MY DEAR MR. KNICKERBOCKER: IT was Horace Walpole, I think, who remarked, that the love of music is the only earthly passion in which we can hope to be indulged in heaven. And it is a curious fact, that she, the eldest of the Arts, having been the beloved of angels from the beginning, seems in all cases to have taken precedence of the sisterhood, as the aid and coadjutor of man in his progress from barbarism to civilization. It is said, no race has yet been found so brutish and debased as to be entirely without religion; some shadow or type of religious feeling; some worship or reverence for the supernatural, be it GOD or devil; and I have yet to hear of the discovery of any tribe so dull and stupid as to be without some means of showing that the natural man has an ear attuned to the concord of sweet sounds.' Indeed the two seem to have a natural and almost individual connection. Depending neither upon form, color nor any tangible quality; depending little upon the education of the senses as a means for its enjoyment, Music is ever the gentle and winning handmaiden of religion. Both speak to us as it were from within, and while the most unlettered christian, ignorant alike of the power it exercises and the artistic means by which it is produced, chants forth his simple melody with a fervor and pathos alike purifying and exalting on the one hand, we behold on the other a Beethoven, well nigh dead to outward sense, deaf and almost blind, still pouring forth his soul in the composition of sublime harmonies, which at once transport us by the depth and purity of their devotion. But it is not over the religious sensibilities alone that music exercises an important influence. From the days of Tubal

Cain to the present, from her felicity in expressing all the delicate and tender emotions of the heart, of giving voice and utterance to the aspirations of hope, the sighings of absence, the triumphs of success or the dull moodiness of despair, she has been also the constant companion and the handmaiden of Love, and it is in this connection that I have ventured to submit to you the following leaves.

My brother Mac, a harum-scarum wild boy of nineteen, who was for some years resident with the Winnebagoes, among other Indian curiosities, for the transmission of which he had a standing order, has sent me a very rude and primitive-looking musical instrument, which he chooses to dignify with the name of flute, but which bears about as much resemblance to that dignified and refined pet of the orchestra as it does to a trombone. He informs me that it bore an important part in a little love tragedy which occured not many years since in that tribe; that it belonged to a young brave; but I shall let Mac tell you the story himself. Thus he writes:

Young Miastonemoh, (the Killer of Eagles,) was a brave of no ordinary pretension or ability. Uniting great beauty and manliness of person with remarkable agility and strength, he at once excited the admiration, the envy and the emulation of his fellows. To his skill and address was committed the training of the fiercest of the wild horses of the prairies. No eye was so calm as his, no arm so nervous and no blade so keen in the deadly combat with the dreaded grisly-bear; while to his success in that most difficult of feats, the killing of the bald eagle, the name he bore was sufficient testimony. Modest and gentle in his ways, accomplished in all that captivates an Indian maiden's heart; (and the heart of the Indian girl is quickly won by kindness of manner, by that subdued gentleness, which seems to yield while it commands;) and rich moreover in beaver skins and buffalo marrow, you may be sure dark eyes flashed warmly upon the young brave as he passed, and many a dusky bosom throbbed responsive to his step. The Indian, if any way noticeable, either for bravery and address, or for an accumulation of more tangible wealth, generally marries early, and Miastonemoh had no very decided objections to a wife. But in looking around his tribe for one whose smiles should warm his wigwam like the sunlight,' he could see neither beauty nor worth in any save the fair Liastonoluh, (Hair of the Sunbeams,) the daughter of a pale-face, stolen many years before, when a child, by a party of the tribe, while on a raid against the whites, south of the Sheboygan. She had now seen seventeen summers, was tall for her years, and had all that native grace of look and bearing which result from perfect freedom of will and dress. Her complexion, which in childhood had been pure as the lily, was now, from long exposure to the smoke of the cabin and the sun of the prairies, changed to a clear and rosy olive, while her hair, originally of the purest auburn, had been tinged, until it resembled, more than any thing else, the last golden rays of the setting sun; a variation from the regular glossy black of the Indians so remarkable as to warrant the tribe in their aboriginal notions of nomenclature, in giving her a name expressive of the fact. Thus far, either from her child-like fairness and delicacy, or from some capricious freak on the

part of her captors, she had been exempted from the severe and degrading labor to which Indian women are most generally subjected. Indeed, although she knew no other parents than the old chief and his venerable squaw, with whom she was domiciled, she was yet an Indian but by association, and her white blood would doubtless have rebelled with a natural pride at the performance of any menial office. Wild, free and joyous, perfectly at home, whether scouring across the prairies on her white mustang or in paddling her bark canoe among the swift currents and dark eddies of the Mississippi, Liastonoluh was at once the pride and the pet of the nation. She was not long in discovering that the young brave was her ardent admirer. How, it might be difficult to tell, only that it was by the same sort of animal magnetism or spiritual telegraphing that such psychological facts are usually brought to light. Indeed, the discovery seems to have been mutual and simultaneous, and Miastonemoh, having made up his mind, (a grave matter that, master Fritz,) set himself seriously about winning the maiden's heart after the manner most approved among the beaux of the Winnebagoes.

