Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

They came--these four beautiful maidens--to the four bewildered travellers, whom they addressed thus, and their voice was sweeter than the music of the song-sparrow--"Who are ye?" The hunters replied that they were men of the Creek-nation who had ventured into the marsh Ouaquaphenogan, and were bewildered in its inextricable mazes. Two days, they said, they had been without food; they were faint and weary, and demanded refreshments, such as they would have given, had a hungry traveller come to their door, and said, "Food I have none, give me or I faint." The beautiful maidens replied, that the men of their nation, having long ages ago been driven with much bloodshed into the inaccessible fastnesses of the island Ouaquaphenogan, in the lake of the same name, by the ancestors of the present generation of Creeks, had retained so deeply in their bosoms the memory of their wrongs, that they were sure to inflict upon them most excruciating tortures, and to make them die a death of fire. Such, they said, would be the fate of the four bewildered hunters, should their fathers or brothers discover them now. They earnestly besought them to fly; but first, with that tender and compassionate nature which belongs to women when they see the other sex in distress, they brought from a little cabin which stood near, covered with beautiful vines in blossom, abundance of provisions, besides oranges, dates, and other fruit, sweet, ripe, and tempting, as their own beautiful selves. These they spread out on the flowery earth, and invited the four hunters to partake. Placed each by the maiden of his choice, they fed upon the repast prepared by the fair hands of the daughters of the sun, the while drinking in the passion of love from their large and lustrous eyes. Nor was the soft language of looks alone the medium of thought; words of the tongue were interchanged as sweet as those of the eyes. Wrought up at length to a phrenzy of passion, and emboldened by the melting glances of the dove-eyed girls, the youthful hunters besought them to bless them with their love--to become the wives of their heart. Faint was the shake of the head, and scarcely heard the breathing of the "No," and cast meekly down upon the blue flowers at their feet the soft and tender eyes, which could not have looked up and kept their secret. At length, one of the maidens, the eldest sister--for they were sisters--began thus:

"Young and amiable strangers, it is proper that we tell you who we are, that you may think whether you will dare the danger, that will attend the union of one of our race with one of yours. We are born of mothers, and are the children of fathers, who are governed by the influences of the sun, even as tides obey the commands of their mistress the moon, and stars perform their round of service in the sky, at the command of the Master of all. Our disposition--the disposition of our race--is as variable as that of the winds upon which our great father acts. Ye behold him fiery at times--even so are we--a change comes over him, his beams grow mild and soft, dispensing genial warmth and gladness; ours, like his, also soften, and, though they cannot possess his power, yet they are fashioned on his pattern, and we in our kind moments bestow all the happiness we can upon those we love. At those moments, were it possible to fill all the earth with love, to make bush, tree, flower, man, beast, bird, utter the language of the soft passion, and hill, dale, mountain, and valley, echo it, we would do it. Again do we change; and he that hath noted the quick obscuring of the sun in the Month of Buds, may estimate the variableness of our temper. Then tears fall from our eyes in torrents, as showers fall from a cloud, and as hastily as a mist is dissipated by a bright morning beam do smiles re-illumine our countenances, and our faces and hearts become filled with gladness. Tempest and fair weather, darkness and sunshine, are in us strangely blended. There is in our nature a strange jarring of the elements of being. Can ye take to your bosoms wives, who will afflict you with mutabilities as great, sudden, various, as those of the elements which surround you? Ye are pleased to think us beautiful, and it may be that we are; but remember that ye see us in one of our pleased, pleasant, and happy, moments. Wait till an accident or misfortune happens, till want or calamity come, or contradiction ensue, or some of the crosses which belong to human life, as clouds and tempests to the constitution of nature, assail us. But, if you think your love could survive the hurricanes which will visit your dwellings when we are stormy; if you can bear to see the lightnings of our eyes flashing wrath upon you, and our voices speaking thunder in your ears--I speak for myself and sisters--take us, and we will assure you of many moments of bright sunshine, many days of peace and happiness--uninterrupted sun, and cloudless skies." The beautiful daughter of the sun, who spoke for herself and her sisters, concluded thus, and the eldest of the four hunters rose, and replied in these words:

