V. THE CASCADE OF MELSINGAH.

The next night the ghost related to his eager listener the following tradition:—

A very long time ago, many ages before the feet of a white man had left their print on these shores, or the voice of his axe had been heard singing the song of destruction to the woods of our fathers, there dwelt in the Cascade of Melsingah, having his residence by daylight in the wave, and by night on the high rock which stood in its centre, a Spirit much reverenced by all the Indian nations. He was often seen by the Indian hunter, who passed that way soon after the going down of the sun. When seen at that hour, he appeared under the figure of a tall and mighty warrior, with abundance of the gray plumes of the eagle on his head, and a gray robe of wolf-skin thrown around him, standing upright upon his rock in front of the waterfalls. In the day time his appearance was more equivocal. Those who supposed they saw him saw something swimming about the cascade, as a frog swims under the surface. But none were ever permitted to behold him near, and face to face. As the observer drew nigh, the figure gradually disappeared, sinking into a kind of fog or mist; and in its place he found only the white sheet of water that poured over the rock, falling heavily among the gathering shadows into the pool below. Sometimes, also, but more rarely, he was seen in the early twilight before sun-rise, preparing to retreat from the fountain; and fortunate was the hunter to whom he showed himself at that hour, for it was an omen of success in the chace. None of the spirits of the surrounding country were oftener beheld in dreams by the Indians that made their haunts above the mountains; and, when the forms of the dead from the land of souls came to their friends in the visions of night, they were often led by the hand of the gigantic warrior in the wolf-skin and the eagle-plumes. He was never known to inflict personal injury on any one, and, therefore, was always considered as a kind and beneficent genius, who would befriend mortals in all cases of distress, and loved to behold them peaceful and happy.

Several generations have passed away—trees that were young and thrifty have become aged and mossy; and men have forgotten the number of the moons that have passed since there lived among the tribe who owned the broad lands above the mountains[50], whose banks frown upon the rapid river, a beautiful maiden, the daughter of a proud chief, whose name has not reached my time. But this we are told, that he was the greatest warrior of his day, fierce as the panther, and cunning as the fox; and she more beautiful than the sky lit up with stars, and gentler than a summer day, or a young fawn. She had lost her mother in early childhood; and, ere the suns of ten seasons had beamed on her head, her father, who loved her tenderly, and had brought her up not to do the tasks which are generally allotted to Indian women and girls, fell by the hand of disease, and she was left alone. A remembrance of his affection, and of the agony she felt, and of the deep tears she shed, at his loss, infused into her heart a softness and pity which continued through life, and rendered her ever after an unwilling witness of the scenes of fire and torture to which the customs of war among her countrymen gave occasion. When her beloved, and to her, kind father, left the earth for the land of spirits, she lived in the lodges of the older warriors who had been his companions in arms and brother councillors in the cabin where men met to debate on war and peace. Not in the cabins of the aged alone was she met with joy. She was welcomed wherever she went with kindness and affection; endeared to them as she was by the memory of the wise and brave warrior, her father, and by her own gentle disposition. When they spoke of her, they likened her, in their language, to whatever was most beautiful, harmless, and timid, among the animals—the fawn of the wood, the yellow bird of the glades, a spring wind sweeping over a field of grass, a dove that had found its long absent mate.

The beautiful maiden, of whom I am telling my brother, had beheld in her childhood, when her foot was little, and her heart trembling, the Cascade of Melsingah, and the form of the Manitou had once been revealed to her, as the evening was setting in, standing in his wolf-skin robes before the waterfall. After that she saw him often in her dreams, and, when she came to that age at which the children of the forest choose their protecting spirit, she chose for her's the Spirit of the Cascade of Melsingah. It was not long before a circumstance took place which strengthened her reverence and that of her people for the good Spirit, and proved the interest he took in the welfare of his beautiful charge.

One day she went alone to his abode, to pay him her customary offerings in behalf of herself, the friends she loved, and her nation; she carried in her hand a broad belt of wampum, and a white honeycomb from the hollow oak; and on her way she stopped and plaited a garland of the gayest flowers of the season. On arriving at the spot, she went down into the narrow little glen, through which the brook flowed before it poured itself over the rock, and, standing near the edge, she dropped her gifts, one by one, into the current which instantly carried them to the waterfall. The pool, into which the water descends, was deeper than it is now; the continual crumbling and falling of the rocks from above, for many an age, having partially filled up the deep blue basin. The stream, too, at that time, had been lately swelled by profuse rains, and rushed down the precipice with a heavier torrent, and a louder noise, than she had ever known it to do before. In approaching more nearly to the edge, and looking down to see what had become of her offerings, she incautiously set her foot on a stone covered with the slimy deposit of the brook; it slipped, and she was precipitated headlong with the torrent into the pool below.

