desolation have followed. Though you tell me it is the emblem of peace to all mankind, to us, at least, it has heretofore been the signal of war,-of exterminating and merciless war.'

But to proceed with my story:

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"Tangoras seldom entered the villages of the Whites, and refused to make use of our manufactures. dressed himself in skins, instead of the blankets which his people had adopted; for he said he would live as his fathers had lived, and die as they had died. About a year ago, at the head of a dozen of his tribe, he descended yonder hill by the narrow path which winds over it. His followers were laden with peltries; but the old chief marched erect, with his tomax only in his hand,

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