ayed, and he was perfectly at ease; he does the
same among strangers.

If you tell an Indian that his children have greatly signalized
themselves against an enemy, have taken many scalps, and brought home
many prisoners, he does not appear to feel any extraordinary pleasure
on the occasion; his answer generally is, "It is well," and he makes
very little further enquiry about it. On the contrary, if you inform
him that his children are slain, or taken prisoners, he makes no
complaints; he only replies, "It does not signify," and probably, for
some time at least, asks not how it happened.

Their constancy in suffering pain exceeds any thing known of any other
people. Nothing is more common than to see persons of all ages, and of
both sexes, suffer for many hours, and sometimes many days, together,
the sharpest effects of fire, and all that the most ingenious cruelty
can invent to make it most painful, without letting a sigh escape.

Accustomed from their youth to innumerable hardships, they soon become
superior to a sense of danger, or the dread of death, and their
fortitude, implanted by nature, and nurtured by example, by precept,
and by accident, never experiences a moment's allay.

V. THE CASCADE OF MELSINGAH.

The next night the ghost related to his eager listener the following
tradition:--

A very long time ago, many ages before the feet of a white man had
left their print on these shores, or the voice of his axe had been
heard singing the song of destruction to the woods of our fathers,
there dwelt in the Cascade of Melsingah, having his residence by
daylight in the wave, and by night on the high rock which stood in its
centre, a Spirit much reverenced by all the Indian nations. He was
often seen by the Indian hunter, who passed that way soon after the
going down of the sun. When seen at that hour, he appeared under the
figure of a tall and mighty warrior, with abundance of the gray plumes
of the eagle on his head, and a gray robe of wolf-skin thrown around
him, standing upright upon his rock in front of the waterfalls. In the
day time his appearance was more equivocal. Those who supposed they
saw him saw something swimming about the cascade, as a frog swims
under the surface. But none were ever permitted to behold him near,
and face to face. As the observer drew nigh, the figure gradually
disappeared, sinking into a kind of fog or mist; and in its place he
found only the white sheet of water that po