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were verified as truth. I was in the intellectual attitude of a critic, hardly a skeptic, yet requiring further confirmation of the credibility of the witness. I resolved on the spot, therefore, to ask for this confirmation. It occurred to me, also, to provide a lasting memorial of this interview, by requesting that both Skenondough and Williams would consent to the daguerreotyping of their likenesses so that other eyes than mine might picture these old men, and see the difference in their type of physiognomy.

Williams and Skenondough consented; and, by appointment, we proceeded to Brady's Gallery, where their likenesses were admirably taken. These pictures are deposited with the Long Island Historical Society.*

In pursuance of my desire to learn the credibility of old Skenondough, I addressed a letter, on the 18th of June, 1853, to the Hon. Peter Sken Smith, of Philadelphia; from whom I received the following reply:

"My dear Sir: I have been much indisposed, and not able to answer your letter of the 18th ult. till now, and I am still weak. I have known John O'Brien Skenondough, a halfbreed Indian of the Oneida tribe, for thirty years and upwards. I suspect the "important testimony" from him, which you refer to, relates to the Rev. Mr. Williams.

“I hesitate not to say, Skenondough can be relied on. I also know much of Mr. Williams.

"In much haste, very truly and respectfully

"Yours,

"P. SKEN SMITH."

IV. About this time Mr. Williams was carrying through the press his revised edition of the "Book of Common Prayer," translated by him into the Mohawk and Iroquois languages, by the request of the Domestic Committee of the Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church. This work required his frequent, and sometimes prolonged, sojourn in New York.

It was during this period when Mr. Hanson called on me, to say that he had received a letter from Mrs. Com. Read,

We have not considered it necessary to engrave them, but any one interested can see them at our office.-Editor.

of New Orleans, acquainting him with a fact which he deemed decisive on the question of the identity of Eleazer Williams and the Dauphin Louis Charles. The letter stated that further information had been derived from the old person (Mrs. Margaret Deboit, whose affidavit, on another point, is published in "The Lost Prince," p. 430; Append., 475), who was some time in the household of Count de Provence and the Duchesse d'Angoulême. This information, he said, accorded with a letter from Madame Rambaud to the Duchesse D'Angoulême, lately brought to his notice. The substance of this fresh evidence was this: that, when Naundorf's claim to be the Dauphin was rejected by the Duchesse d'Angoulême, she had said that" when her brother should be discovered, if he were yet alive, there would be found, on the back of his shoulder, the mark of the lancet in the shape of a crescent, which was made there by the surgeon, at the time of the inoculation of the Dauphin, for the purpose of identification." And the letter begged Mr. Hanson to see if such a mark was on the shoulder of Eleazer Williams.

I asked Mr. Hanson if he had examined into the case. He replied that he had; and the mark was there, and he wished me to verify it. He said, besides, that if he had not found the scar of identification, his opinion would likely have been upset; for he might not justly have disputed the evidence of this woman's testimony, since he himself had journeyed to New Orleans to procure her affidavit. Time might indeed have obliterated the wound; and this fresh testimony might be rejected as hearsay; yet, nevertheless, he had suffered trepidation in asking Mr. Williams to allow him to put his theory to the test; and when he had seen, with his own eyes, this remarkable confirmation of his faith, he could not doubt of the truth, and wished, as I had served him heretofore, that I would consent to bear witness to what I might also see.

I found myself in a very delicate position. It was to request an aged and venerable man to strip his back, that

I might subject him to a scrutiny; while, on the other hand, I might, by declining, leave my friend alone to bear the sarcasms tossed at him as a romancer and a credulous person. I consented. A day or two after,* Mr. Hanson was to have his infant-child baptized by the Rev. Dr. Hawks, in Calvary Church, New York. I promised to be present on that occasion, if possible. I arrived just after the administration of the Sacrament, when the parties were dispersing, and proceeded to the robing-room, where I found Mr. Williams (who had been sponsor to the child), and Mr. Hanson, awaiting.

I shall not forget this meeting, nor the dignified bearing of Mr. Williams. I was reluctant to proceed. Yet I ventured to say, "I hear that you bear a mark on your shoulder, such as is said to have been put on the Dauphin for his identification. Have you such a mark?

?"

Williams replied, with a smile, "They tell me I have; but I have never seen it."

There was no elation, no symptom of triumph, no suggestion that this report of his "identification " had ruffled the serenity of his soul as a simple missionary to the Indians.

