reaches its climax (ll. 1023–1058); henceforth it will moderate with the growing certainty that the search will prove vain. The whole passage may be regarded as the centre of the poem. Artistically it is very effective.

1. 1033.-Carthusian. The order of Carthusian monks was founded (1805) by St. Bruno (1040-1101) at Chartreuse, near Grenoble, France. It enjoins a most austere life; monasteries to be built in isolated districts, the monks to live in almost perpetual silence, etc.

1. 1037.-the shade. Until 1867, the brown shade.

Page 147. 1. 1041.-stars, the thoughts of God. Cf. 1. 352. 1. 1044. Upharsin. Lit. 'they are lacking'; see Dan. v. 5-28.

Page 148. 1. 1057.-Patience, etc. A refrain in form from

1. 5f.

oracular caverns of darkness. Allusion to the caves of the sibyl of Cuma and the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, etc., as well as to the forest of oracular oaks of Dodona, Epirus. 1. 1060.-Bathed his shining feet. Adaptation of Luke, vii. 38; John, xii. 3.

1. 1063.-the Prodigal Son.

1. 1064.-the Foolish Virgin. Matth. xxv. 1-13.

Luke, xv. 11-32.

See 1. 800. Allusion to

Page 149. 1. 1068.-they follow. As late as 1876, they followed.

1. 1069.-like a dead leaf.

Refrain from 1. 13.

Until latest editions,

1. 1071.-found they the trace.

Found they trace.

1. 1074.-Adayes. See 1. 952, n.

IV.

Page 150. 1. 1082.—Oregon. Or Columbia River, 1400 miles in length, flowing from the Canadian Rockies through Washington and Oregon into the Pacific,

Walleway. The poet has changed the name for the sake of the metre,-the Wallawalla, a small river rising on the north border of Oregon, tributary to the Columbia River.

Owyhee (ō wi' hē). A tributary of the Snake River, which is itself a tributary of the Oregon.

1. 1083.-Wind-river Mountains. Part of the Rockies, in Wyoming.

1. 1084.-Sweet-water Valley. The valley of the Sweetwater River in Wyoming, one of the upper branches of the Nebraska.

1. 1085.-Fontaine-qui-bout.

boo'.

Pronounce fon (g)' tān kē

'The Gushing Fountain.' Name of a stream that

rises in Pike's Peak and flows into the Arkansas.

the Spanish sierras. Part of the Rockies, chiefly in New Mexico.

Page 151. 1. 1091.-amorphas. Shrubs of the bean family, bearing spikes of purple or violet flowers. Bastard indigo is another name for the plant.

1. 1092.-wandered. Here and in the following line until 1876 the poet had, wander. The change is significant of the progress of western civilization.

1. 1094.-Fires that blast. "The highland tracts of the Ozark range....look, in their natural state, more sterile than they actually are, from the effect of autumnal fires. These fires, continued for ages by the natives, to clear the ground for hunting, have had the effect, etc.—Adventures in the Ozark Mountains, Oneóta, p. 116.

1. 1095.-Ishmael's children. Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar (Gen. xxi. 14ff.), is the reputed ancestor of the Arabs; a proverbial comparison arises therefrom for the nomadic Indians.

1. 1098,—Like the implacable soul of a chieftain, etc. A possible reminiscence of Virgil, speaking of Turnus when slain by Æneas,

Vitaque cum genitu fugit indignata sub umbras.

[And his indignant soul fled lamenting amid the shades.]

Eneid, xii. 952.

See Notes and Queries, 6th Ser., vol. viii. (Feb. 23, 1884)

Page 152. 1. 1106.-At the base of the Ozark Mountains. That is, beginning at the northern and western slopes of the Ozarks, the original destination of Gabriel.

1. 1114.-Fata Morgana (fah'tah mor gah'na). Lit., the Fairy Morgana, sister of King Arthur, and an important character in medieval Arthurian romance. One of her works of magic was supposed to be the mirage, the Castle of the Fairy Morgana, seen in the straits of Messina. On a clear calm morning the spectator, standing on the Calabrian coast and looking towards the straits sees for a brief time, mirrored in the unequally heated layers of air over the Mediterranean, the objects of the Sicilian coast, sometimes gorgeously coloured. The spectacle is greeted by the natives with cries of Morgana! Morgana! Longfellow's poem entitled Fata Morgana may be compared.