What followed she did not recollect—darkness, as deep as that of the grave, came over her, and all was still and hushed to her. When she came to her senses, she found herself lying on the margin of the pool, and awaking as if from an unpleasant sleep with a sensation of faintness at the heart. She thought at first that she must have been taken from the water by somebody who belonged to her nation, and looked round to see if any of them were near. But there was no human trace or sound to be discovered: she heard only the whisper of the wind, and the rush of the cascade, and beheld only the still trunks, and waving boughs, the motionless rock, and the gliding water. She spoke, thanking her deliverer, whoever he might be, in the softest tones of her soft voice, but there was no reply. On her return to the village where she lived, she made the most diligent enquiry to learn if any of her people had assisted her in the hour of danger, or if any thing was known of her adventure. Nobody had heard of it—none of the tribe had passed by the cascade that day; and the maiden and all her people became fully convinced that she had been preserved from a violent death by her guardian spirit—the Manitou of the waterfall. Her gratitude was in proportion to the benefit received; and ever afterwards she paid an annual visit to the cascade at the season when she was thus miraculously rescued, sometimes alone, and sometimes in company with the young females of her age. On these occasions, the dark rocks around were hung with garlands of flowers and belts of wampum, and bracelets of beads were dropped into the clear water, and a song was chanted, commemorating the maiden's deliverance by the benevolent spirit of the place. The woods around reverberated with the music of those dark-haired maidens who had assembled to warble their hymns of gratitude to the Manitou of the cascade.

The Indians, who lived above the Mountains, and those who possessed the country below, although belonging to the same great family of the Lenni Lenape, were not always on friendly terms. At the time of which I am telling my brother, there was a great quarrel between them, and the calumet had been buried in the hole from which the hatchet had been taken. An Indian of the tribe living above the mountains was found encroaching on the hunting-grounds below, and was killed in a fierce dispute which ensued. His people anxiously sought an opportunity to revenge his death, nor was it long before it was put into their hands. A young warrior of the lower tribe, burning with the ardour of youth, and ambitious to signalize himself by some act of heroic daring, boasted that, notwithstanding what had happened, he would bring a deer from the hunting-grounds to the north of where the great river broke through the mountains. Accordingly, he set out alone in one of the light canoes which are used by Indians, on his way up the river. He landed on the east bank, at the distance of a boy's walk of half a sun above the Cascade of Melsingah, and after no long search had killed a deer, dragged the animal to the canoe, and put off from the shore. So far he had made good his boast, and was busily employed in picturing to himself the glory that awaited him on his return, the loud praises of the men, and the silent, though more eloquent ones of the maidens, when his dreams were put to flight by the sudden coming upon him of his fierce and cunning enemies. His motions had been observed, and he had not yet gained the middle of the river, when a canoe, in which were five northern Indians, made its appearance, coming round the extremity of a woody peninsula, that projected with its steep bold shores far into the water. Immediately one of them bent his bow, and, raising it to his eye, levelled it in the direction of the young Mohegan; but another, who seemed to be the leader of the party, placed his hand deliberately on the arrow, which was immediately laid down, and an oar taken up in its place. A single glance served to show the warrior that they were all well armed, and that his only chance of escape lay in reaching the shore before them, and trusting to the swiftness of his feet to effect his escape. He therefore plied his oar with great diligence, and his canoe shot rapidly over the water, but his enemies were gaining fast upon him, and it was now evident that they must overtake him before he could reach the land. In an instant he had leaped into the water, and disappeared; but his pursuers were too well aware of his object to slacken their exertions, and held on their way towards the shore. When he rose again to the surface, their canoe was at no great distance. Two of the strongest of them plunged into the river; one of them, swimming with exceeding swiftness, soon overtook him, and seized him by the hair of the head. A desperate, but brief struggle ensued, in which both combatants went down. In a moment afterwards, the young warrior re-appeared without his antagonist, who was seen no more: but his pursuers had already surrounded him. They secured him without difficulty, carried him to the shore, and there binding his hands behind him with a strong grape-vine, led him towards their village.

