by a meddlesome and violent interference, will be effected by the gradual and voluntary agency of her own inhabitants. Her population will multiply. Commerce will thrive. Barren fields will be clothed with verdure. The productions of the earth will be increased. Crowded cities and smiling villages will spring up. The halls of legislation will be occupied by the hardy and virtuous cultivators of the soil, the men of all others the most safe to be entrusted with the enactment and administration of laws. Colleges, academies, and schools, will prove the nurseries of enlightened, healthful, industrious, and happy freemen; and Christianity, untrammelled by the obstacles that now so powerfully impede its progress, with a field wide and waving with a luxuriant harvest open and inviting before her, will send abroad her genial and regenerating influences, and render this the Paradise of lands. NATURAL BRIDGE OF PANDI, IN COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA. The Bridge of Pandi is distant two days journey from Bogotá. We made it less toilsome by remaining several days at Fusugazugá—an intermediate village, which possesses the advantage of a fine climate and refreshing verdure, unknown to the plain upon which this city stands. The bridge is situated considerably loweralmost in the tierra caliente hot country-where the thermometer rose to 86o, but still the heat was not very oppressive. Our first view of the bridge was just at the moment when such a scene is most impressive. The sun had sunk behind the mountains. We were without a guide, nor did we need o e. We had merely to follow the high road-a mule path-down into a deep ravine, near We will conclude this, perhaps too protracted per- the bottom of which we heard the sound of rushing formance, in the language of an Indian Cazique. "Would you know," he asked, "how I would have my children instructed in the ways of men? Look at this handful of dust gathered from the golden bed of the silver-flowing Aracara. What an infinite number of particles-yet how few the grains of ore which we prize; how great the toil which is necessary to sift out and separate them from the worthless heap in which they are concealed; even so it is with the history of the generations of men, from the creation downwards. Events have passed which no tongue can number; but the events which mark the character of human nature, and which are worthy of being treasured up in our memories, are but few, and only by the eye of wisdom to be distinguished. waters. On reaching the bridge, this sound and the dismal shrieks of numerous birds of night-the sole occupants of this gloomy region-called our attention to the scene below us. We then first knew we were upon the bridge of Pandi. Three hundred and fiftyeight feet beneath, rushes a stream, called Suma Paz, which fills the entire chasm-being, if we can trust our sight under circumstances so deceptive, about thirty or forty feet wide. We could see the deep chasm and the dark waters of the stream-but where was the bridge which Nature built? We were standing upon a rude structure of logs with railings so frail as almost to dismay the most daring; but upon closer examination we discovered that it rested upon several huge fragments which had fallen and lodged so as to form the bridge for which we were searching. The edges of the largest "Let my children then be taught what these few events are; let them be spared the life's labor of turn-rock rest upon other rocks on one side, and on the other ing over the mountain of dross which time has heaped up, in search of the scattered gems which are to lighten their path through the world; conduct them at once into the only treasury of true knowledge-that treasury which Philosophy has gleaned from the experience of thousands of generations." SONG OF LEE'S LEGION. Our chargers are plunging and pawing the ground, Remember the burnings we witnessed last night; The marauder is nigh-he is hurrying back; Prince Edward. upon the sloping face of the severed mountain. Upon this we descended, and enjoyed a better view of what the imagination is so readily inclined to paint as infernal regions. The cries of the birds echo from the depths below, like the shrieks of troubled souls destined to the sad fate of never leaving the abodes to which their sins had driven them. Night was rapidly approaching; and with the feelings which the scene had inspired, we retraced our steps to the little village of Pandi or El Mercadillo, to which we had to clamber nearly half a league. Our hamacs welcomed us to rest, and after the fatigues of the day, sleep soon robbed us of our wandering thoughts. On the following morning, we repeated our visit to the bridge, and reviewed the whole more leisurely. Although the awe of the preceding evening had subsided, our admiration was undiminished. The same Great Being which had ruptured the mountain asunder and opened a fearful fissure, had thrown down the loose fragments, and so lodged them as to contribute to the convenience as well as to arouse the astonishment and wonder of all who crossed. The natives of the country have destroyed much of the effect by the rude logs which they have laid upon the rocks across the chasm. It is also remarkable, that this fissure could not be passed elsewhere for many leagues in either direction. How will the Natural Bridge of Pandi compare with that of