She carv’d her name on the well known rock, The rock at Harper’s ferry; You would not have thought me a stone or stock Bending o’er charming Mary— Insensible rock! how hard thou wert Hurting her fingers fairy, Deeper she writ upon my soft heart— The girl of Harper’s ferry. Ye who shall visit this scene again, This rock at Harper’s ferry, Come pledge me high in the brisk Champaigne Or a glass of the palest Sherry— And this is the name which ye shall quaff, The name of Mary Perry! She’s fairer than all your loves by half— The girl of Harper’s ferry. {741} THE KIDNAPPER’S COVE. I have always felt deeply interested in the past history of the Aborigines of our country; and with a pleasure amounting to enthusiasm, embrace every occasion of retracing the annals of that once noble and heroic, but now degraded and scattered race. Who that has any taste for the wild and picturesque, would not love to roam along the Susquehanna, and call up the associations with which its leafy forests are rife? They were once the favorite hunting grounds of the numerous tribes of Indians, belonging to the empire of the Five Nations, whose sway extended over every mountain, plain and river, from Champlain to Carolina. I set out upon my summer ramble, attracted by the feelings I have mentioned, to visit scenes of so much traditionary interest; and being unacquainted with the topography of the adjacent country, I sought out one of its oldest settlers in the hope of obtaining a guide, and some information respecting the most remarkable relics of the past. I was so fortunate as to fall in with a real old forester, one who loved nature in her wildness, who had trod her labyrinths of shade ere the woodman’s axe was heard clearing the way for rising villages and busy factories. I found him animated with antiquarian zeal, with a memory filled with stories of by-gone days, and a spirit of poetic fervor, which could re-people every spot with living images of the wild beings who had there fulfilled their mysterious destiny. He readily offered to be my guide in Indian antiquities, and we set out on our pilgrimage; Oliver Oldham (thus was my cicerone called) beguiling the way, now with a story, now with a song of ancient time, suggested by this well-remembered pass, that over-hanging rock, or steep waterfall. All was animated, all interesting, on the tongue of this old narrator. He carried me back to the days when the Indians and the white settlers were united in bonds of amity and love; when the unsuspecting red man showed no dispositions but those of the most friendly and confiding nature, towards the race before which he was so soon to disappear, and from which he was fated to receive such injuries. He retraced the history of aggression, and related several incidents of harrowing barbarity, in which the power of our race was perverted to oppress and finally to crush our ancient friends and allies. My mind retaining