The young Mohegan, finding all attempt to escape useless, resigned himself to his fate, with all the indifference which an Indian always assumes, though he may not feel it. At first he scarcely thought that he should be put to death, for he knew that the people into whose hands he had fallen were celebrated throughout the land for the mildness of their character, and their disposition to mercy; and he relied still more on their known dread of his own warlike and formidable tribe, equally famous for their disposition to have blood for blood, and to suffer no grass to grow in their paths till they had tasted the sweets of revenge. However, he prepared himself for the worst, and began to steel his heart against the fear of death. He did well, for, soon after they began their march, his captors commanded him to sing his death-song. The youth obeyed, and in a strong deep chant began the customary boast of endurance and defiance of pain. He sung of the glories of his nation, and how often they had made the hearts of their enemies, of his captors, leap with fear, and their knees shake, by their wild halloo of war. He told them that, though his years were few, he had seen a Northern die in his grasp; though his eyes were but young, they had looked on the last struggle of one of their brothers. He took up the strain at intervals, and in the pauses his conductors preserved a deep and stern silence.

At length the party came upon a kind of path in the woods, which they followed for a considerable distance, and then suddenly stopped short. All at once a long shrill startling cry burst from them. It was the death-cry for their drowned companion. It rang through the old woods, and was returned in melancholy echoes from the neighbouring mountains. At its frightful sound the birds flew up from their nestling-places in the leafy thicket; the eagle, and the hawk, and the raven, soared aloft; and the deer was seen scampering away to a safer and more distant covert. When the last of their cries had died away, the party put their hands to their mouths, and uttered a second cry, modulated into wild notes by the motion of their fingers. An interval of silence ensued, which was at length broken by a confused sound of shrill voices at a distance, faintly heard at first, but growing every moment more audible. In a minute two young warriors, who seemed to come by a shorter way than the usual path, broke through the shrubs, and took their station, without speaking a word, by the party who were conducting the prisoner. Presently a crowd of women and children from the village appeared in the path, shouting and singing songs of victory; and these were followed by a group of old men, who walked in grave silence. As soon as they came up, the party resumed their march, and led their prisoner in triumph to the village.

The village consisted of a cluster of cabins, irregularly scattered, as Indian villages always are, over a large space. It stood in a natural opening of the great forest, on the banks of a stream which brawled over a shallow, stony bottom between rocky banks, on its way to mingle with the Great River. The Indian name of this wild stream was Mawenawasigh.

It happened well for the captive youth that the chiefs and principal warriors of the tribe were absent on a hunting expedition, and it was necessary, in so grave a matter, to delay the decision of the prisoner's fate until their return, which was expected in a few suns. He was therefore taken to an unoccupied cabin and placed on a mat, bound hand and foot, and fastened with a strong cord made of the sinews of the deer to a tall post in the centre, supporting the roof. It was the office of one of his captors to keep watch over him during the day time, and at night two of them slept in his cabin. For the first two suns his prison was thronged with the idle, the revengeful, and the curious. The relatives of the drowned man, and of him who was slain below the Mountains, came to taunt him on his helplessness, to assure him of the certainty of death by torture, and to exult in the prospect of a deadly vengeance. They pointed to him a stake driven in the earth, to which a young Mohegan should be lashed, and a fire kindled around him of the driest materials, while hot pincers were applied to know when his flesh was sufficiently roasted, to form a suitable dish for the banquet. Others came and gazed at him with unfeeling curiosity. I should have mentioned to my brother that he was of Mohawk parents, the son of a warrior adopted into a Mohegan tribe, and that he possessed the stately and manly form, and the bold look, and the calm eye, which belongs to the former nation, and may be traced wherever their blood is found. They spoke to each other, commending his fine warlike air, his lofty stature, and well-turned limbs, and said that he would die bravely. One only seemed to regard him with pity. A beautiful female face looked in several times at the door, and turned sorrowfully away.

As the time for the return of the warriors drew near, the captive's contempt for life, and his passion for a glorious death, diminished much. His sleep was filled with dreams of the clear and pleasant waters of his tribe, and his mind by day could not forbear busying itself with the plans of glory and ambition which he had formed. It was hard, too, to leave a world in which dwelt such lovely beings as she who had visited him with the tear of pity and sympathy bedewing her soft eye. It was worth while to live, he thought, if it were only that he might have the opportunity of convincing her that he was not ungrateful, and that his heart, though shut to the fear of death, was open to her beauty and goodness. The artificial fortitude to which he had wrought himself, in obedience to the principles which had been taught him, began to waver, and the glory of a death of torture, and calm endurance of pain, to lose its value in his eyes. "Would it not be better," said he to himself, "to share a long life with the beautiful maiden, who has just left me, to drive the deer and the wolf for her sake, and to come home loaded with game in the evening, to the hearth that she should keep burning brightly for my return?"