Rockbridge County in Virginia? The beauty of this must sink before the awful and grand sublimity of the other. In that you would look in vain for the well turned arch of this, while the latter is deficient in the almost unfathomable abyss and in the surrounding scenery and in the roaring waters of that of Pandi. I should have observed, that no means exist of reaching the bottom-nor is it desirable, as the bridge in itself, seen from below, cannot be imposing. The birds which occupy the ledges and caverns formed by the ruptured rock, are called "Pajaros del Puente"-Birds of the Bridge-and are not known elsewhere. They are birds of night, and sally out only after it is dark into the neighboring dense forests, in search of the fruit with which they maintain themselves. If perchance the light of day overtake them before they regain their dark abodes, it is so noxious to them that they cannot survive it. Thus say the natives-and that this is shown by their being many times found dead in the paths of the mountains. They are equal in size to a pheasant—their color is a reddish brown, and their beaks square and very hard. LINES On the Statue of Washington in the Capitol. The friends of freedom, and their native land: EPIGRAM. "A party, you tell me," says Dick, not invited, FALL OF TEQUENDAMA, the Hacienda de Canoas. The river winds sluggishly to our left towards the fall. Our path led over the high hills which appear to have been once the banks of the great lake which must have covered the plain which the view from these heights embraces. To eminences which are wholly devoid of trees succeed others which are well wooded, where we enter a more picturesque region, worthy of the fine scene which we were now eager to witness. We were convinced that we were near it, and listened for the deafening roar which we expected would betray the rush of the waters into the tremendous gulf that receives them. The path was steep, and shortly before we arrived at the spot where it was necessary to alight from our horses, the sounds of the fall reached us; but we were distant from it a few hundred yards only. My first sensation was disappointment, when I stood upon the brink of the chasm into which a stream whose greatest width is estimated at forty feet, is precipitated to a depth which did not seem to exceed three hundred feet, but which is estimated to be more than six hundred. The river being now uncommonly low, a sheet of water about fourteen or fifteen feet in width, is tossed about thirty feet upon a ledge of rocks, from which it dashes in foam to the bottom of the deep abyss, a large proportion of it dissipating in spray. The foot of man has never trodden the bottom of this chasm. Its sides are perpendicular to a considerable distance below, and the strata of rock are exactly horizontal, so that no means of descending have yet been discovered within the curvilinear aperture, where the mountain seems to have parted and given passage to the Funza. Attempts have been made repeatedly to reach the foot of the cataract by ascending the bed of the river, into which it is easy to enter at some distance below. A fall of about twenty feet had resisted heretofore the efforts of every adventurer. A party of Americans preceded us to-day, provided with ladders and ropes, with a determination to surmount this obstacle. In this they succeeded, but another yet more difficult presented itself-this they also surmounted with the strengthened hope of having then overcome every obstruction which resisted the accomplishment of their wishes. They were too sanguine. On ascending further, a fall of about forty feet now stared them in the face, and resisted all their efforts. Perpendicular rocks enclosed the narrow chasm. The only possible ascent was through the dashing torrent-with this they strug IN COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA. The Salto de Tequendama, a remarkable cascade, of which we had heard much, and which has been described in most glowing language, is distant to the south-gled nobly, but they had not the means of resisting it. west of Bogotá about fifteen miles. We had made The abode of innumerable parrots, whose screams, heard arrangements to visit it a fortnight ago, but the illness faintly at the height on which we stood, warned us of of one of our party caused us to defer it. We now the exertions made to encroach upon their domain, that determined to see the fall, and return to the city on the continues unmolested and untrodden by man. We same day. To accomplish our design, we set out be- spent more than two hours at the fall, hoping to witness fore day (about 5 o'clock) this morning. A rapid ride the success of the enterprising adventurers. Although of an hour and a half brought us to the small village of disappointed in this respect, we were amply compenSuácha, situated upon the plain of Bogotá, near its south-sated by the increased admiration with which we viewern border. The last earthquake, from which Bogotá ed this beautiful fall, notwithstanding it is seen so imsuffered so severely, was felt with the utmost violence at Suácha, and prostrated entirely the church, which is again rising from its ruins. Our route continued a league further over the plain, and we crossed the river Funza, whose course has been very circuitous through the plain, but is particularly devious where we passed over it, upon an uncouth and not very safe bridge, to perfectly. There are two spots from which good views may be obtained. We must leave to the fancy to imagine the grand effect of a sight from beneath it. It is to be hoped that ladders will be placed or that some means will be discovered to gratify the ardent desire one naturally feels of seeing to the best advantage this admirable work of nature. VOL. II.