FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  
ocations 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 b
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Spirit

 

veneration

 

Indian

 
Indians
 

shaded

 

children

 

cliffs

 

island

 
account
 

superior


thunder

 
greatest
 

difficult

 
structure
 

neighbouring

 

invites

 

organic

 
excessive
 

degree

 

phenomenon


Carver

 
Whilst
 

making

 

observed

 

continual

 

agreed

 
unanimously
 

passage

 
traveller
 

thundered


immemorial

 

lightened

 

passed

 

lasted

 
concentration
 
twenty
 
European
 

Anthony

 

endeavours

 

overwhelm


cataract

 

formed

 
ragged
 

famous

 

nations

 

fiends

 
annoyed
 

mighty

 

wrathful

 

shores