reputed to be seven hundred feet high, and perpendicular. The finest view of this point is from the margin of the water, where it is grand beyond compare. To describe it with the pen were utterly impossible, but it was just such a scene as would have delighted the lamented Cole, and by a kindred genius alone can it ever be placed on the canvas.

The Deer Leap is the highest cliff in the whole chasm, measuring about nine hundred feet, and differs from its fellows in two particulars. From summit to bottom it is almost without a fissure or an evergreen, and remarkably smooth; and over it, in the most beautiful manner imaginable, tumbles a tiny stream, which scatters upon the rocks below with infinite prodigality the purest of diamonds and pearls, appearing to be woven into wreaths of foam. It obtained its name from the circumstance that a deer was once pursued to this point by a hound, and in its terror, cleared a pathway through the air, and perished in the depths below.

Hawthorn's Pool derives its name from the fact that in its apparently soundless waters a young and accomplished English clergyman lost his life while bathing; and Hanck's Sliding Place is so called because a native of this region once slipped off the rock into a sheet of foam, and was rescued from his perilous situation not much injured, but immensely frightened.

But of all the scenes which I have been privileged to enjoy in the Tallulah chasm, the most glorious and superb was witnessed in the night time. For several days previous to my coming here the woods had been on fire, and I was constantly on the watch for a night picture of a burning forest. On one occasion, as I was about retiring, I saw a light in the direction of the Falls, and concluded that I would take a walk to the Devil's Pulpit, which was distant from my tarrying place some hundred and fifty yards. When I reached there I felt convinced that the fire would soon be in plain view, for I was on the western side of the gorge, and the wind was blowing from the eastward. In a very few moments my anticipations were realized, for I saw the flame licking up the dead leaves which covered the ground, and also stealing up the trunk of every dry tree in its path. A warm current of air was now wafted to my cheek by the breeze, and I discovered with intense satisfaction that an immense dead pine which hung over the opposite precipice (and whose dark form I had noticed distinctly pictured against the crimson background) had been reached by the flame, and in another

moment it was entirely in a blaze. The excitement which now took possession of my mind was truly painful; and, as I threw my arms around a small tree, and peered into the horrible chasm, my whole frame shook with an indescribable emotion. The magnificent torch directly in front of me did not seem to have any effect upon the surrounding darkness, but threw a ruddy and death-like glow upon every object in the bottom of the gorge. A flock of vultures which were roosting far down in the ravine were frightened out of their sleep, and in their dismay, as they attempted to rise, flew against the cliffs amongst the trees, until they finally disappeared; and a number of bats and other winged creatures were winnowing their way in every direction. The deep black pools beneath were enveloped in a more intense blackness, while the foam and spray of a neighboring fall were made a thousand-fold more beautiful than before. The vines, and lichens, and mosses seemed to cling more closely than usual to their parent rocks; and when an occasional ember fell from its great height far down, and still further down into the abyss below, it made me dizzy and I retreated from my commanding position. In less than twenty minutes from that time the fire was exhausted, and the pall of night had settled upon the lately so brilliant chasm, and no vestige of the marvellous scene remained but an occasional wreath of smoke fading away into the upper air.

During my stay at the Falls of Tallulah I made every effort to obtain an Indian legend or two connected with them, and it was my good fortune to hear one which has never yet been printed. It was originally obtained by the white man who first discovered the Falls, from the Cherokees, who lived in this region at the time. It is in substance as follows: Many generations ago it so happened that several famous hunters, who had wandered from the West towards what is now the Savannah river, in search of game, never returned to their camping grounds. In process of time the curiosity as well as the fears of the nation were excited, and an effort was made to ascertain the cause of their singular disappearance. Whereupon a party of medicine-men were deputed to make a pilgrimage towards the great river. They were absent a whole moon, and, on returning to their friends, they reported that they had discovered a dreadful fissure in an unknown part of the country, through which a mountain torrent took its way with a deafenng noise. They said that it was an exceedingly wild place, and that it sinhabitants were a species of little men and women, who dwelt in

the crevices of the rocks and in the grottoes under the waterfalls. They had attempted by every artifice in their power to hold a council with the little people, but all in vain; and, from the shrieks they frequently uttered, the medicine-men knew that they were the enemies of the Indian race; and, therefore, it was concluded in the nation at large that the long lost hunters had been decoyed to their death in the dreadful gorge which they called Tallulah. In view of this little legend, it is worthy of remark that the Cherokee nation, previous to their departure to the distant West, always avoided the Falls of Tallulah, and were seldom found hunting or fishing in their vicinity.

