aving secured the aid of those
invisible beings, in whose power it is to blow away the smoke of the
pipe of peace, so that men shall speak from their lips only, and not
from their hearts, and in consequence their promises shall be but as
the song of a bird that has flown over, Mottschujinga presented his
pipe to the great chief of the strangers, who, before he would smoke
in it, arose and made a speech.

[Footnote A: The Shoshonees, a tribe living west of the Rocky
Mountains, to indicate the sincerity of their professions, pull off
their mocassins before they smoke in the pipe of peace, an action
which imprecates on themselves the misery of going barefoot for ever,
if they are faithless to their words.]

[Footnote B: "Great council fire" means all the land or territory
possessed by the nation.]

[Footnote C: Michabou is generally the Indian Neptune: sometimes,
however, they mean by this title the Great Spirit.]

"Our tribe," said the chief, "are called Mengwe. We too have come from
a distant country, and we also are bound to the land of the rising
sun. We will smoke in the Lenape's pipe, and bury the war-club very
deep; we will assist to make the Lenapes very strong, and will never
suffer the grass to grow in our war-path when the Lenapes are assailed
by enemies. We will draw out the thorns from your feet, oil your
stiffened limbs, and wipe your bodies with soft down. We will lift
each other up from this place, and the burthen shall be set down at
each other's dwelling-place. And the peace we make shall last as long
as the sun shall shine, or the rivers flow. And this is all I have to
say."

So a league was made, though no war had been, and the two nations
freely intermingled. Each man unclosed his hand to his neighbour, the
Lenape warrior took the Mengwe maiden to his tent, and her brother had
a woman of the former nation to roast his buffalo-hump, and boil his
corn.

And now the spies, who had been sent forward for the purpose of
reconnoitring, returned. They had seen many things so strange, that
when they reported them, our people half-believed them to be dreams,
and for a while regarded them but as the songs of birds. They told,
that they had found the further bank of the River of Fish inhabited by
a very powerful people, who dwelt in great villages, surrounded by
high walls. They were very tall--so tall that the head of the tallest
Lenape could not reach their arms, and their women were of higher
stature a