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[A], 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.
[Footnote A: The passage of the Highlands on the Hudson.]
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.