1845

CHARLES LANMAN

I

THE OLD ARMY IN KANSAS

N the spring of 1858 circumstances took me to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. That post and its near neighbor, Leavenworth City, were just then assuming new importance on account of the forces concentrating there for the purpose of chastising Brigham Young and his terrible Danites, who secure in their mountain fastnesses, had long set the authority of the United States at defiance. This was the socalled "Mormon War," which began with a tragedy and ended with a farce, as the Administration relented as soon as Brigham gave in before the display of an overwhelming force marching to confront him.

After four years of constant and heated political agitation Kansas was at last cooling off. It was decreed that this remote corner of the Union should be the first battle-ground between North and South. The struggle was long and bitter. You know how it ended. Victory declared for the North, and the South here met her first defeat. As Abraham Lincoln said, in his memorable Cooper Institute speech, "it has been one of the relentless maxims of history that might makes right, but I say unto you that right makes might," and it was so settled in Kansas.

At the time I am speaking of there were no railroads running west of Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri. It is instructive to let one's mind dwell a moment on that fact. Another road was building across the northern counties from Hannibal to St. Joseph, but was not yet completed. The Missouri River was still the great thoroughfare for travellers to Kansas, Nebraska or across the great plains; great it was in every sense of the word, for in a journey of seven hundred miles we were seldom out of sight of the smoke of some steamboat breasting the turbid current of the "Big Muddy." When I first saw it in the pleasant month of May, Kansas looked like some stray corner of Paradise, set apart by a gracious Providence as the abode of peace and plenty rather than as the arena for the strifes and rivalries of warring factions. Indeed, it was a country worth fighting for, so the cause were just, as all who have ever visited it will testify; and I could not help feeling a -Read before the Mass. Loyal Legion.

little glow of, I trust, pardonable pride, that my people and the principles they stood for, had wrested so fair a heritage from the curse of slavery. My first glimpse of Fort Leavenworth is a charming memory. There was a cluster of white sunlit buildings, perched upon the brow of a high bluff overlooking the turbid Missouri, like some feudal castle of the Rhine without its gloom or terrors.

General Persifer F. Smith, who was to command the Utah expedition, had just died and was succeeded by Harney, the old Indian fighter. I was frequently at the General's quarters where Alfred Pleasonton, his A. A. G., did the honors most acceptably. Pleasonton was then a natty looking young fellow in a dragoon's jacket. Many things happened between that time and October, 1864, when by one of those queer freaks of fortune the credulous are inclined to call special providences, Pleasonton turned up in Kansas again just in the nick of time to save the state from Price's last and greatest effort of the war in that section.

Harney himself was a man of imposing physique, over six feet in height, perfectly well made, and though getting along in years, as vigorous and erect as an oak. It was my fancy to picture him as a soldier of the Suwarrow or Blucher type, to whom the prospect of an active campaign was like the sound of the trumpet to an old warhorse, after the dull routine of camp and garrison. For those questions requiring delicate handling, constantly arising then and there between the civil and military authorities, no man could have been worse fitted; and for the whole race of politicians he had the professional soldier's undisguised contempt. War was his trade: peace his aversion.

There were giants in those days. What has become of the men of commanding presence for which the old army was so noted and so notable-the Scotts, Harneys, Sumners, Morrisons, Mays and many others I could name? Can it be true, as the wise men tell us, that the race is steadily degenerating, and that it is only a question of some thousands of years when we shall again be going about on all fours, like our ancestors, according to the late Mr. Darwin, or residing in drygoods boxes like the late Mr. Tom Thumb? Perish the thought!

I saw these troops file off in front of the general's quarters. Among the officers assembled there to see them march was Colonel Joe Johnston, then Deputy Quartermaster General, and a very soldierly looking