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Book, page 91 / 199 by the tourist.--J. N. H.] The Indian as he followed his trail leading up along its banks, paused often to listen to the thunder of its waterfalls, or to watch its course while threading its way at the bottom of ravines, hundreds of feet beneath the jutting point where he was standing. The territory marked by this river was unsurpassed in the magnificence and beauty of its scenery, and in the variety and richness of its soil; and the Indian who lived for the most part in the open world, found here a home congenial to his spirit, and he loved it. The white man saw and loved it too. But he loved it not as the Indian, who looked upon it as already complete. The hills brought him venison, the valleys corn, and the streams on every side abounded in fish, the beautiful speckled trout, which fairly swarmed in all of these waters. What could he want more? He loved it as it was; just as it came from the forming hand of the Great Spirit. The white man loved it for what he saw he could make of it; but how little he thought his making, would mar the desirableness and beauty of the Indian's home. He had already obtained of the Indian a title to all his land lying on the east side of this river. He had even been allowed to cross over to the west side, and look upon that generous _Mill Yard_, twelve miles square, as his own. A very extensive gift it is true, but as it was proposed to erect at the Genesee falls a saw mill, which was claimed to be a vastly benevolent institution, and would be useful to the Indians as well as whites, inasmuch as it would save the immense labor of splitting and hewing logs for plank, as they were going to make the water of the river split the logs and hew them at the same time; it was claimed that this surrender on the part of the Indians, would be but a just offset against the self-denial, great expense, and severe labor of the whites, in establishing so benign an institution as a _saw mill_, in these western wilds. This is one among many instances of the benevolence of the white man toward the Indian. If the Genesee country was prized by the Indian, it was regarded with a wishful eye by the white man. And as he had obtained what was on the east side of the Genesee river, he was not content without a larger portion on the west. Already the tide of emigration had brought him to the utmost limit of his possessions, and he could hardly refrain from looking, with a wishful eye, upon the fertile fields lying beyond.
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