"Beautiful maiden, that speakest for thyself and sisters, do not think that what thou hast said will affright us. I speak for myself and brothers--we will take you with all your faults, with the chance of the hurricanes and stormy weather, linked with the hope of the moments of bright sunshine and days of peace and happiness. Believe me, dove-eyed maidens, that the women of the lake Ouaquaphenogan, in the island of the same name, are not alone in their disposition to be stormy at times. It need not be told the men of the Creek nation, that a woman's face, of whatever country, may justly be likened to an April day, alternately shining and showering, and that her soul is like a morning in the Variable Moon, which one moment may be dressed in a thick mantle of clouds, and the next in a glittering robe of solar glory. It need not be told the son of my mother, that a woman's voice is sometimes the voice of a gentle rill, and at others, that of a cloud charged with the poison of the heated and rarefied air. Are not the Creeks men, and shall they be frightened by what is a mere momentary delirium? No. Having looked upon a wintry storm and a summer tempest, and seen the bright stars succeeding one, and the warm and cheering sun the other, we can listen with calmness--even with pleasure--to the tempest of a woman's anger, and survey, without trembling, or hiding, or running away, the lightnings of her wrath, because we know that after a storm comes a calm. We know that the sun shines most gloriously when his beams are first unveiled by the passing away of the clouds which have obscured him; we know that a woman's face is most beautiful, when she has wiped the tears of anger from her cheek, and dressed it in smiles to win back the love which her folly has endangered. We will take you, beautiful creatures, subject to the becoming passions of which you speak, filled with all the beautiful frenzies of woman's temper. We know that all women, whether they dwell among the Creeks, or in the island Ouaquaphenogan, in the lake of the same name, are alike in their dispositions. It hath long been taught, beautiful creatures, in our nation, and among all nations of which we have heard our fathers speak, that men should take them wives, but it is only now that we have recalled the maxim to our minds, it is only now that we acknowledge the wisdom of our teachers. Now, if men chose those only whose tempers never varied, one, two, may be three, among all the sons of men would take wives; if one sought for a maiden with a never clouded brow and soul, it might become the labour of a whole nation to furnish mocassins for the feet of one travelling in quest of the bride. Therefore we take you with all your faults, believing that you have them but in common with all your sex, and with no greater portion than belongs to others. And we bind on your fair brows the flowers which betoken affection and constancy, and we place in your soft and beautiful hands the emblems of the charge we confide to them when we make you the wives of our bosoms."

So these four beautiful daughters of the sun became the affianced brides of the four bewildered Creek hunters.

"But," said the beautiful maidens to their lovers, "we have told you of the ferocity of our fathers and brothers, and of the hatred of our nation towards the descendants of the men who overthrew and massacred our ancestors. We cannot expose you to the danger of their wrath; you must fly, but whithersoever that be, we will fly with you." So the four beautiful daughters of the sun left for ever the island Ouaquaphenogan, and the lake of the same name, and became the wives and mothers of hunters and warriors. They were at times very stormy in their tempers, but upon the whole not worse than other women. Their faces were at times those of April days, alternately shining and showery, but there were women in our nation, who were not at all akin to the sun, nor ever saw Ouaquaphenogan, that were as like them as if they had been sisters. Their eyes did, indeed, sometimes send out volleys of lightnings, and their tongues give forth heavy thunders, but neither were louder nor sharper than those of the women, who had for ages given the beam of the one and the music of the other to the men of the Creeks. And, if they did at times term their husbands "brutes," it was no more than other husbands had been called before. And if they did, in the moment of a hurricane, drive their husbands from their fire-sides, they were by no means the first who had done so. Upon the whole, the four hunters had no particular reason to regret their bewilderment in the marsh Ouaquaphenogan.

THE MAIDEN AND THE BIRD.

It cannot be new to my pale-faced brother, for he has been told it often enough, that, besides the Great Master of Life, the red men of the forest worship a great multitude of spirits with whom they believe every part of the world to be peopled. According to our belief, a Manitou dwells upon every hill, and in every valley; in every open glade and dark morass; in the chambers of every cavern, and the heart of every rock; in every fountain, and watery depth, and running stream. These spirits dislike white men very much, because they are always intruding upon their quiet, robbing both hill and valley of their stately trees, breaking up the bosom of the earth, penetrating into every dark morass and cavern, and polluting, by some means or other, every fountain, and watery depth, and running stream. Indians do not wish to provoke them, and so try to propitiate them by innocent and unbloody offerings. We spread on the mountain tops, or hang on the cliffs, or lay on the shelves of the caves, or drop into the waters, wreaths of flowers, belts of wampum, clusters of the wild grape, shining ears of maize, and other gifts which attach them to us. When an Indian child is born, whether it is a man-child or woman-child, a spirit is immediately chosen to protect it, and its future life is expected to be prosperous or not as the guardian spirit is powerful and well-disposed to his charge, or weak, and undertakes his task of protection with reluctance.

The Little White Bear of the Iroquois was reposing by night in his cabin, on the banks of his own pleasant river, in the month of ripe berries, when he beheld, by the light of the moon, a forest-chief in all his pride enter the lodge. The step of the stranger was noiseless as the fall of snow, and of word or sound uttered he none. The chief of the Tuscaroras arose, and took down his sinewy bow, and drew from his quiver a sharp and barbed arrow--the figure faded away like a morning mist before the beams of the sun, and was gone from his eyes. Tetontuaga woke his comrades, who lay scattered about in careless slumber--nothing had they seen, heard, or dreamed of. He lay down again, and, drawing his buffalo cloak closely around him, tried to close his eyes and ears, in oblivion of things, and to rein his fancy to look upon other shapes than those of air.

