Book Description

"UPON the summit of a mountain which beetled in the remote west over the dwellings and defences of a race long since vanished, stood, at the close of a midsummer's day, a gigantic shape whose vastness darkened the whole vale beneath. The sunset purpled the mountain-top, and crimsoned with its deep, gorgeous tints the broad occident and as the huge figure leaned against it, it seemed like a mighty image cut from the solid peak itself, and framed against the sky. Below in a thousand groups were gathered, in their wonted evening worship, that strange people who have left upon our hills and prairies so many monuments of their power, and who yet, by some mighty accident, have taken the trumpet out of the hand of Fame, and closed for ever, as regards their historical and domestic character, the busy lips of tradition."