I inquired if he would "submit to my examination, not from idle curiosity,

* The record of the baptism above referred to is certified by Rev. W. D. Walker, assistant-minister of Calvary Church, as being in the register of that church, and as occurring June 14, 1853, Eleazer Williams being one of the sponsors.-Editor Putnam's Magazine.

but from regard to the desire of the Rev. Mr. Hanson."

"Certainly," he replied; "I should be ungrateful to decline compliance with Mr. Hanson's desire."

Accordingly, Williams threw off his coat and vest, and allowed me to scrutinize the mysterious mark. The light of the robing-room was very dim. I could see the deep pit of the inoculation on the arm. I could not discern on the back of the shoulder any thing peculiar. Nor could Mr. Hanson. Williams preserved the same calm composure while we were discussing the matter.

"Will you step out into the church a moment? there is no one there," I suggested.

"If you wish it," said Mr. Williams. I opened the door, and he followed me outside; when, turning his shoulder to the light, there was the cicatrix, in the shape of a crescent, three-fourths of an inch across, nearly obliterated, yet palpable and unmistakable. Hanson saw it again, and tears silently stole down his cheeks. It was proof positive to him, now that he had found THE LOST PRINCE. He grasped my hand. We said nothing, except my ejaculations, "The mark is there! I see it with my eyes! What does it mean? He must, indeed, be the Dauphin!"

Such was the final personal observation that fell to my lot, to test the truth of the question,

"Were Louis XVII. and Eleazer Williams the same person?"

THREE SCORE.

I AM not old, and will not be:
I daily grow, and years are piled
About my life, as when a child
I bloomed into Eternity.

And still for me the sunny day,

Outleaping from mysterious night,

With dew of God's fresh-breathing bright, Glistens in all its primal ray.

Each morn for me is a new birth:

Daily I rise up from the deep

Of bounteous, broad, prolific sleep,The only death man knows on earth.

I grasp the wonders to my soul,

That flash their freshness far and near, And tell, how great is that career That bares to me so vast a whole.

And at the multitudinous joy

Of being, without, within, I drink,
As thirsty as when on the brink
I played and pried, a wondering boy.

And am I not an infant still?

Or should I pace a sixscore span,
What were it to th' eternal plan
Ordained me by Almighty will?

All earthly time is faggot-smoke:
The soul is an upspringing flame,

That, kindled, mounts to whence it came And frees itself from yearly yoke.

If I were old, the life within

Would cease to blossom thought and want, And, like an hoar oak, branchless, gaunt, Would dribble through a hollow skin.

But new thoughts gush, and wants, as bold (And wider) as when twenty years Through dauntless hopes and flying fears Had shot me into manhood's mould.

High beauty's glory ne'er was higher,
Nor so ethereal yet its power,

Nor yet of reaching thought the dower
So glittering with celestial fire.

And never in those earlier days,

When joy was bold and hopes were new, Were rainbows of such heavenly hue, The future so with life ablaze.

The quick perennial now is mine

As much as in my wakeful youth,-
Nay, more; for gleams of gathered truth
Their safety on its tempests shine.

This mighty now, this lord of life,—
And yet of life itself the thrall,—
Doth sparkle 'mid the sparkling all,
With transcendental vision rife;

With vision peering in the deeps

That deepen with the spiritual ken, Aglow with blest revealings, when The spirit towards its freedom leaps.

Life is no mouldering sapless swathe,

Our clay-clad bones in place to hold: 'Tis flame that kindles worlds untold, A fire whose warmest breath is faith.

IN THE SADDLE-ON THE PLAINS.

I.

UP THE RIVER.

THE Outward form of a western steamer, even though graced by the name Prairie Flower, is not attractive. Captain Vincent, accustomed to the handsome craft of the Hudson, compared the Prairie Flower to a landcabin in a huge scow.

The engine and boiler are exposed to view on the main deck. Instead of the neat engine-room with brightly burnished cylinders and rods, and varnished walls adorned with appropriate pic tures, and the corpulent oil-cans, bright, and neatly disposed, there is only an ugly maze of black machinery covered by the deck above. An Atlantic engineer, in his cosy arm-chair, watches the smooth play of the engine, as a fond mother would watch her child. Missouri "stoker" pulls and "jabs" his plutonic monster as an irate driver would "regulate" his mule.

