the "Great Carbuncle" of the White Mountains. The belief was
communicated to the English settlers, and is hardly yet extinct,
that a gem, of such immense size as to be seen shining miles away,
hangs from a rock over a clear, deep lake, high up among the hills.
They who had once beheld its splendor were enthralled with an
unutterable yearning to possess it. But a spirit guarded that
inestimable jewel, and bewildered the adventurer with a dark mist
from the enchanted lake. Thus life was worn away in the vain search
for an unearthly treasure, till at length the deluded one went up
the mountain, still sanguine as in youth, but returned no more. On
this theme methinks I could frame a tale with a deep moral.

The hearts of the palefaces would not thrill to these superstitions
of the red men, though we spoke of them in the centre of their
haunted region. The habits and sentiments of that departed people
were too distinct from those of their successors to find much real
sympathy. It has often been a matter of regret to me that I was
shut out from the most peculiar field of American fiction by an
inability to see any romance, or poetry, or grandeur, or beauty in
the Indian character, at least till such traits were pointed out by
others. I do abhor an Indian story. Yet no writer can be more
secure of a permanent place in our literature than the biographer of
the Indian chiefs. His subject, as referring to tribes which have
mostly vanished from the earth, gives him a right to be placed on a
classic shelf, apart from the merits which will sustain him there.

I made inquiries whether, in his researches about these parts, our
mineralogist had found the three "Silver Hills" which an Indian
sachem sold to an Englishman nearly two hundred years ago, and the
treasure of which the posterity of the purchaser have been looking