Night came, but it brought no sleep to the young warrior, until its watches had nearly expired. On awaking, he saw, through the opening that served as a door to the cabin, that the great star of day was risen, and the surly Indian who guarded him was standing before it. The moments passed heavily away; no one came to the cabin save an old woman, who brought him his morning meal. The curiosity of the tribe was satisfied, and the relatives of the deceased were weary of insulting him. At length the shadow of a human figure fell upon the green before the door, and the next instant, the well remembered form and face of beauty made its appearance. The maiden laid her hand on the shoulder of the sentinel, and pointed to the sky where a bold eagle was sailing away to the east. The majestic bird at length alighted on the top of a tall tree, at the distance of four or five bowshots, balanced himself for a moment on his talons, then closed his wings, and, settling on his perch, looked down into the village, as if seeking for his prey. "If thy bow be faithful, and thy arrow keen," said the maiden, "I will keep watch over the prisoner until thy return." The Indian threw a glance at the captive, as if to assure himself that everything was safe, and immediately disappeared in the forest.

The young maiden then entered the cabin. As she approached the captive, a blush stole to her dark cheek, her eye was downcast, and her step trembling, and, when she spoke, her voice was low, but soft as the whispers of the spring wind in a grove of willows.

"I come to offer thee freedom. There is no time to be lost; to-morrow the chiefs of my nation return, and then will thy guards for a sun be doubled; the beams of the next shall light thee to torture and death. Beneath their vigilance thy escape becomes impossible. Mohegan, I am here to restore to the young eagle his wings, and to cut the cords which bind the young panther of his tribe."

"And flies the young eagle forth alone? goes the young panther to the thicket without a companion?" demanded the warrior.

The maiden hid her eyes beneath their long black lashes, and said nothing. The Mohegan continued:—

"Thou wilt give me liberty of my limbs, but thou leavest my heart fettered. Wilt thou not, my beautiful deliverer, be the partner of my flight? What will liberty be to me if thou art not the light of my cabin? Almost would thy presence and thy pity compensate for the tortures which await me if I remain. Is it not better for me to die with thee beholding my constancy and patience in suffering, and rendering me the tribute of a tear as my spirit departs for the land of souls, than to go from thy presence sorrowing for the beautiful maiden with the bright eyes, and fair hair, and ripe lip, and fawn-like step, whom I have left in the land of my foes? And what, my beautiful deliverer, will be said by thy kindred if it be known, as it must be, that thou hast aided my escape, and thus disappointed the vengeance of thy tribe? I would rather die, Bird of Beauty! by the death of fire than expose thee to the slightest peril."

Why should I waste time in telling my brother what has been so often told? The heart of a young maiden in every nation is soft and susceptible, and, when besieged by love and compassion, is too certain to yield. The maiden made the warrior repeat over and over again his promises of affection and constancy, as if they would be a security against any unfortunate consequence of the imprudence she was going to commit. She ended by believing all he said, and by consenting to become his wife and the companion of his escape. "But I cannot go to thy tribe," said she, "for then thou wouldst be obliged to raise the tomahawk against my people, and I may not abide in the habitation of him who seeks to spill the blood of my friends. If thou wilt take me for the guide of thy path, I will bring thee to a hiding-place where the arrows of thy enemies cannot reach thee, and where we may remain sheltered till this cloud of war be overpast."

The youth hesitated. "Nay then," continued she, "I may not go with thee. I will cut thy cords, and the Good Spirit will guide thee to the land of thy friends."

This was enough: love prevailed for once over the desire of warlike glory, in the bosom of a descendant of the Mohawks, and it was settled that the flight should take place that night.

They had just arrived at this conclusion when the man who guarded the prisoner returned. He had been absent the longer because the eagle had changed his perch, and had alighted on a tree at a still greater distance than at first. He had succeeded in bringing down the bird, and was now displaying its huge wings with great satisfaction at the success of his aim. The maiden pulled from them a handful of the long gray feathers, as the reward of having shown the prize to the guard, and departed.