The

Leaving the "boiler-deck," and ascending the broad stairway to the "saloon," a term which, in the American tongue, signifies every thing from a parlor to a cook-shop,-the unfavorable impression is agreeably relieved. This

long and really elegant apartment is well furnished. On each side are tolerably commodious sleeping-rooms dignified by the high-sounding title of "staterooms." The table is spread with delicacies of the season, and the epicurean tourist will, on the whole, enjoy a summer-trip upon a Western steamer. Its flat bottom, with a single broad paddlewheel in the stern, adapts it to the shallow Western waters, without wharves or piers. The swift-running currents and the ever-shifting bed of the rivers forbid the insertion of piles for piers; and very often, in landing, the shoreside will be high and dry on the bank; but as the engine starts, the steamer, like a turtle, crawls lazily into its proper element. President Lincoln, whose mind seems to have been specially turned to these peculiarities of Western navigation by his experience as a flat-boatman, made a singular invention for passing steamers over shoals, which is on file in the Patent Office. He was only several inches from the truth, in saying that a gunboat could run through a meadow with a light dew on the grass.

As the steamer was leaving the levée, about forty black deck-hands, or "roustabouts," gathered at the bows, and their

leader sang the rude Afric Western sailor's song, all hands joining in the chorus:

We gwine up dis ribah-
Oh, ya ha Mollie;

We'm sorry for to leab you,
Ho ya ha, Mollie Roe.

A bully boat

Oh, ya ha, Mollie ;
An a bang-up crew

Ho yaha, Mollie Roe.

Wid hansum mateOh ya, ha Mollie

An captin true

Dat's so, ya ha, Mollie Roe.

Den, Mollie, don' yah cry--
Oh, no o, Mollie;
We cum ag'in by-m-by,
Ya ha, Mollie Roe.

This weird display of the negro's love of melody, and of his slight advancement in the art, having been rewarded by the vignette of Mr. Fessenden from the upper deck, the black minstrels descended from the poetry, and resumed the rough prose of a "roustabout's " life.

The traveller on a Missouri steamer passes his first day reading As this tires, he emerges on deck and watches, with the slow passage of the steamer, Nature's grand panorama, now a field green with corn, then a dense forest for many weary miles, anon snowy wheatfields waving and rolling in the wind like a billowy foaming sea; then a log cabin in the clearing, where the children are at play, and the white smoke curls from the chimney, and the wife pauses in preparing the evening meal, and the chopper rests his swinging axe on the edge of the forest, to take a cheering look at the steamer ploughing by and linking their remote life with the great world of civilization. Our passenger mused as he looked out upon the ripening of the harvest: "How mysterious the uniformity and the sufficiency of the supply which rewards the labors of the great family of the one Father. Man checkers the world for his selfish games, nations war, brother perishes at the hand of brother, but onward in majesty rolls the harmonious cycle of the seasons, unlocking the

stores of Nature, and dispensing with even hand to all her children."

While Captain Vincent was indulging in these reflections, a young stranger aroused him with the usual mode of self-introduction in vogue among travellers, by requesting the privilege of lighting his cigar. "Certainly," said Rollin, extending the fragrant luxury.

"Thank you!" then, glancing at our hero's semi-militaire attire, the stranger added,

"In the service, sir?”

"Not at present; lately mustered out."

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Charles Dumfrees, adjutant of the 13th Cavalry. We've a long trip before us-river low, heavy freight; so, with your leave, if we want a good time, the sooner we know every body, and set them about it, the better."

Vincent extended his hand.

"I am happy to know you, sir, and I am Rollin Vincent, late Captain of the 98th New York Cavalry."

"Ah-you-then you must knowbut wait a second."

After a moment's absence, Dumfrees returned with his friend, who wore also the undress uniform of the regular army, and whose regiment-the 9th Michigan Cavalry--had been in the same brigade with that of Captain Vincent. Their meeting was the revival of an old and cordial acquaintance. At the close of the rebellion Lieutenant McCann had received a commission in the regular service, and was now en route to Fort Leavenworth to join his command. "Terry McCann," as the world christened him, could tell the most incredible story and sing the most uproarious song of any in the regiment.. He was as full of hurrah and Irish. enthusiasm as Vincent of Saxon coolness, caution, and intrepidity.

The days of the trip were passing pleasantly. After supper there was dancing in the cabin; and this, with the promenade on deck by the silvery moonlight, afforded the younger members of the company rapid facilities for becoming not only acquainted, but in-

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