No sooner had he composed his limbs, and invoked the beneficent spirit who presides over sleep to grant him a slumber unvisited by hideous or frowning forms, than the shadowy warrior again arose and stood at his side. The Iroquois had now full opportunity to scan his form and features. Of gigantic frame he seemed, and his dress was of a texture and fashion such as the chief had never seen before--of an age and a nation none might guess. He was a half taller than the tallest man of the Five Nations, who are reputed the tallest of all the red men of the land, and his limbs, arms, legs, hands, feet, were of twice the ordinary size of an Iroquois warrior. His coal-black eyes were larger than the buffalo's, but they were lustreless as those of the dead; his teeth, large and of the colour of bones bleached by the sun and rain, chattered like the teeth of a man overpowered by the cold of the Bear-Moon. He wore over his shoulders a long robe of curiously dyed, or painted cloth, fastened at the throat by a piece of shining metal, and a fur cap made of the skin of an animal never seen by the Iroquois, above which rose a high plume of feathers of a bird unknown in Indian lands. The mocassins were of one piece, reaching with no visible seam to the knees, and he wore upon his sinewy thighs garments shaped like those worn by the white stranger. His language, when he spoke, was a strange and uncouth language, yet it was understood by the Iroquois warrior, who felt, as he heard the strange sound, its meaning seize his brain as a strong man seizes and binds him who is weak and powerless. Wondrous were the things which the fierce phantom related to the startled warrior of the Iroquois. He spoke of the wars of the Allegewi, and of the torrents of blood that ran into the Michigan, and the Erie, and the Huron, and the River of the Mountains[A], and the Næmesi Sipu, discolouring their once clear, and cresting with red foam, their once calm and peaceful waters. He told how the men of the Allegewi were beaten and driven no one but the Great Being, and the Manitous, and the spirits in the Blessed Shades, knew whither, by the ancestors of the Iroquois, who came from the far north, across an arm of the Frozen Sea, encountered the Allegewi, the primitive inhabitants of the soil, who were entrenched behind the stupendous mounds which still remain, and drove them into perpetual banishment. He described the pigmy people, and the giant tribes whose graves and mounds might yet be seen, exciting the wonder of the curious, and bringing men even from the City of the Rock[B] to view them, to open them, and to put down their thoughts about them upon the fair white skin[C]. A wild and unnatural song of triumph, in a tone as hoarse as the croakings of the raven or the bittern, burst from his lips, of the valiant exploits of his tribe, his own among the number, in times long since--when the oak tree now dying with age was a little child, and the huge rocks were within the strength of a full grown warrior to poise. He spoke of nations whose names till then had never reached the ears of the wondering Iroquois, and told of their loves, and their hatreds, and their forest warfare.

[Footnote A: The Hudson.]

[Footnote B: Quebec.]

[Footnote C: The Indians could not be persuaded at first that paper was any thing else than tanned leather.]

Then he changed the theme, and spoke of the land of souls, the bright region to which the spirits of the good retire when the body is to be changed to dust. He painted the pleasures which are the portion of its inhabitants, and told in the ears of the warrior what description of men were permitted to be received into it; what were the deeds which pleased and conciliated the Great Being, and what the crimes which shut the gates of the Bridge of Souls against the wanderer thither. He painted minutely the happy land appointed for the residence of the souls of the Iroquois--where the brave man's shade still pursues the forest herd, or clasps to his bosom the forms of the sunny-eyed maidens of his own clime; and the green and happy isles where the Huron lovers reside, and the frozen and verdureless heath appointed to the cowards of all the earth. When he had exhausted these subjects, he related to the warrior many traditions of the old time, tales of forest love, and of the valour of the men of ancient days. He continued to visit the lodge of the chief every night for the space of a moon, entertaining him, with the same fixed and lustreless eye, and in the same hoarse tone, with these old tales. The Little White Bear of the Iroquois locked up those things in the great store-house of his memory, and each day, when the sun returned to the earth, and with it the ghost of the ancient man had departed, he related to his wondering tribe the traditions poured into his ear by the phantom warrior. And this was the first.

* * * * *

The moon was shining brightly on tree and flower, on glade and river, on land and water; stars were twinkling, and the winds slept in the caverns of the earth, when a youth and a maiden--he, tall and straight as a forest tree; fierce as a panther to his enemies, but gentle as a kid to those he loved; she, little in stature as a sprout of a single season, but the mildest and most beautiful of all mortal things--came out of the forest. The horse upon whose back they had escaped from their enemies lay exhausted at the verge of the wood, and now they stood alone by the river of silver.

"Here rest thee, my beloved," said the youth, "we are safe. Our good steed has sped like an arrow through the thicket; our pursuers, my rival, thy father, thy brother, and all thy tribe, lie foiled and fainting far behind us. There is no longer footfall or shout in the wind; the voices of angry men, calling the Algonquin by names he never owned and whose ignominy he may not avenge, have long since expired on our ears like the voice of a dying cloud in the Moon of Thunder. Rest thee, my beloved!--as a young bird that is weary of flying reposes on the bough of a tree till its faintness has passed away, so must thou lie down on the green and verdant bank till thy strength returns. I go to yonder river, to seek a bark to bear us away to the lands of my nation, and to my pleasant cabin by the stream where I first drew breath." And he rose to go.

"Oh leave me not!" cried the maiden, her soft cheek bedewed with tears, and deep sighs proceeding from her oppressed heart. "When thou art away, I tremble with terror. When I see not the light of thine eyes, I am filled with dismay. My mother comes, in her anger, to chide me, and she does not spare; my stern brother storms like the winter's tempest; my sire rages and threatens; and then, like the panther that springs across the path of the lone hunter, comes thy hated rival, to oppress me with the tale of his love and the boast of his success."