-33 The Fall of Tequendáma has been compared with the cataract of Niagara. Such a comparison cannot be instituted fairly. In the one, nature has been most lavish with her grandeur and sublimity: the other she has endowed liberally with the beautiful and the picturesque. The height of Tequendáma may be four times greater than that of Niagara; its width not the thirtieth part and to judge the comparative volume of the waters of both, it suffices to reflect, that Tequendáma drains the river Funza; Niagara the waters of four inland seas, which united, are not exceeded in size by the Gulf of Mexico. glory of the Virginian coast was sinking in the wilderness of waters. With a fixed and quenchless eye I watched its expiring outline, and when it had sunk down into a wavy and shadowy mist, I felt as the exile whose pulseless heart has heard the requiem of hope and the knell of love. Young, inexperienced, and ignorant of the world, I was launched like a rotten barque in the tempestuous ocean of man, while home, love, hope and all the primal sympathies of the human heart, were to me, sealed, buried, and forever annihilated. I had fled!-leaving a name associated with the scorn of honor and the vengeance of society. Who that heard of me would believe me innocent in the duel with Ludwell, or who would believe that self-defence prompted my attack on the life of Pilton? God in his goodness gave us tears! I had them not, and from a tearless eye I became sullen and satisfied, with no human passion but an increased affection for Ellen Pilton, which streamed through my heart like phosphoric words on the dark walls of a cavern. I was proud to be the victim of wayward and adverse circumstances, and yielding to their mystic control, I found that destiny weaves an argument which philosophy cannot unravel. The ship in which I had embarked soon fell down the river, and, aided by a favorable breeze, we quickly On the second day of our voyage, Scipio presented shot by the massy and motionless scenery of the ma-himself, telling me that he was sent from Chalgrave jestic Rappahannock. Changing our course we entered with letters for the ship, that he had discovered me one of the beautiful and tributary waters of the Chesa-through my disguise, that he had secreted himself on peake, and dropped anchor directly in front of an antique board of the vessel, and that he was determined to mansion, the stately residence of a proud and well known follow me to the end of the world. I soon settled the name. An extensive garden, which declared the taste manner and purpose of his appearance with the capand pedantry of its owner, for its chaste and beauti-tain, and found in the priceless fidelity of my servant, ful model was drawn from the pages of the Odyssey, a green spot on which my heart might rest from its stretched its broad walks to the margin of the river. storm of revenge and misanthropy. A throng of merry girls and romping boys poured down from the porch of the house, welcoming with glad voices that, happiest of all Virginian visiters, an importing ship. Disguising myself I leaped into the boat which left the vessel, and ere its keel had grated on the sand, many negroes had rushed into the water, and were dragging it to the shore with songs of triumph and congratulation. An elderly gentleman, grave, dignified and thoughtful-peace to his fair-top boots and glittering buckles!—now appeared and commenced the usual ledger conversation with Captain Z. about the quality and price of his tobacco, and in a whisper he told him on no account to sacrifice his "new ground sweet scented." Holding a paper in his hand he called aloud to his family to enter their wishes on that magic tablet, which he was about to send home. No commercial newspaper ever declared a more incongruous catalogue of the comforts of life and the luxuries of opulence: lace and iron, silk and spades, wine and jesuit's bark, all figured in the same column; and when the negroes were called on to declare what they wanted, they filled the mystic page with calico, fiddle strings and bottles. Many a bronzed and ebon colored child was led up to old massa by its mother, and each lisping petition for a hat or a fishing hook, was sacredly entered on the list.ence felt, her example imitated, her kindness cherished, I returned to the ship, and dropping a hasty line to my uncle, informing him of the reasons which compelled me to leave Virginia, despatched it by the last canoe which quitted our side, and retiring to sleep I did not awake until the ship was dancing gaily over the broad waters of the Atlantic. I looked on the furrowed track behind me and, far in the amber west, the lessening Cheered by the balmy spirit of the western gale our gallant ship sped her onward course, and the glad cry of land which echoed through the vessel as we approached the beetling coast of England fell on my ear like words of mercy to the prisoned captive. Standing on the quarter deck, I saw before me the bustle, hurry and