The warrior hastened to the glen of Melsingah to communicate the
intelligence to his beloved maiden. Their retreat was instantly
abandoned, not, however, without some regret at leaving a place where
so many happy days had been passed; the birch canoe was borne to the
mouth of the river, and after taking his bride, at her earnest
entreaty, to visit her own tribe, the warrior descended with her to
his friends below the mountains. Long was the waterfall visited by the
Indians, and it is only since the axe of the white man has been heard
in the adjoining forest that the good Manitou has retreated from the
Cascade of Melsingah.

LEGEND OF COATUIT BROOK[A].

[Footnote A: The genuine tradition imputed but a part of the labour of
ploughing out Coatuit Brook to the lover of Awashanks. It was
commenced, according to the Indians, from a motive of benevolence
rather than love. The Indians were much in want of fresh water--a very
large trout, with the intention of supplying it, forced his way from
the sea into the land. It proved too much for his strength, however,
and he died in the attempt. It was finished by the heroine of this
legend, who ploughed the sward through to Sanctuit Pond.]

There was once amongst the Marshpees--a small tribe who have their
hunting-grounds on the shores of the Great Lake, and near the Cape of
Storms[A]--a woman whose name was Awashanks. She was rather silly and
remarkably idle. For days together she would sit doing nothing, while
the other females of the village were busily employed in weeding the
corn, or bringing home fuel from the distant wood, or drying the fish,
or thatching the cabins, or mending the nets, or their husbands'
apparel, or preparing the weapons of the chace. Then she was so very
ugly and ill-shapen that not one of the youths of the village would
have aught to say to her by way of courtship or marriage. She squinted
very much; her face was very long and thin; her nose excessively large
and humped; her teeth crooked and projecting; her chin almost as sharp
as the bill of a loon, and her ears as large as those of a deer and
similarly shaped. Her arms, which were very long, were nothing but
fleshless bones; and the legs upon which she stood seemed like two
pine poles stript of their bark. Altogether she was a very odd and
strangely formed woman, and wherever she went never failed to excite
much laughter and derision among those who thought that ugliness and
deformity were