After repeated efforts, with much labor and some rude skill, he fashioned this flute, (for you must know a lover there attacks his mistress' heart much as Joshua did Jericho,) and taking advantage of the evening of the first new moon, alike the most favorable time for corn planting and love making, he sallied forth. Stopping occasionally to blow a few notes at the doors of the young squaws, his neighbors, more to let them know they had nothing farther to expect than to exhibit any great proficiency on his instrument, he settled himself at last before the wigwam of Liastonoluh, and there he tootle, tootle, tootled away, now a joyous note and then a plaintive one, according as his hopes of a favorable reception rose or fell, for full an hour. Still there was no answer. Miastonemoh was a persevering man, as well as a brave one. In so good a cause he was as little to be discouraged by delay as he was to be daunted by difficulties; so he kept on, tootle, tootle-too, the only response to his tones being the occasional whurr of the night-hawk, or a sharp, unmusical bark from the sentinel of an adjacent colony of prairie-dogs. The night advanced. The stars had lighted the young moon like a bride to her rest, still no answer, and still his patience grew, until at last, 'in tremulous voice and low,' there broke upon the calm night, like the first murmuring wave upon an untroubled pool, one of the hundred little love songs with which the Indian maidens solace their idle hours. Joy to the lover then! His hopes were crowned: the maiden recognized and accepted his suit. His code of gallantry forbade his pressing it farther on that occasion; so putting all his skill into one loud joyous blast, he tootled out his adieu, and with his red heart beating the rapid buffalo-dance against his swarthy chest, he marched proudly back to his wigwam.

Now you must know this scene was to be performed weekly at the quarterings of the moon, until she should again renew her horns, before he could consider the maiden fairly and finally his own. Until such lapse of time she was of course at liberty to jilt or otherwise dispose of him; but the month once elapsed, and all things having gone

Mias

smoothly, she had no further choice. A very proper and sensible arrangement, which, were it only introduced into civilized life, would save many a young gallant a short eternity of heart-ache. During the intervals between these weekly serenades the young brave must leave the flute, together with his medicine-bag, conspicuously suspended from the tree nearest the wigwam of his intended. If it remained unmolested, all was well. Liastonoluh was at liberty to take it away if she pleased, but by such an act she signified the absolute rejection of him and his suit. No other member of the tribe would dare molest it. The medicine-bag made it perfectly 'taboo.' An Indian would as soon have thought of defying the GREAT SPIRIT in the war-path as to have meddled with any thing placed under the protection of the mysterious medicine-bag. Beside in this case the bravery and prowess of the lover were a perpetual caution against any interference with his arrangements. Meanwhile all seemed prosperous. Here music, rude and semi-barbarous though it was, was still the food of love.' tonemoh 'played on' with diligence and success. The course of their love seemed flowing as smoothly as the silent waters by which they daily wandered. Together in their light canoe they floated away over the dark bosom of the Mississippi; together sought the cooling shade where the wild frost-grapes' tendrils, twining with the pendant branches of the elm, had formed an arbor o'er the water's brink; or mounted on his wildest horse, had galloped away across the wide plain, to meet the cool breeze which fanned the leaves of the distant prairie islands. The moon waxed old apace, and all was well. Thrice had Liastonoluh answered his ditty, when, wo to his hopes! on the night before his last and final declaration was to have been made, flute, medicine-bag and all disappeared! Astonishment, grief, wounded pride, alternately reigned and raged within him. He would not believe the maiden could so coolly wrong him; and yet he had not an enemy in the tribe, even had an enemy dared to do it. It was barely possible jealousy might have prompted it. He instantly sought the play-ground of his fellows, but no eyes were cast down, no face was averted. He saw there no indication that any one had so insulted the GREAT SPIRIT, or so deeply injured himself; beside, the cord which bound them had been carefully untied, not severed as if in haste. It must have been Liastonoluh herself. It could scarcely have been another. Sadly enough did he go through the warlike exercises of the day. Liastonoluh met him with a smile, but he construed it into an expression of triumph. Pride prevented his seeking an explanation, even had the code-matrimonial of the tribe permitted. This was the test-act of the whole affair. Not that in it was any of the true mystery of love making; it was only in the notions of the venerable matrons and midwives of the tribe a ceremonial fit and proper to be observed, which could in no way be evaded or put aside. It was indeed the sign manual, which secured to the marriageable daughters of the nation the indefeisible right of doing as they pleased, without a reason; of jilting a lover without a moment's notice, and without a why or wherefore. She was not to be questioned. The flute and medicine-bag, the insignia of his adoration, were gone. Doubtless she had taken them as a trophy. All was at an end.