eing 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