related to him her dreams, and asked him why, since she had had
them, she was so changed--why she now found no joy in the scenes which
once pleased her, but rather wished that she no longer was, her dreams
being now all that she loved. The mighty being told her that they were
not dreams, but a reality; that the dog which now stood by her side was
invested by the Master of Life with power to quit, at the coming in of
the shades, the shape of a dog, and to take that of MAN, a being who was
the counterpart of herself, but formed with strength and resolution, to
counteract, by wisdom and sagacity, and to overcome, by strength and
valour, the rough difficulties and embarrassments which were to spring
up in the path of human life; that he was to be fierce and bold, and she
gentle and afraid. He told her that the change she complained of, and
which had given her so much grief, wetted her cheek with tears, and
filled her bosom with sighs, was the natural result of the intimate
connection of two such beings, and was the mode of perpetuating the
human race, which had been decreed by the Master of Life; that before
the buds now forming should be matured to fruit, she would give birth to
two helpless little beings, whom she must feed with her milk, and rear
with tender care, for from them would the world be peopled. He had been
sent, he said, by the Good Spirit to level and prepare the earth for the
reception of the race who were to inhabit it.

Hitherto the world had lain a rude and shapeless mass--the great, man
now reduced it to order. He threw the rough and stony crags into the
deep valleys--he moved the frozen mountain to fill up the boiling chasm.
When he had levelled the earth, which before was a thing without form,
he marked out with his great walking-staff the lakes, ponds, and rivers,
and caused them to be filled with water from the interior of the earth,
bidding them to be replenished from the rains and melted snows which
should fall from the skies, till they should be no more.

When he had prepared the earth for the residence of the beings who were
to people it, he caught the dog, and, notwithstanding the cries of the
mother of the world, and her entreaties to him to spare its life, he
tore it in pieces, and distributed it over the earth, and the water, and
into air. The entrails he threw into the lakes, ponds, and rivers,
commanding them to become fish, and they became fish. These waters, in
which no living creature be