ese men and women are opening up this empire and they are
under no misapprehensions concerning it. They are people with a
vision, which vision they are willing to endorse with the best years of
their lives.

_Kitemakis_, the poor one, who intends writing the book about the white
folk, has drawn near to us and is listening to our talk. We invite her
to join us and, after awhile, she tells us curious legends of the north
in which fear does many times more prevail than love; these, and old
superstitions which catch your fancy sharply and fresh the dusty
dryness of your spirit.

Although they are in no great credit with historians, it is an odd idea
of mine that the only true history of a country is to be found in its
fairy tales. These seem to be the crystallization of the country's
psychology. On the trail, on the river, in the woods, you may glean
from the Redmen and their mate-women tales that are well veined with
the fine gold of poetry, but which, as a general thing, are
inconclusive and do not serve aright the ends of justice. As you
search into the untaught minds of these Indian folk and pull on their
mental muscle, you must perforce recall the amazing sensation of the
gentleman who took the hand of a little ragged girl in his and felt
that she wanted a thumb.

Or again, in your Anglo-Saxon superiority you may feel like that
Merodach, the King of Uruk, of whom a philosopher tells us. This
Merodach wished to make his enemies his footstool, so as he sat at
meat, he kept a hundred kings beneath his table with their thumbs cut
off that they might be living witnesses to his power and leniency.

And when Merodach observed how painfully the kings fed themselves with
the crumbs that fell to them, he praised God for having given thumbs to
man. "It is by the absence of thumbs," he said, "that we are enabled
to discern their use."

Listen now to this tale of the North: Once there was a smiling woman in
this land and wherever she went she brought warmth with her and light,
so that even the ice melted in the rivers. Her eyes were blue like the
flowers and her skin was white like the milk of a young mother. As she
passed through the land the fish swam out of their caves, the birds
rested on their nests, and even the dead women who were in the clay
stirred themselves when she passed over, for once they had known lovers
and had carried men children. She was vastly kind, this woman, and was
known even to the dear God