turmoil of commerce. The surface of the water was chequered with a dense throng of vessels, while, broadly floating in the breeze, appeared that proud flag on whose glory the sun rises, and over whose empire he sets. As a Virginian! as one whom early education and childish associations had inspired, I gazed with a hallowed enthusiasm on that rugged land, which looked down from its iron-bound eyre, the eagle of the deepthat land which my boyish feelings had made the seat of intellect and the dwelling place of genius. The early colonists had called it by the tender name of Home; and the mellow tales of its glory, which had been poured into my infant ear, were now started into life and freshness. It was the land of Sir Philip Sydney, Hampden and Pope, and on each spot of its classic earth Poetry had raised her hallowed memorials, and Patriotism its stirring examples. From the frozen sea to the burning tropics her name is respected, her influ her resentment dreaded, while a radiant wake of glory streams behind the path of her march. Far in the forests of the western world, the names of her gifted sons who have asserted the triumphs of virtue or the dignity of man, are heard, and are re-echoed back from the Thames to the Ganges, and from the Volga to the Mississippi. In the solitude of power she stands alone, a massy trunk, resisting anarchy and bending to every | bills were honored, and at the instance of Scipio I took storm of revolution, yet rising from each assault in more a suite of rooms in the most fashionable street of the verdant and luxuriant foliage. Philosophy may claim city. Without letters of introduction, and too proud the gigantic birth of Printing—Religion the Reforma- to search for my many noble relatives, (my uncle had tion, and Science the discovery of Gunpowder, as the drugged me with their amors, duels and honors!) I sucgreat engines which opened the path of civilization.cumbed in silence to that cheerless solitude which flaps The mind of England seized these mighty levers, her its funeral wing around the indurated selfishness of a hand perfected them, and achieved for herself that tow-crowded city. At the Virginia Coffee House, I freering fame which pours its lustre from the table-land of quently found many of my own countrymen, who were the world. This picture was the dream of ignorance. | making the tour of Europe only because their fathers Alas! how soon was its frost-work melted before the had done it. An utter contempt of money-a carelesslight of truth! Unconscious of the hideous vice whichness of air and manner-a generous and open hearted lurked beneath the gorgeous fabric, I saw only its glow-confidence in every one-a familiarity with the Doning outline-I was ignorant of its rapine, fraud and caster and Epsom turf-an anxious zeal in attending avarice its selfishness of motive and act-its single- the courts of Westminster, and the gallery of the House ness of empire and power, and of that universal cor- of Commons, with a thorough knowledge of the literary ruption which yields power to wealth, and honors to history of England, and the places hallowed by Shaks knavery. The demon of gain is abroad throughout peare and the Spectator, were their striking and changeEngland-a pestilence which walketh in the darkness less characteristics. of the human heart, expanding its ravenous arms in her cities, or secretly hugging its penny in her lowliest cottages. Her metropolis is the shamble of the universe-a capacious reservoir, where vice elbows virtue, and where selfishness festers itself into the loathsome obesity of the toad. Every thing is on sale, and in the "mixed assortment" of her merchandise, even learning, genius and wit, succumb to the secret spirit of her ledger. "E'en the learned pate Ducks to the golden fool." Without her Christianity, which often blooms in guileless and untainted simplicity, her blood-stained empire would tumble to the earth. It is the influence of this holy faith which neutralizes the excess of profligacy,|| and stimulates her expanded philanthropy. Excited by its spirit, benevolence becomes religion, patriotism springs into virtue, and in the remotest corners of the earth we see the charity of the Christian opening the purse and heart of the Englishman. Shortly after my permanent and fixed residence had been made, I was lounging, as was my wont, in the crowded walks of the Exchange-the only idle being in that heated and feverish walk of gain, when a loud cry broke through the multitude and a horse dashed near me, the foot of his rider hanging in the stirrup. I instantly sprang forward, caught the bridle, leaped on his back, and leaning down I rescued the unfortunate rider from his perilous situation. From this event an intimacy commenced between Col. R and myself. His history was brief. High birth and fortune smiled on his cradle. Entering into manhood he had purchased a commission in the army, and had lived out Swift's spirited description of the man of fashion, "in dancing, fighting, gaming, making the circle of Italy, riding the great horse and speaking French." Satiated with the world, he had left it without being either a churl or a misanthrope. He resided in a costly villa near London, which his taste had decorated with elegance and refinement. The massy richness of an aged grove, soothed, without chilling the fancy, and through its broad vista the glimmering light lent itself to diversify uniformity without diminishing grandeur. Consistency towered above vanity, for there were no glades rolled into gravelled plains, nor trees sheared into fantastic foliagethat sickly taste which finds honor in the sacrifice of simplicity, and pride in its outrage on nature. The walls of his house were hung with rare and deeply mellowed paintings, and his capacious library was stocked with the heavy tomes of ancient lore. Gone are those good old books!