"Tam saw an unco sight." BURNS. It is an idea which has more than once occurred to me, while throwing together these hasty delineations of the beautiful scenes through which, for the past few weeks, I have been moving, that, by some, a disposition might be suspected to tinge every outline indiscriminately with the "_coleur de rose_." But as well might one talk of an exaggerated emotion of the sublime on the table-rock of Niagara, or amid the "snowy scalps" of Alpine scenery, or of a mawkish sensibility to loveliness amid the purple glories of the "_Campagna di Roma_," as of either, or of both combined, in the noble "valley beyond the mountains." Nor is the interest experienced {94} by the traveller for many of the spots he passes confined to their scenic beauty. The associations of by-gone times are rife in the mind, and the traditionary legend of the events these scenes have witnessed yet lingers among the simple forest-sons. I have mentioned that remarkable range of cliffs commencing at Alton, and extending, with but little interruption, along the left shore of the Mississippi to the mouth of the Illinois. Through a deep, narrow ravine in these bluffs flows a small stream called the Piasa. The name is of aboriginal derivation, and, in the idiom of the Illini, denotes "_The bird that devours men_." Near the mouth of this little stream rises a bold, precipitous bluff, and upon its smooth face, at an elevation seemingly unattainable by human art, is graven the figure of an enormous bird with extended pinions. This bird was by the Indians called the "_Piasa_;" hence the name of the stream. The tradition of the Piasa is said to be still extant, among the tribes of the Upper Mississippi, and is thus related:[86]