ed
sister remembered the promise she had made her, of feeding with sweet
berries, and nursing in her bosom, the spirit of the little bird which
dropped dead from the bough of the locust-tree on the evening of her own
death. The other warrior had lost his mother, whom he tenderly loved,
and he wished to go and see, with his own eyes, if they used her well in
the land of spirits, nor bowed her back to heavier burdens than accorded
with the faintness of advanced years. They concluded, one to gain a
smile from his beloved maiden, and the other to gratify his affectionate
regards for his mother, to obtain a view of the Land of departed Souls;
but it was not till they had been frequently reminded of their
undertaking, and their courage had been repeatedly taxed(1), that, brave
as they were, they could make their hearts strong enough to face the
spirits of the winds that rove about the sky, or the thunders that leap
from the black cloud. They left the village of the Unamis, and travelled
for many moons in a path very crooked and difficult to be travelled,
till at length they came to a mighty and fearful rock, upon which the
sky was rolling to and fro with a tremendous sound, and a motion
resembling that of the waves of the Great Lake Superior, when tossed
about by a tempest. The winds were gambolling about the pathway, not as
upon the earth, invisible to the eye, but in shapes, some of which were
the most beautiful ever beheld, and some more frightful than ever
entered into the conception of a son of the earth. The stars, which the
inhabitants of the world are accustomed to see chained to their allotted
bounds, were there floating and dashing about in the thin air, like a
boat moving on troubled waters. After travelling with extreme pain and
suffering for a long time upon this road, now buffetted by the terrific
and angry forms of the north and east winds, and now soothed and
comforted by the ministering shapes of the breezes of the west and
south--now assisted by the strength of their own hearts, and by turns
assailed or protected by the stars, they reached the Land of Souls. It
was a beautiful country, they said, and the employments to which souls
were there subjected, produced to them all the pleasant consequences
they produced on earth to those who followed them, while they were
unattended by the labour and difficulties attached to them in the
earthly stage of existence. The sky was always cloudless, and a
perpetual spring