acclivity, and it had opened
the way for an extended view, to those who might occupy its upper margins, a
rare occurrence to the traveller in the woods. As usual, the spot was small, but
owing to the circumstance of its lying on the low acclivity mentioned, and that
of the opening's extending downward, it offered more than common advantages to
the eye. Philosophy has not yet determined the nature of the power that so often
lays desolate spots of this description, some ascribing it to the whirlwinds
that produce water-spouts on the ocean, while others again impute it to sudden
and violent passages of streams of the electric fluid; but the effects in the
woods are familiar to all. On the upper margin of the opening, to which there is
allusion, the viewless influence had piled tree on tree, in such a manner as had
not only enabled the two males of the party to ascend to an elevation of some
thirty feet above the level of the earth, but, with a little care and
encouragement, to induce their more timid companions to accompany them. The vast
trunks, that had been broken and riven by the force of the gust, lay blended
like jack-straws, while their branches, still exhaling the fragrance of wilted
leaves, were interlaced in a manner to afford sufficient support to the hands.
One tree had been completely uprooted, and its lower end, filled with earth, had
been cast uppermost, in a way to supply a sort of staging for the four
adventurers, when they had gained the desired distance from the ground.
    The reader is to anticipate none of the appliances of people of refinement,
in the description of the personal appearances of the group in question. They
were all way-farers in the wilderness, and had they not been, neither their
previous habits, nor their actual social positions would have accustomed them to
many of the luxuries of rank. Two of the party, indeed, a male and a female,
belonged to the native owners of the soil, being Indians of the well known tribe
of the Tuscaroras, while their companions were a man, who bore about him the
peculiarities of one who had passed his days on the ocean, and that, too, in a
station little if any above that of a common mariner, while his female associate
was a maiden of a class, in no great degree superior to his own, though her
youth, sweetness of countenance, and a modest but spirited mien, lent that
character of intellect and refinement, which adds so much to the charm of
beauty, in the