ORIANA. "Where was she?-'Mid the people of the wild,- MRS. HEMANS. AMONG the customs which distinguished the natives of our country, ere the originality of their character became prostrated, and its energies broken, few were more unique and interesting, than the ceremony of adoption. This was the selection of an individual to fill the place of some near relative removed by death. It was more generally the resort of families bereaved of a son, and the choice was often from among prisoners taken in battle. It has been known to snatch the victim from the stake, and to encircle him with all the domestic charities. The transferred affection of parents was often, in such cases, most ardent and enduring. Especially if any resemblance existed between the buried and the adopted object, mothers were prone to cherish an idolatry of tenderness. Instances have been recorded in which the most ancient national animosities, or deep-rooted personal hatred, have yielded to this rite of adoption. It has even been extended to the offspring of the whites, during periods of deadly warfare. When we consider the implacable temper of our aborigines, and that it was an article of their creed, never to suffer an injury to pass unavenged, this custom of naturalizing a foe in their homes, and in their hearts, strikes us as prominent, peculiar, and worthy to be held in remembrance. The tribe of Mohegans were formerly owners of an ample territory in New-England, and were uniformly friendly to our ancestors. Their kings and chieftains became allies of the colonies in their infancy, and the bravery of their warriors aided in their struggles with the surrounding tribes. Their descendants have now become few in number, and abject in mind. A circumscribed and inalienable territory, in the south-eastern part of Connecticut, furnishes subsistence to the remnant which has not emigrated, or become incorporated with other nations. Emphatically, their glory is departed, and of their primeval energy and nobleness, no vestige survives. Yet slight kindlings of national pride continued at intervals to gleam faintly forth from beneath incumbent ruins, as embers, apparently long quenched, will sometimes smoulder and sparkle amid the ashes that cover them. One of the latest evidences of this spirit, was the watchful affection with which they regarded their royal burying-place. No vulgar dust was ever suffered to repose in the sepul chre of their kings. No Cambrian point of genealogy was ever more vigilantly traced, no restriction of the Salick Law more tenaciously guarded, than was the farthest and slightest infusion of the blood of Mohegan monarchy. Long after the royal line became extinct, and they were decreed, like ancient Israel, to dwell" without an ephod and without a teraphim," they guarded with fierce and unslumbering jealousy their consecrated cemetery from profana tion. Its monuments are still visible within the limits of the city of Norwich, and sometimes strangers visit with pitying interest, the lowly tombs of the monarchs of the soil. The inhabitants of that beautiful city, in whose vicinity the village of Mohegan is situated, have ever extended their sympathies to their "poor brethren within their gates." Still their Christian benevolence strives to gather under its wings, the perishing remnant of a once powerful race. Teachers are among them, of those sciences which render this life comfortable, and throw the light of hope on the next. Their little children are taken by the hand, and led to Jesus. The white spire of a simple church, recently erected for their benefit, points to that world where no heritage is alienated. The period selected for this sketch, is soon after the close of our War of Revolution. There then existed in the little settlement of Mohegan, some individuals worthy of being rescued from oblivion. Among them was the Reverend Samson Occum, the M first native minister of that tribe, whose unostentătious fortunes are interwoven with the ecclesiastical history of that day. The benevolence of the Reverend President Wheelock of Dartmouth College, drew him from the vagrant habits of the Indian hunter, and touched his mind with the love of letters and of piety. Ten years before our Declaration of Independence, he made a voyage to England, and was received with the most kind and gratifying attention. Among the treasured memorials of this visit, were correspondences with some of the wise and philanthropic of the mother-country, which he faithfully maintained, and the gift of a library of considerable value, which after his decease was purchased by a clergyman in the vicinity. His discourses in his native tongue often produced a strong impression on his hearers, and those in the English language displayed an acquaintance with its idiom, and a facility of rendering it a vehicle for strong and original thought, highly creditable both to his talents and their application. He possessed a decided taste for poetry, especially that of a devotional cast; and a volume of this nature, which he selected and published, evinces that he fervently appreciated the pathetic and the powerful. His deportment was grave and consistent, as became a teacher of divine things, and his overflowing eyes, when he strove to allure his people to the love of a Saviour, testified his own warm religious sensibilities, and revealed the foundation of his happiness and hope. The native, untaught eloquence of the tribe, had also a representative. Robert Ashbow was collaterally of the royal line, and held in high reverence by his people. His commanding stature and lofty brow marked him as one of Nature's nobility. He was respected by our ancestors, and when their government became permanent, was permitted to represent his people in their national council. Among their senators, his words were few. But in his wellweighed opinions, in his wary policy, they were accustomed to liken him to the wise and wily Ulysses. They understood him not. His eloquence was like a smothered flame, in their presence. It spoke not even through the eye, which was ever downcast, nor lighted the brow that bore a rooted sorrow. It burst forth only in his native wilds, and among his own people. There, like a torrent, it swept all before it. It swayed their spirits, as the tempest bends the lithe willow. Though he keenly felt the broken and buried majesty of his nation, he cherished no vindictiveness towards those who had caused it. He had a deep reverence for knowledge and its possessors, which neutralized this bitterness. Like the tamed lion, he yielded to a force which he did not comprehend. Though by nature reserved and dominant, he almost crouchingly sought the society of educated white men, for among them alone could his thirst of knowledge be satiated. He was an affecting instance of savage pride, humbling itself before the might of cul |