or happier state of
being. Clothes they had none; they lived and died naked as they came
into the world. Their food was mice, and snakes, and worms, and moles,
with now and then a bat, and the roots of trees, which crept downward
from the regions of the upper air till they reached the subterranean
abodes of the poor benighted Indian. They ate sand, it is true, and fed
upon a dirt which glittered like the sun, but which was tasteless, and
contained no nutriment, and they grew poor upon it, and early sickened
and died. A miserably poor and weak race they were, and the Great Spirit
was kindest, when he took them from their dismal dwellings to the happy
mansions in the green vales and quiet lakes which lie hid in the
mountains. And, so well convinced were the Indians that the exchange
would be for the better, that they celebrated the death of a man with
great rejoicing, but wept and howled loud and long when a child was
born. And thus they dwelt, in the caverns which lie beneath the surface
of the earth, unknowing of the beautiful and glorious world over their
heads, till the Good Spirit sent agents for their deliverance.

There were among the Minnatarees two boys, who, from the hour of their
birth, showed superior wisdom, sagacity, and cunning. Even while they
were children, they were wiser than their fathers and mothers. They
asked their parents whence the light which streamed through the fissures
of the rock and played along the sides of the cavern came, and whence
and from what descended the roots of the great vine. Their father said
he could not tell; and their mother only laughed at the question, which
appeared to her very foolish. They asked the priest; neither could he
tell, but said he supposed the light came from the eyes of some great
wolf. The boys told him he was a fool. They asked the king tortoise, who
sulkily drew his head into his shell, and made no answer. But, when they
asked the chief rattlesnake, he answered that he knew, and would tell
them all about it if they would promise to make peace with his tribe,
and on no account ever to kill one of his descendants. The boys
promised, and the chief rattlesnake then told them that there was a
world above them, composed of ore more shining than that they had tossed
in boyish play in each other's eyes--a beautiful world, peopled by
creatures in the shape of beasts, having a pure atmosphere and a soft
sky, sweet fruits and mellow water, well-stocked hunting-grounds