Western Characters | Page 2

larger than the vaunted streams of mighty empires. It might furnish
natural boundaries to all Europe, and yet leave, for every country, a
river greater than the Seine. It discharges, in one year, more water than
has issued from the Tiber in five centuries; it swallows up near fifty
nameless rivers longer than the Thames; the addition of the waters of
the Danube would not swell it half a fathom; and in a single bend, the
navies of the world might safely ride at anchor, five hundred miles
from sea.
It washes the shores of twelve powerful states, and between its arms
lies space enough for twenty more. The rains which fall upon the
Alleghenies, and the snows that shroud the slopes and cap the summits
of the Rocky mountains, are borne upon its bosom, to the regions of
perpetual summer, and poured into the sea, more than fifteen hundred
leagues from their sources. It has formed a larger tract of land, by the
deposits of its inundations, than is contained in Great Britain and
Ireland; and every year it roots up and bears away more trees, than
there are in the Black Forest. At a speed unknown to any other great
river, it rolls a volume, in whose depths the cathedral of St. Paul's
might be sunk out of sight; and five hundred leagues from its mouth, it
is wider than at thirty.
It annually bears away more acres than it would require to make a
German principality, engulfing more than the revenues of many a petty
kingdom. Beneath its turbid waters lie argosies of wealth, and floating
palaces, among whose gilded halls and rich saloons are sporting slimy

creatures; below your very feet, as you sail along its current, are resting
in its bed, half buried in the sand, the bodies of bold men and tender
maidens; and their imploring hands are raised toward Heaven, and the
world which floats, unheeding, on the surface. There lies, entombed,
the son whose mother knows not of his death; and there the husband,
for whose footstep, even yet, the wife is listening--here, the mother
with her infant still clasped fondly to her breast; and here, united in
their lives, not separated in their death, lie, side by side, the bride and
bridegroom of a day;--and, hiding the dread secrets from all human ken,
the mighty and remorseless river passes onward, like the stream of
human life, toward "the land of dreams and shadows!"
To the contemplative mind, there is, perhaps, no part of the creation, in
which may not be found the seed of much reflection; but of all the
grand features of the earth's surface, next to a lofty mountain, that
which impresses us most deeply is a great river. Its pauseless flow, the
stern momentum of its current--its remorseless coldness to all human
hopes and fears--the secrets which lie buried underneath its waters, and
the myriad purposes of those it bears upon its bosom--are all so clearly
typical of Time. The waters will not pause, though dreadful battles may
be fought upon their shores--as Time will steadily march forward,
though the fate of nations hang upon the conflict. The moments fly as
swiftly, while a mighty king is breathing out his life, as if he were a
lowly peasant; and the current flows as coldly on, while men are
struggling in the eddies, as if each drowning wretch were but a floating
weed. Time gives no warning of the hidden dangers on which haughty
conquerors are rushing, as the perils of the waters are revealed but in
the crashing of the wreck.
But the parallel does not stop here. The sources of the
Mississippi--were it even possible that they should ever be
otherwise--are still unknown to man. Like the stream of history, its
head-springs are in the regions of fable--in the twilight of remote
latitudes; and it is only after it has approached us, and assumed a
definite channel, that we are able to determine which is the authentic
stream. It flows from the country of the savage, toward that of
civilization; and like the gradations of improvement among men, are

the thickening fields and growing cultivation, which define the periods
of its course. Near its mouth, it has reached the culmination of
refinement--its last ripe fruit, a crowded city; and, beyond this, there
lies nothing but a brief journey, and a plunge into the gulf of Eternity!
Thus, an emblem of the stream of history, it is still more like a march
along the highway of a single human life. As the sinless thoughts of
smiling childhood are the little rivulets, which afterward become the
mighty river; like the infant, airy, volatile, and beautiful--sparkling as
the dimpled face of innocence--a faithful reflex of the lights and
shadows of existence; and