"Nay, thou art dreaming, my beloved," said the young warrior. "If fancy must sway thee, let thy visions be tinted with the cheerful ray of hope. There is no peril near thee, and soon will I bear my beautiful bride to the lands of my nation, and to my pleasant cabin beside the beautiful river where I first drew my breath."

So saying, he sprung lightly to the shore, and was lost to her sight. At the moment of his disappearance, a cloud passed over the face of the bright moon, obscuring her blessed light. The maiden, deeming it an inauspicious omen, sat down upon the green bank, and, leaning her head upon her hand, suffered the tears to stream through her slender fingers. But vain was the presage--idle were her fears. The cloud has passed away from the face of the pale orb, and lo! there is her lover. He comes with a joyous step and a laughing eye, as though he had been successful in his search for the further means of flight. Cheer up, Mekaia[A]; it is indeed thy Moscharr[B].

[Footnote A: The star flower.]

[Footnote B: The mountain plant.]

"Now haste, my beloved one," said the Mountain Plant. "I have found the object of my search. Here is a canoe, and soon shall it convey my Star-flower over the rapid tide. Soon will my little bark shoot over the noisy current, and I and my beloved be altogether beyond the power of our pursuers."

So saying, he drew the unreluctant maiden swiftly forward. They gained the shore, placed themselves in the canoe, and committed it to the current. With her hand clasped in his, her head resting softly upon his shoulder, while his arm fondly encircled her slender waist, they glided down the rapid River of the Mountains. No sail was raised to catch the breeze; no oar was used to impel them through the water; yet, ere the maiden had time to breathe, the light canoe was gliding, rapid as thought, down the mid-waves of the current. Then the maiden spoke.

"Now say, O Moscharr, whither is it you are guiding the bark? Mark you not, love, how we are gliding down the stream towards the dreadful Oniagarah?"

"Be calm, my Mekaia," answered the lover, "I am but guiding you to yonder strand, upon which the current sets full and strong. Be calm, my Mekaia, we are safe."

The maiden held her tongue, for was she not with him she loved? Away then, away they went, and still onward, while faster, and fleeter, and more boisterous, the foaming waters flowed around them, and less distant every moment seemed the dreadful cataract. Its roar was like that of an approaching cloud from which thunders are issuing. Again the timid maiden addressed her lover:

"Now tell me, O Moscharr, whither is it you are guiding the bark? See, the shore is more distant, and hark! what awful noise is that which strikes mine ear from out of the black curtain ahead of us? It cannot be the thunders, for there is no cloud; it cannot be the voice of the Great Spirit, for he is the friend of the Ottawa girl."

"Be calm, my Mekaia," answered the lover, "there is no danger; it is thy lover that guides the bark, and he will be careful of the flower of the forest maidens. I see the shore--I see the rock--and whenever I will I can guide to either."

Away then, away goes their light bark, and still they speed onward with the swiftness of an arrow from a well drawn bow. The tall dark forests that rose above their starting-place are fast receding from view, and hark! pealing like the thunders of heaven, the roar of the mighty cataract, to come within whose influence is instant destruction.

"Now tell me, O Moscharr, what dreadful sound is that which breaks in so loud and angry a tone upon my ear from out of the black curtain?" demanded the maiden.

"It is the surge breaking on the sandy shore, or the night winds rushing through the forest," answered he.

"And tell me what are those lifting their white heads before us, as the snow, which has fallen in a calm, is swept about by the whirlwind which follows it?"

"Billows breaking on the shoals that surround yon little island."

Away then, away goes their little bark, dashing among the wild waves, like a leaf caught up into air by the summer whirlwind, till all at once burst upon the horror-stricken maiden, in their most tremendous and appalling aspect, the waters of the far-famed, the wondrous Oniagarah. See the white sheet of foam which rises in spray, mocking the soaring of the bird of morning. "It is only the Great Spirit that can save us now!" exclaimed the frantic maiden. "Lo, my Moscharr, we hasten to the land of souls!"

"Not the Great Spirit himself, did he will it, could save us," answered the lover in a tone which seemed to be that of impiety. "Were he here himself, with all the Manitous of the earth, and the air, and the flood, and the fire, gathered together from mountain, and valley, and wood, and prairie, he could not save us. Together, Mekaia, we shall sleep in the stormy cataract."

The maiden heard the dreadful words in silence. But even then she showed the depth of her affection. The love of a woman endures through all changes; she shrinks not at death, so the beloved one be at her side. When the beauteous flower of the forest saw her fate approaching, and so near, she sank into the arms of her Moscharr, as though it were pleasanter to die there than elsewhere; and a soft smile, for she smiled even in that dread moment, told that she was most happy to die, if she could die on the breast of him she loved.