The midnight of that day found the captive awake in the cabin, and his keepers stretched on a mat asleep at the door. They had begun to regard him with less vigilance because he had made no attempt, and shown no disposition, to escape. He thought he heard the light sound of a footstep approaching; he raised his head, and listened attentively. Was it the rustling of leaves in the neighbouring wood that deceived him, or the heavily drawn breath of the sleepers, or the weltering of the river on whose banks the village stood, or the crawling of some beast of prey through the thicket, or the moving of a spirit? These were the only sounds he was now able to distinguish. A ray of moonlight shone through a crevice in the cabin, and fell across the body of his sleeping guards. As his eye rested on this, he saw it gradually widening, and, soon after, the mat that hung over the opening which served for a door-way was wholly withdrawn, and the light figure of the maiden appeared. She stepped cautiously and slowly over the slumbering guards, and, approaching the Mohegan with a sharp knife, severed, without noise, the cords which confined him, and, stealing back to the door, beckoned him to follow. He did so, planting his foot at every step gradually on the floor from the point to the heel, and pausing between, until he was out of the cabin. His heart bounded within him when he found himself standing in the free air and the white moonlight, with his limbs unbound. He beheld his old acquaintance, the stars, as bright and twinkling as ever, and saw with rapture the same river which rolled its dark and massy waters beside the dwelling of his father. They took a path which led westward through the woods, and, after following it for the distance of a bowshot, the maiden turned aside, and took, from a thick clump of cedars, a bow, a spear, and a well-filled quiver of arrows, which she put into his hands. She next handed him a wolf-skin mantle, which she motioned him to throw over his shoulder, and placed on his head a kind of cap on which nodded a tuft of feathers, which it may be remembered she had plucked from the wings of the eagle his sentinel had so lately killed. They then proceeded rapidly but in silence. It was not long before they heard the small waves of the river tapping the shore; they descended a deep bank, and the broad water lay glittering before them in the moonlight. A canoe—his own canoe—he knew it at a glance—lay moored under the bank, and rocking lightly on the tide. They entered it; the warrior took one oar, the maiden another; they pushed off from the shore, and were speedily on their way down the river.

They glided by the shore, past the steep bank covered with tall trees, and past where the moonlight dimly showed, embosomed among the mountains, a woody promontory, round which the river turned and disappeared from view.

They then reached the eastern shore, and passed close to the mouth of the Mattoavoan, where it quietly and sluggishly mingles with the great river, so close that they could hear from the depth of the woods the incessant dashing of the stream, leaping over the last of the precipices that cross its channel. They continued to pass along under the shore, until the roar of the Mattoavoan was lost to the ear. They were not far from the foot of the northernmost of the mountains washed by the Great River, when a softer and lighter rush of waters was heard. A rivulet, whose path was fenced on each side with thick trees and shrubs, bound together by vines of wild grape and ivy, came down over the loose stones, and fell with a merry gurgle into the waters below. It was the rivulet of Melsingah. The interlacing boughs and vines formed a low arch over its mouth, that looked like the entrance into a dark cavern. The young maiden pointed towards it, and intimated to the warrior that up that stream lay the path to that asylum whither she intended to conduct him. At this he took his oar from the water, and in a low voice began to remonstrate with her on the imprudence of remaining so near the haunts of his enemies. Long did they debate the matter, but when she had explained to him what he had heard something of before, the profound reverence in which the Cascade of Melsingah, intended by her as the place of their retreat, was held, and related the interposition of its benevolent spirit in behalf of her own life, he was satisfied, and turned his canoe to the shore. They landed, and the warrior taking the light barque on his shoulders, they passed through the arch of shrubs and vines up the path of the rivulet, and soon stood by the cascade. The maiden untied from her neck a string of beads, and copper ornaments, obtained from the Indians of the island of Manhahadoes, dropped them into the water, and murmured a prayer for safety and protection to the Manitou of the place. On the western side of the deep glen in which they found themselves was a shelf of rock projecting from the steep bank, which has long since crumbled away, and under this the warrior and his beautiful guide concluded to shelter themselves till morning.

Scarcely had they seated themselves upon this shelf of rock, when slowly uprose from the centre of the pool a being of immense proportions, habited in a wolf-skin robe, and wearing on his head a high tuft of eagle's feathers. It was the Manitou of the Cascade. Approaching the trembling pair, who feared his anger for their intrusion on his retreat, he said in a voice which resembled the rattling of his own waterfall, "Why are ye here?" The maiden related her story to him, and claimed his protection for herself and lover. He appeared to be a spirit of few words, for he only said in reply, "Ye shall have it. The disguise you have provided, the wolf-skin robe, and the tuft of eagle feathers, are of the earth—they will not disguise you—take mine." So saying, he gave the Mohegan his own robe and tuft, and received in exchange those which the cunning maiden had provided for her lover. After counselling them in brief words to apply to him whenever they were in difficulty, he disappeared in the pool.