1. 1119.-Shawnee. The Shawnees were a vagrant tribe of Algonquin Indians, chiefly dwelling between the Red River, tributary of the Mississippi, and the Canadian River, tributary of the Arkansas.

Page 153. 1. 1120.-Camanches.

The more usual title is Comanches, a fierce and predatory tribe of Shoshonean stock, who dwelt in (present) Texas, between the Red River and the Rio del Norte.

Page 154. 1. 1139.-the tale of the Mowis (mō' wès). A legend of the Ojibways, narrated by Schoolcraft. A proud and noted belle in an Indian village rejected a handsome suitor. To humble the arrogant beauty the rejected lover gathered up all the bits of rags and finery he could secure, and by the aid of his guardian spirit fashioned them into beautiful garments, which he filled with bones

and earth cemented with snow, making the whole into the likeness of a handsome warrior, Moowis, the Dirt or Rag Man. He led Moowis to the village, where the handsome stranger woed and won the haughty maiden. The morning after the wedding the stranger announced that business called him into a distant region. His bride insisted on accompanying him. They set out, the husband ahead,

out of sight of his wife. The sun began to shine, and the wife following his path found his mittens, his moccasins, all turned to rags, but though she wandered on despairing she caught no glimpse more of Moowis. "Moowis, Moowis, you have led me astray-you are leading me astray." And with this cry she continued to wander in the woods. -Schoolcraft, Oneóta, New York, 1845, p. 381f. Tales of a Wigwam.

1. 1145.—the fair Lilinau (lē lě nō'). An Ojibway legend, told by Schoolcraft. Leelinau, the favourite daughter of a mighty hunter, dwelt on the shore of Lake Superior. She took no interest in the sports of her companions but delighted to haunt the forest of pines on the shore, a grove sacred to the Indian fairies. At last her parents suspected that some evil spirit had power over her, and set a day for her wedding a young chief. Leelinau however refused to marry him. Retiring under her favourite pine-tree and leaning against the trunk, she heard the tree whisper that he was her lover, and would guard her and keep her if she would rove a fairy with him. The night before her wedding day she stole off in her best garments to her lover with the Green Plume. One night fishermen by the Spirit Grove descried something like the figure of Leelinau, and as they landed they saw the lost girl with the green plumes of her lover waving over her forehead, as they glided through the pines. -Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, N. Y., 1839, ii. 77ff.

Page 156. 1. 1167.-Black Robe chief. The cassocked priest.

The French Catholic missions were begun on the Mississippi by Marquette, 1673. (See Parkman, Jesuits in North America.)

Page 157. 1. 1182.-susurrus. Lat. susurrus, murmuring, whispering, from susurro, I whisper.

Page 158. 1. 1194.—suns. The priest adopts the Indian mode of reckoning.

1. 1199.-some lone nest. Cf. Wordsworth's Why art thou Silent, p. 41.

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Page 159. 1. 1213ff.—Blushed at each blood-red ear, etc. “If one of the young female huskers finds a red ear of corn, it is typical of a brave admirer,.and is regarded as a fitting present to some young warrior. But if the ear be crooked and tapering to a point, no matter what colour, the whole circle is set in a roar, and wa ge min is the word shouted aloud. It is considered as the image of an old man stooping as he enters the lot," etc.-Schoolcraft, Oneóta, p. 254. The whole situation is expanded in Hiawatha, xiii., q.v. Page 160. 1. 1219.-compass-flower. This reference gave the poet a great deal of trouble. In the first ed. he described the plant as the delicate flower'; 'Its leaves all point to the north'; it is the flower 'that the finger of God has suspended Here on its fragile stalk.' In the sixth ed. it became ' a delicate plant'; in 1867, ‘its leaves are turned to the north'; in 1869, 'that the finger of God has planted'; in 1867, in the houseless wild.' The whole difficulty arose from the fact that the original description scarcely characterized the Silphium laciniatum, or compass-plant, which is neither delicate nor elegant. It is "a tall rough-bristly perennial herb of the aster family of the American prairies, whose larger lower leaves are said to assume a vertical position with their edges turned north and south. Called also Polar-plant." See Stand. Dict., which contains an engraving.

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