shall meet, ere many moons be past,
My husband reconcil'd to me, and he
Again shall sit beside me on the grass,
And plait my hair with beads,
And tell the trees, and birds, and flowers,
That Dark-Day is more beautiful than they.

As she paddled her canoe down the stream, her friends perceived her
intent, but too late; their persuasions and attempts to prevent her
from proceeding were of no avail. She continued to sing, in a mournful
voice, the past pleasures which she had enjoyed while she was the
undivided object of her husband's affections: at length, her voice was
drowned in the sound of the cataract; the current carried down her
frail bark with inconceivable rapidity; it came to the edge of the
precipice, was seen for a moment enveloped with spray, but never after
was a trace of the canoe or its passengers discovered. Yet the Indians
imagine that often in the morning a voice is heard singing a mournful
song along the edge of the fall, and that it dwells on the inconstancy
of a husband. They assert that sometimes a white dove is seen hovering
over the neighbouring sprays; at other times, Ampato Sapa wanders in
her proper person near the spot, with her children wrapped in skins,
and pressed to her bosom.

NOTE.

(1) _Instinctive veneration for madness._--p. 194.

Insanity is not common among the Indians. Men in this unhappy
situation are always considered as objects of pity. Every one, young
and old, feels compassion for their misfortune; to laugh or scoff at
them would be considered as a crime, much more so to insult or molest
them. Heckewelder tells the following story concerning their treatment
of one suspected of insanity, which proves their peculiar feeling with
regard to this unfortunate class of men:--

"About the commencement of the Indian war of 1763, a trading Jew, who
was going up the Detroit river with a bateau load of goods which he
had brought from Albany, was taken by some Indians of the Chippewas
nation, and destined to be put to death. A Frenchman, impelled by
motives of friendship and humanity, found means to steal the prisoner,
and kept him so concealed for some time, that, although the most
diligent search was made, the place of his confinement could not
discovered. At last, however, the unfortunate man was betrayed by some
false friend, and again fell into the power of the Indians, who took
him across the river to be burned and tortured. Tied to the stake,
and the fir