-their spirit has been turned into a tincture!—their life and soul have been abridged I leave the narrative of sights and curiosities to the guide book. Born in the wilderness, my mind was as rugged as the grandeur of the forest, and like the native Indian I had naught to admire but the still and noiseless majesty of my own beautiful land. The stately palaces-the lofty towers and all the fantastic pageantry which opulence engenders, were but the moral to the fine sarcasm which antiquity has fabled in the bridge of Salmoneus. Man's "brief authority" decorates folly with a pyramid or a cathedral, and succeeding ages call it glory. What son of Virginia would barter her broad rivers-her sunny sky-her fertile plains, and her snow-capped mountains, for the crumb--the stern Clitus has been disgraced by a Persian ling monuments of tyranny and superstition, or the foetid marts of gain? Who would exchange the infant purity of the western world for the hoary vice and aged rottenness of Europe? Uncontaminated by the example of England, we have yet seized from her the sacred flame of freedom-her habeas corpus without the act of impressment-her bill of rights without a borough representation, and the rose of civil liberty transplanted to the west has bloomed without a thorn. I was soon in London, and received many marks of attention and kindness from the representatives of an old commercial house, which for years had sold every hogshead of tobacco from the Granby plantations. My dress-the march of mind cannot brook a folio! The education of Col. R— was deeply tainted with the forgotten glory of his library—a wild flower blooming amid the silence of a neglected ruin. He had literature without pedantry, learning without arrogance; and being neither author nor compiler, he yet mingled on equal terms of compliment and civility with the gifted names of his land. Proud pre-eminence of genius! respected even in its slumbers. Though its possessor be unknown to print, though his pen sleep in idleness, like the prophet, the sacred flame plays around his brow and lightens up his onward course. In his society I drank from a deep stream of intel lect pure and unalloyed happiness-yet dashed into bitterness by the remembrance that under his protection I had first visited a gaming table-though he had carried me thither more for the purpose of portraying human character than of making me either the prosclyte or victim of its insidious vice. Come Lionel! said he, gently touching my shoulder, as I was deeply absorbed in the unhallowed rites of the blind goddess-leave this dangerous place! Your warm blood and ardent temperament cannot withstand its harlotry. Crush in its infancy that juggling fiend, which martyrs the pride of mind-the dignities of virtue, the immunities of education, and the consolations of religion. I waited on the banker, received the sacrifice of my slave's short-lived freedom; and as I looked on the tearstained money, 1 learned from that generous and affectionate fidelity, a lesson which made me loathe with horror the moral prostitution of the gaming table. THE PATRIARCH'S INHERITANCE. The following is an extract from an unfinished MS. and occurs at the close of an interview between the Almighty and Abraham, in the course of which is introduced the promise thus stated in Genesis: "And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to His warning voice fell on a sodden ear. Seated at a thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever," &c. -This pronounced, When I reached my lodgings, Scipio met me with his usual kindness, which I repelled with a severity and harshness that called a tear to his eye. Go! cried I, leave me, I am a broken man and a friendless beggar, I give you your freedom. Go! and for God's sake do not longer tempt my avarice! An unusual cheerfulness spread itself over his countenance-the convincing indication of my fallen fortune. The idea was no sooner conceived, than my despair gave it certainty, and rising I drove my servant from the room with a blow and a curse. I sold all the furniture with which I had supplied my rooms, and again rushed to the gaming table. The fickle goddess had forever deserted me, and, lost to all sense of shame, I hung around the table, a silent spectator of the deep, passionate, and thrilling drama. About a week after Scipio's departure, a gentleman accosted me at the table, and delivered a letter which he informed me he had brought from Liverpool. It was written in the sententious style of a merchant, and enclosed a draft in my favor on an eminent banker for fifty pounds. The writer informed me that Scipio had sold himself for this sum to a Liverpool trader—that he had requested that the money should be sent to me, and that on the day after the purchase he had shipped the servant, with his own free consent, to the West Indies. O, blest, enchanting vision! All around, |