ever they might be called, resting upon
a little rock before him, like a goat which clambers up to nip the
loftier buds, and made them a long speech.

""You are going to a beautiful land," said he, "to a most beautiful
land, men from the Clime of Snows. There you will find all the joys
which an Indian covets. The beasts you will see will be fat, tame, and
numerous as the trees of the forest, and the fowls and birds which will
cover your waters and people your woods will be sleek as the forehead of
a young girl. Then, how lovely and kind are its maidens, how green and
gay its hills and valleys, how refreshing the winds which sweep over the
bosom of the great lake on its border, how sweet, clean, and cool, the
beautiful streams which wind along its corn-littered vales! Oh, it is a
lovely land, and the strangers have done well to leave the misery which
awaited them in the regions of the star that never sets, for the peace
and happiness which will be theirs in the land of unceasing summer."

"Brothers and chiefs! our ancestors travelled many moons under the
guidance of the Man-Goat into whose hands the Man-Fish had put them when
he retraced his steps to the Great Lake. They came at length to the land
which the Shawanos now occupy. They found it, as the strange spirits had
described it, a fit abode for the Great Spirit, a land of good and happy
enjoyments to his creatures. They married the beautiful and affectionate
maidens of the land, and their numbers increased till they were so many
that no one could count them. They grew strong, swift, and valiant, as
panthers, bold and brave in war, keen and patient in the chace. They
overcame all the tribes eastward of the River of Rivers,[A] and south to
the further shore of the Great Lake[B]. The dark-skin, whose eye beheld
their badge of war, fawned on them, or fled, became women before them,
or sought a region where neither their war-cry nor the twanging of their
bows was heard breaking the silence of the dark night.

[Footnote A: River of Rivers. Mississippi.]

[Footnote B: Great Lake, the ocean.]

"Brothers, we are called _Shawanos_ from the name of the river which runs
through our hunting-grounds. This is all I have to say."

NOTES.

* * * * *

(1) _The winds had gone to their resting-place in the depths of the
earth_.--p. 50.

The Indians think that a calm is caused by the winds' steeping. They
believe that it is quite as necessary for