llih! Auween won gintsch pat_?" (Look yonder! Who is that who
has just come?)

It was an eagle-like majesty which looked forth from the eyes of Tsiskwa
of Citico, as he seated himself on the long cane-wrought divan, just
within the entrance of the cabin on the eastern side of the "beloved
square." Time can work but little change in such a spirit. An eagle,
however old, is always an eagle.

The sage lifted one august claw and majestically waved it at the young
Delaware _illau_ (war-captain) standing before him, while Savanukah
turned away to join the dancers. "Lenni Lenape?--I remember--I remember
very well when you came from the West!"

Tscholens was not stricken with astonishment, although that migration is
held by investigators of pre-Columbian myths[11] to have occurred before
the ninth century! It was formerly a general trait among the Indians to
use the, first person singular in speaking of the tribe, and to avoid,
even in its name, the plural termination. Tsiskwa went on with the tone
of reminiscence rather than legendary lore, and with an air of bated
rancor, as of one whose corroding grievance still works at the heart, to
describe how the Lenni Lenape crossed the Mississippi and fell upon the
widespread settlements of the Alligewi (or Tallegwi) Indians--considered
identical with the Cherokee (Tsullakee)--and warred with them many years
in folly, in futility, in hopeless defeat.

He lifted his eyes and gazed at the sun. A curve of pride steadied his
old lips. His face was as resolute, as victorious, in looking backward
as ever it had been in vaunting forecast. His was the temperament that
always saw in prophecy or retrospect what he would wish to see. And that
sun, now going down, had lighted him all his life along a path of
conscious triumph.

And then, he continued, the Lenni Lenape, after years of futile war,
combined with the Mengwe,[12] and before their united force the Cherokee
retired into the impregnable stronghold of their mountains, their
beautiful country, the pride of the world!

He waved his hand toward the landscape--lying out there in the lustre of
its exquisite coloring, in the clarified air and the enhancing sunset;
in the ideality of the contour of its majestic lofty mountains; in the
splendor of its silver rivers, its phenomenally lush forests, its rich
soil--pitying the rest of the world who must needs dwell elsewhere.

"And here," he went on, "the European found me two centuries ago."