But hark, what voice is that calling upon thee, wretched maiden! Did not he who won thy youthful heart, while yet it was little and fluttering, so pronounce the loved word "Mekaia?" Was not _that_ the tone and accent which oft rang through the hollow beech woods, when together ye went to gather the ripened mast, and chanced to separate till the cry recalled? And look--see, one stands upon the beetling rock above thee, amidst the crash and thunder of the eddy into which thou art cast, his arms stretched towards thee, beautiful flower of the wilderness, and his look one of unutterable agony and despair. It is Moscharr, beautiful Mekaia, it is he who sat by thy side in the playful hours of infancy, and won thy little heart ere it knew wherefore it was beating. With the speed of the blast he has followed thy course down the shore of the cataract, and now he stands upon the edge of the terrible gulf, horror depicted in his countenance, his eyes cast upward in supplication to the Great Spirit, that thou mayst yet be preserved, and agony and doubt written on his face, lest the prayer he breathes may not be heard. And if that be thy lover who calls franticly upon thee from the beetling rock, who is he that sits at thy side, wearing the form and semblance of that lover, and speaking with the soft and kind tones which were ever his when addressing the flower of the forest maids? Alas! rose of the wilderness, it is the ruling spirit of the angry flood, the dreadful MANITOU OF THE CATARACT!

One tearful look the maiden bestows upon her agonised lover, ere the canoe glides over the precipice, and, swift as rocks hurled by spring rains down the side of the mountains, disappears in the horrid chasm below. One tearful look, one heart-rending shriek, which rises even above the roar of the cataract, as the canoe plunges through the foam, and she is gone from his eyes, like a feather caught up on the wings of a great wind.

What beautiful little bird is that which descends from yon silver-edged cloud, which is floating so high in the heavens that only the vulture may venture a flight thither, or the gray eagle sweep to it in his pride? Beautiful creature! beautiful bird(1)! not so large as the swallow, its neck a bright green, its wings scarlet, mottled with white, and having a train thrice as long as its body, in which are blended all the colours that adorn the rainbow. It came to the spot where the lover, unmanned by the dreadful catastrophe, stood mourning like a mother bereaved of her children, and, thrice circling his head, invited his attention by all the means which could be used by mortals, except that of speech. The lover sees at length the beautiful creature, and knows _whose_ messenger it is. But why comes the herald of hope to him in his hour of despair? Can the Great Spirit, all-powerful as he is, succour him? Can joy be yet in store for him? It must be so, else why has he sent down his own messenger from the sky? That Being is too kind and too good to hold out false hopes; it is not in his nature to intimate an intention of succouring unless he actually entertains such intention. Be comforted, Mountain Plant, thou hast a friend!

And now commenced their toilsome journey down the side of the cataract. The spirit-bird led, and the bereaved lover followed. Poised on joyful wing, the little messenger fluttered before him, singing sweet songs of promise, until they had descended into the frightful abyss, and its secrets stood revealed before them. Terrific sight! tremendous sound! Their eyes were appalled by the view of billows which mount to the very skies--of huge volumes of water, dashing down the dreadful precipice into a vast basin, which seemed large enough to be the tomb of the giant Chappewee; and their ears were saluted with sounds, whose loudness and violence were a thousand times beyond those of the tempest, or the thunder, or the earthquake. Onward they groped their desperate way beyond the fiercest fall, until all at once they came to a dreadful cavern shrouded in the deepest night and gloom. Notwithstanding the whirl of waters, and the impetuous rush of the blast, and, though the earth rocked around them like a canoe on the stormy waves of the Spirits' Bay of Lake Huron(2), yet the brave and patient Moscharr, unwearied and fearless, followed through pass and pitfall, by stream and steep, the flight of his little conductor. Keeping the lamp carried by the spirit-bird in view, he regarded not the huge rocks toppling above his head, and each moment threatening him with instant destruction, but fought on his perilous course, till they had threaded the labyrinth, and found themselves in a cavern, as unlike the first, as the tranquil summer sky is unlike the blustering of the sky in the Moon of Storms.

The cavern, into which they now found entrance, was lit up by a blaze of effulgence, which seemed as great as would be that of a hundred suns shining at one time. So astonishing was the brightness, so surpassing the beauty of those things which served for the lamps of this vast hall, that the Iroquois warrior for a moment forgot the cause which brought him thither, and stopped to admire the glories which were scattered around him. It was, indeed, filled with all that might dazzle and ravish the sight. Above them glittered a firmament studded, it seemed, with stars, yet flashing a light far more brilliant than the stars of night ever gave. And the sides of the cavern glittered with the gorgeous hues reflected from the shining stones of many colours wherewith it was set.

But why halts the spirit-bird guide, and why does he veil his lamp? Why looks he with anxious eyes to yonder bright chambers in the cavern? What beings are those which appear in that chamber, and whose are those accents that fall on the eager ears of the lovers? I behold a couch formed of spar that glitters like icicles in the beams of the sun. It is covered with the softest grass that grows at the bottom of the torrent, and upon it is laid, panting with weariness and fright, a beautiful woman--it is the flower of the forest maidens, the lost Mekaia! At her side, no longer counterfeiting the Iroquois warrior, but showing himself in all his native ugliness, his body crooked and disproportioned, his hair coarse as the weeds that grow on the rocks of the great salt sea, his eyes green as a meadow in spring, his mouth of enormous size, and his ears like those of a buffalo, stands her persecutor and ravisher, the Fiend of the Cataract. And thus he wooed the fair helpless being that lay upon the couch of dazzling stone:

"Mekaia, beauteous Mekaia, the mighty Manitou of Oniagarah asks thy love. If thou wilt give it me, I will give thee in return all the treasures of earth and flood, the diamonds which lie in the depths of the cataract, and the bright ore, which, in other lands, buys both the bodies and souls of men. The thing that thou wishest shall be within the reach of thy hand as soon as wished; and, to please thee, my form shall again take the shape and appearance of him thou lovest. I go now, fair maiden, but soon will I return to thee and love. But, if thou again refusest me, the Manitou shall come to woo thee like himself, and, in his own proper form, of more hideous seeming than that which he now wears, and invested with thrice his present terrors, enforce his claim. His wishes gratified, he will spurn thee from him, and cast forth thy corse to the torrent."

With this heavy threat the Manitou vanished. And now seize, seize, ye lovers, the happy minute! 'Tis a moment of fate. Fly, fly! and look, the aërial messenger of Him who governs all things beckons them on. They obey the mute appeal, and with the fleetness of the mountain goat rush from the cavern. Their way is dark and dreadful, but fear lends them wings. They know from the lips of their beautiful guide, the Spirit-bird, which at length has opened its mouth to impart to them words of kind encouragement, that with the dawning of day the fiend of the flood is but mortal--that with the crowing of the cock his power is at an end; and they are urging their limbs to their utmost speed, for see, the gleam of red tells that day is nigh. The little messenger from the Great Spirit still points the pathway, and under his care and guidance they speedily gain the mid-height. Alas for the lovers! Heaven preserve them in this their hour of extreme peril, for see, the horrible fiend is on their track, straining every nerve in pursuit; and so rapidly does he gain upon them, that, unless aid be sent from some superior power, they will be soon in his grasp.

But the brave Moscharr still clung to hopes of escape, and still exerted himself with almost superhuman power to accomplish it. With one arm encircling the lifeless form of the maiden, he employed the other to draw himself, by means of the protruding shrubs, over the steep precipices. A sudden thought enabled him to baffle for a while the grim pursuer. His foot, applied to a loose rock, launched it in a tone of thunder upon the fiend, who was borne backward half the distance of an arrow's flight by the ponderous mass. During the time he was struggling to disengage himself from the weight that pinned him to the earth, the lover had nearly won the farthest bound of the Manitou's kingdom. And see, the purple and grey breaks out from the east. It is day, and the power of the Manitou, as far as regards his spiritual nature, is ended. Summon, O Moscharr, all your strength and fleetness, and by one desperate effort escape his personal strength, as the fortunate coming of the daylight's beam has placed you beyond the reach of his supernatural power! Hurry on! hurry on! The kingdom of the Manitou extends but to the lowest bubble of foam--it ends with the last billow of the rapids--the goal is before you; it is scarce half a bowshot from you--haste, and it is won. Hurry on! hurry on! the moment you have reached the boundary of the fiend-kingdom, multitudes of good spirits--friends to you, but deadly and implacable foes to your enemy--will start up to assist you.

With the maiden on his arm, all wounded and bleeding, his own body lacerated and torn, yet unyielding as ever, does the brave Moscharr pursue his flight. But he feels as if the moment of death was near at hand. Exhausted by his almost superhuman efforts to escape, he finds a weakness and trembling stealing over his limbs, and he faints, and falls with his lovely burthen to the earth, at the very moment of victory and safety. The Manitou has reached him, and, with a fiend-like laugh on his horrid face, bends exultingly forward to seize his helpless victims. One hand he lays upon the tender arm of the forest-flower, the other is in the hair of the lover. But, as he bends forward, a sudden jerk of the Iroquois, occasioned by returning life, draws him unwittingly over the line which marks the boundaries of his kingdom and sway. In a moment--in a breath--ere the eye could have winked, or the spirit thought--multitudes of bright beings start up from each nook, and dell, and dingle--from field and flood. The deep space, the rocks above them, below them, at their side, the air above and around them, as far as the eye can reach, is filled with beneficent spirits. "He is ours!" they shout; "he is ours! He has passed from the region over which he had sway; he has left the dominions and powers over which he held rule. He is ours! he is ours! Not in vain did we leave our verdant bowers in the distant Lake of the Thousand Islands, to hasten to the succour of the maiden flower of the forest and her brave and faithful lover. It was the Great Spirit that inspired us to come hither, that we might save from death, and what were far worse, the beautiful betrothed of the valiant Moscharr. He is ours! he is ours! the Manitou is ours! Now launch your light barks, brothers--launch your light barks! The skiffs that brought us hither must be moored in the calm bays of our dear island before the broad sun looks over the tops of the eastern hills. But first we must punish our ruthless foe. Let us inflict on him the fate he threatened to inflict on the beauteous maiden--let us bind him and throw him down these rugged rocks into the wave that rolls furiously below! He is ours! he is ours!"

At once--at the conclusion of their song of triumph--a thousand bright forms sprung upon the prostrate and powerless Manitou, and bound and dragged him to the steep. And while again arose their wild but melodious cry, "He is ours! he is ours!" they launched him into the thundering torrent below, which swept his mangled and lifeless body into utter oblivion.

