the flowery
path of knowledge, may perhaps stand on the selfsame shady slope,
where, of a long summer evening, he would sit at the door of his
bark-built wigwam, smoking his long pipe, and watching his naked red
children with a more fatherly smile than you can well imagine in one
so fierce, as with many a hoop and yelp they played at "hide-and-seek"
among the gray old trees and pawpaw thickets. On yonder hill-top,
where we at this moment can see the windows of the house of God
shining and glancing in the moonlight, he may have stood, with his
face to the rising or setting sun, in mute worship before the Great
Spirit.

But the stronger and wiser white man came; and, at his terrible
approach, the red man, with all his wild remembrances, passed away,
like an echo in the woods, or the shadow of an April cloud over the
hills and valleys; and the place that once knew him shall know him no
more for ever.

And yet it might have been far otherwise with him and with us, had not
a certain Christopher Columbus chanced to light upon this Western
World of ours, as he came hap-hazard across the wide Atlantic, where
ship had never sailed before, in quest of a shorter passage to Asia.

By this great discovery, it was proved to the entire satisfaction of
all who are in the least interested in the matter, that this earth
upon which we live, instead of being long and flat, with sides and
ends and corners like a great rough slab, was round, and hollow
inside, like an India-rubber ball, and went rolling through empty
space, round and round the sun, year after year, continually.

Of this bold and skilful sailor, the most renowned that ever lived, I
should like to tell you many things; but, as we set out to give our
chief attention to the story of Washington, we must deny ourselves
this pleasure until the holidays of some merry Christmas yet to come,
when your Uncle Juvinell, if he still keeps his memory fresh and
green, will relate to you many wonderful things in the life of this
great voyager, Columbus.

Up to this time, all the nations of Christendom had for ages upon ages
been sunk in a lazy doze of ignorance and superstition. But, when
tidings of the great discovery reached their drowsy ears, they were
roused in a marvellous manner; and many of the richest and most
powerful forthwith determined to secure, each to itself, a portion of
the new-found region, by planting colonies; or, in other words, by
making settlements therein.