The return of light showed the inhabitants of the Indian village on the Mawenawasigh in unwonted bustle and confusion. All the warriors were out; the track of the fugitives was sought for, discovered, and followed to the bank of the Great River. The print of their steps on the sand, the marks of the canoe where it had been fastened to the bank, and of the oars where they had been planted to shove it away from the shore, left no doubt that the warrior had carried off the beautiful maiden to his own tribe, and all pursuit was abandoned.

In the mean time, the warrior was occupied in constructing a habitation. A row of poles was placed against the projecting shelf of rock, which thus served for a roof; these were covered with leafy branches, and over the whole was laid a quantity of dead brushwood, so irregularly piled, as when seen at a little distance to give no suspicion of human design. The inmates of this rude dwelling subsisted on game found in the adjacent forest, on fish from the mouth of the rivulet, and on the fruits and roots of the soil. Their wants were few and easily supplied, and they were happy.

One day, as the lover was sitting at the door of his cabin, he heard the voices of two persons in the wood, who seemed to be approaching the place. He saw that if he attempted to hide himself by going in, they might enter the glen, and discover the secret of his retreat. As he was clothed in the dress of the spirit, he believed that it would be better to present himself boldly to their view, and trust for safety to his personation of the good Manitou. He therefore took up his bow, which was lying beside him, and placed himself in an upright motionless attitude on the edge of the pool, in front of the water falling over the rock. In a moment two Indians of the tribe of the maiden made their appearance coming through the trees. At sight of the majestic figure in the gray mantle and plumes, and armed with a bow, magnified by their fears to thrice the real weight and size, they started, and uttered an exclamation of surprise. He waved his bow, motioning them away. One of them threw towards him a couple of arrow heads, which he carried in his hand, and which fell into the water at the warrior's feet, sprinkling him with the spray they dashed up; and, making gestures of reverence and supplication, the two Indians instantly retired.

Thus the time passed—swiftly and pleasantly passed—from the end of the Planting Moon to the beginning of that of Harvest. As my brother knows the wants of Indian life are few, and easily supplied; and for the little inconveniences that might attend their situation, the tradition says that the inmates of the glen of Melsingah found a compensation in their mutual affection. Occasionally they saw the kind Manitou come forth from the Cascade to breathe the evening air, and when he did so, they invariably retired to their bower. At length, when the warrior had one day ventured across the ridge that rose south and east of the cascade, and was hunting in the deep valley beyond, he came suddenly upon an Indian of his own tribe, who immediately recognised him. An explanation took place, in the course of which he learned that a peace had been made between his nation, the Mohegans, and that which dwelt above the Mountains. The Mohawks, who lorded it over both nations with a rigid authority, and claimed the right of making war and peace for them, having heard of their differences, had despatched one of their chiefs to adjust them, and to command the two tribes to live in friendship. "My children," said Garangula, the Mohawk, in a council to which the chiefs of both tribes were called, "it is not good that ye who are brethren should spill each other's blood. If one of you have received wrong at the hands of the other, your fathers of the Five Nations will see that justice is done between you. Why should ye make each other few? Once ye destroyed yourselves by your wars, but, now that ye dwell together under the shadow of the great tree of the Five Nations, it is fitting that ye should be at rest, and bury the tomahawk for ever at its root. Learn of your own rivers. The streams of Mattoavoan, and Mawenawasigh, after struggling, and wasting their strength among the rocks, mingle at length in peace in the bosom of the father of waters, the Great River of the Mountains." The council, since they could do no better, approved of the words of Garangula; it was agreed that the relations of the hunter slain below the Mountain should be pacified by a present of a belt of wampum and shells, and the chiefs smoked the pipe of peace together, and delivered belts of wampum as the memorials of the treaty.

The warrior hastened to the glen of Melsingah to communicate the intelligence to his beloved maiden. Their retreat was instantly abandoned, not, however, without some regret at leaving a place where so many happy days had been passed; the birch canoe was borne to the mouth of the river, and after taking his bride, at her earnest entreaty, to visit her own tribe, the warrior descended with her to his friends below the mountains. Long was the waterfall visited by the Indians, and it is only since the axe of the white man has been heard in the adjoining forest that the good Manitou has retreated from the Cascade of Melsingah.