When the destruction of the fiend was accomplished, the beautiful spirit-bird, which, while the deed of his death was doing, sat eyeing them intently from a broken crag above their heads, rose from its perch, and, after dropping upon the pair, from his radiant wings, showers of light as the tokens of the love of its Master for them, soared back to the skies whence it came. The happy Moscharr and his loved Mekaia then accompanied the friendly spirits, who had assisted in the overthrow of the bad Manitou, to their home in the beautiful Lake of the Thousand Islands. The pair were welcomed with songs and rejoicings to the spirit shores, and loud were the revels, and boisterous the mirth, of its little inhabitants. Triumphs were made for them, mingled with rejoicings, at the downfall of their long-feared and much hated foe. And when they had displayed their love for the pair, by all the means within their power--dancing, feasting, and kind speech--they dismissed them to their homes, with many blessings upon their heads, and invocations of the Good Spirit to protect and prosper them. The brave Moscharr and his beautiful bride soon reached the home of his people, and lived to see their children's children listen with mute astonishment to the tale of the escape of their father's parents from the Manitou of the Cataract.

NOTES.

(1) _Beautiful bird._--p. 104.

The Spirit-Bird or the Wakon Bird is the Indian bird of paradise. It is held in the utmost veneration by the Indians as the peculiar bird of the Great Spirit. The name they have given it is expressive of its superior excellence, and the veneration they have for it; the Wakon Bird being, in their language, the bird of the Great Spirit. It is nearly the size of a swallow, of a brown colour, shaded about the neck with a bright green; the wings are of a darker brown than the body; its tail is composed of four or five feathers, which are three times as long as its body, and which are beautifully shaded with green and purple. It carries this fine length of plumage in the same manner as a peacock does, but it is not known whether it ever raises it into the erect position which that bird sometimes does. The Naudowessies consider it of superior rank to any other of the feathered creation.

(2) _Louder than the thunder of the Spirits Bay of Lake Huron._--p. 105.

Nearly half-way between Saganaum Bay and the north-west corner of Lake Huron, lies a Bay, which is called Thunder Bay. The Indians, who have frequented these parts from time immemorial, and every European traveller that has passed through it, have unanimously agreed to call it by this name, on account of the continual thunder they have always observed here. Whilst Carver was making over it a passage which lasted near twenty-four hours--it thundered and lightened during the greatest part of the time to an excessive degree. It is difficult to account for the phenomenon--perhaps the organic structure of the neighbouring cliffs invites the concentration of the electric fluid at this spot.

THE ISLAND OF EAGLES.

At a short distance below the Falls of St. Anthony, there is a small rocky island, covered with huge trees, oak, pine, and cypress, its water-fretted shores and steep cliffs formed of ragged rocks, against which the waves of the cataract dash and foam in vain endeavours to overwhelm it. This little island, so annoyed by the mighty and wrathful fiends who sit in that surge, is famous throughout the Indian nations for being the abode of the spirits of the warriors of the Andirondacks--a tribe which no longer exist--who, once upon a time, many ages ago, warring against the spirits of the cataract, were completely overthrown, and by the power of their enemies transformed into eagles. As a punishment, they were bidden to dwell for ever on that misty, foggy, and noisy island; doomed to a nicer perception of hearing than belongs to mortals, that their fate might be the more awful. If my brother wishes to hear the tradition, let him open wide the doors of his understanding, and be silent.

The tribe of the Andirondacks were the mightiest tribe of the land--neither in numbers nor in valour had they their equal--their rule stretched from the broad Lake Huron to the river of the Osages, from the Alleghany to the Mississippi. All the tribes which dwelt in their neighbourhood were compelled to bow down their heads and pay them tribute. The Hurons sent them beaver-skins; the Eries wove them wampum(1); even the Iroquois, that haughty and warlike nation, who lorded it over their eastern neighbours with the ferocity of wolves, bowed to those mighty warriors, the Andirondacks, whose number was greater than that of the flights of pigeons in the month before the snows, and who wielded spears, and bent bows, and shouted their war-cry with more power than any other tribe or people in the land. Some of the more distant tribes, to secure themselves against invasion, sent ambassadors with the pipe of peace wrapped in soft furs as a present; others offered their most beautiful women for wives to the "lords of the land"--all, by various means, and in various ways, testified their inability to cope with them in war, and their anxiety to become friends and neighbours. If the proud Andirondacks granted the boon of peace, it was always with some hard condition annexed to it; not always did a favour granted by them prove a favour in the end.

So long and uninterrupted a course of prosperity begot pride and arrogance in the bosom of the Andirondacks, and they forgot the Being who had bestowed so many blessings upon them, making their wives fertile as a vine in a rich soil, giving them victory over all their enemies, and health, and bounteous harvests, and successful hunts. They paid no more worship to that Great Being; no more offered him the juicy fruits of their hunt; no more ascended the high hills at the rising or setting of the sun, with their heads anointed with clay, to pour out their souls in the song of gratitude for past, or in a prayer of supplication for future, favours; they no more scarified their bodies in deprecation of his anger, but, believing themselves--vain fools!--able to do without his aid, they shook off their duty and allegiance to him, and bade him, if not in words at least in their deeds, defiance. Pride now possessed their souls, and hardness their hearts.

