Page 355 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

354 THIRD BOOK OF
quire if any tradition, if any, tbe intest; records can throw any light upon these habitations of men of another age.
10. Is there no scope, beside these mounds, r imagination, and r contemplation of the past? The men, their joys, their sorrows, their bones, are all buried together. But the grand features of na­ ture remain. There is the beauti l prairie, over which they "strutted through li 's poor play." The rests, the hills, the mounds, lift their heads in un­ alterable repose, and ish the same sources of contemplation to us, that they did to those genera­ tions that have passed away.
11. It is true, we have little reason to suppose, that they were the guilty dens of petty tyrants, who let loose their half savage vassals to burn, plunder, enslave, and despoil an adjoining den. 1 iere are no remains of those vast and use l monasteries that are to be seen in the old world, where holy men em­ ployed their time in prayer, copying the Bible and other books.
12. Here must have been a race of men, on these charming plains, that had every call from the scenes that surrounded them, to contented existence and tranquil meditation. Un rtunate, as men view the thing, they must have been. Innocent and peace l they probably were; r, had they been reared amidst wars and quarrels, like the present Indians, they would, doubtless, have maintained their ground, and their posterity would have remained to this day. Beside them moulder the hnge bones of heir con­ temporary beasts, which must have been of thrice the size of the elephant.
13. I cannot judge of the recollections excited by