through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue horizon, at an
infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were,
from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach,
and participate of the calm below."--Jefferson's Notes on Virginia.

Note 2.

"Save the plaintive song of the whip-poor-will."

That the Indian mind and language are not devoid of poetry,
the names they have given to this bird (the whip-poor-will)
sufficiently evidence. Some call it the "Muckawis," others
the "Wish-ton-wish," signifying "the voice of a sigh," and
"the plaint for the lost." Those, who in its native glens at
twilight, have listened to its indescribably melancholy song,
will know how beautifully appropriate these names are.

Note 3.

"They, the foul slaves' of lust and gold,
Say that our blood and hearts are cold."

It has been advanced by some writers, that the almost miraculous
fortitude often displayed by Indians, under the most intense
suffering, is to be accounted for by their insensibility to pain,
resulting, they allege, from a defective nervous organization. From
the absence of a display of gallantry and tenderness between the
sexes, they argue also, in them, the nonexistence of love, and
its kindred passions. This we think unjust, as it robs them of
the honours of a system of education, which is life-long, and whose