It need not be told my brother that the Great Spirit is slow to anger. Knowing his power to crush with a wink of his eye every living creature; to rend asunder the mightiest hills, yea, shake to its centre the very earth with a puff of his breath; he is loth to put forth his powers or to call into action the whirlwinds of his wrath. He suffers men to revile him long before he attempts to punish them; he permits them to raise the finger of defiance many times before he strikes it down, and the tongue to utter many a scornful word before he dooms it to the silence of death. It is so with the creatures of this world, as my brother must know. The strongest man--he who feels most confident of his power to repel aggression, and to command respect and obedience, is slowest to provocation, and, when excited to anger, the easiest to be soothed and calmed. The prairie-dog oftener shows his teeth than the wolf; the imbecile adder than the death-dealing rattlesnake. And my pale-faced brother has told us the wondrous tale, that, in his own land beyond the Great Waters, the mighty animal which is called the King of Beasts is, save only when he lacks food, as mild as the dove or the song-sparrow. And thus it was with the Great Spirit, as regarded the scoffing and wickedness of the Andirondacks. Long he resisted the importunities of the subordinate Manitous, that the haughty tribe might be punished for their insolence; long he waited with the hope that their eyes might be opened, and repentance seize their hearts, and amendment ensue. He waited in vain, each day they grew worse, until at length they brought down upon their heads the vengeance which could be no longer delayed.

There was among the Andirondacks a youth who, from the moment of his birth, was the favourite of the being who rules the world. While yet an unfledged bird, his words were the words of grey-headed wisdom; while yet a boy his arm was the arm of a strong man, his eye the eye of a cool man, and his heart like the heart of a brave man. He was as cool as a warrior who has lived to be aged in scenes of war. While he sat in his cradle of woven willow, his father chanced to speak in his hearing of an expedition which the Braves were about to undertake against the distant Coppermines, who had their lodges on the skirts of the sea of eternal ice. The wise child bade the father call the chiefs and counsellors of the nation around him, and to them he said, "You will not succeed in this war. The Coppermines dwell in the regions of great cold; before they can be met, icy hills and frozen lakes, and stormy winds and bleak tempests, must be encountered. If you meet them, success would be doubtful, for they are on their own hills, with nerves fitted to endure the searching cold, and possessed of that which the Andirondacks want--a thorough knowledge of every path that crosses their snow-clad vales and ice-bound waters. Stay at home, Braves, help your women to plant corn, and cut up the buffalo-meat, rather than go upon an expedition from which you will never return. Do I not see the torturing fires lighted, and Braves wearing the Andirondack mocassins bound to the stake of death? Do not mine ears hear a death-song in the Andirondack tongue? And are not these fearless sounds which come to mine ears the cries of the vulture and the wolf, fighting for the remains of a human carcase, which hath the Andirondack tuft of hair? Stay at home, Andirondacks, help your women to plant corn, and cut up the buffalo-meat, rather than go upon an expedition from which you will never return."

But the young and ardent warriors said this was the speech of a boy, and they would not listen to them. They said that, were the words of Piskaret the words of a man, they might hearken to them, but was he, who sat in his willow cradle, a fit counsellor to gray-headed sages, or even to young Braves, who had eaten the bitter root, and put on new war-shoes, and fasted for six suns, and been made men. In vain did the boy assure them that his _medicine_, the Great White Owl, had revealed to him many strange things, and among others this--that if the Andirondacks engaged in a war against the Coppermines, the wrath of the Great Spirit, whose worship they had forsaken, would be upon them, and of those who went not one should ever return. They laughed at his words, treating them as they would the song of a bird that has flown over. They bound on their mocassins, and, taking their spears, and bows and arrows, bade adieu to the land of their fathers' bones. Did these valiant youths return, and did the words of the prophet-boy fall to the ground? Let the wolf, and the vulture, and the mountain-cat, answer the question. They will tell my brother that their voracious tribes held a feast in the far country of the Coppermines, and that the remains of that feast were a huge heap of human bones. Were they the bones of Andirondacks? They were, and thus were the prophetic words of the wise boy rendered true, and his reputation was established throughout the land.

And when years came over him, and the fire of early manhood beamed in his eye, the same signs of his being favoured of Heaven were displayed. He needed no practice to enable him to conquer in all the sports and exercises which are indulged in by the boys of his nation. He went beyond them in all which bespoke possession of the skill and courage necessary to make a patient and expert hunter, or a brave and successful warrior. In the game of archery, his arrow was ever nearest the clout, and in hurling the spear, his oftenest clove asunder the reed which was fixed as the mark. Ere he had seen fifteen harvestings of the maize, he could throw the stoutest man of the tribe in the wrestle, and his feet in the race were swifter than the deer in its flight from the steps of the red hunter. When grey-headed men assembled in the council to deliberate upon the affairs of the tribe, their invasions, or their projected removals to other hunting-grounds, they asked "Where is the wise boy?" If he were not present, he was sent for, and no determination was made till he came, and had delivered his thoughts. And thus grew up the young Piskaret, till he had reached his twentieth spring.