""Follow me!" said the Man-Fish, popping up his head as before.
"Then Kiskapocoke said to his companions, "Let us follow him, and see what will come of it." So they followed him, he swimming and they paddling, until night came. Then a great wind and deep darkness prevailed, and the Great Serpent commenced hissing in the depths of the ocean. They were terribly frightened, and thought not of living till another sun, but of perishing in the great deep, far from the lands of their fathers, and without glory. But the Man-Fish kept close to the boat, and bade them not be afraid, for nothing should hurt them, if they only followed him and saw what he would show them. And thus they continued, amidst the raging of the winds and the waves, and the thunders and the lightnings, to paddle their slender canoes till the sun arose.
"When morning came, nothing could be seen of the shore they had left. The winds still raged, the seas were very high, and the water ran into their canoes like melted snows over the brows of the mountains in the months of spring. But the Man-Fish handed them large shells, wherewith they were enabled to bale it out. As they had brought neither food nor water with them, and had caught neither fish nor rain, they had become both hungry and thirsty. Kiskapocoke told the strange creature they wanted to eat and drink, and that he must enable them to do both. "For," said he, "since you brought us here, you would be a very bad fish to let us starve or die of thirst."
""Oh! very well," answered the Man-Fish; "stop where you are then, while I go down, and get you victuals and water; and be sure, this time, that you do not follow me." With that he made a plunge into the depths of the wave. Down he went, how far our fathers could not say, only this they knew that, when he came back again, he puffed and blew like a whale, and said, he was very tired. He brought with him a great bag full of parched corn, not at all wet, a great shell full of good sweet water, and a big piece of roasted fish. "I am confoundedly tired, and I got scorched into the bargain," said he, muttering to himself. "So much for having a cross wife."
"Thus they went on paddling and paddling, day and night, wet, cold, and sometimes hungry, for two moons and a half, till at last, one morning, the Man-Fish cried out "Look there!" Upon that they rubbed up their eyes, and, looking sharp in the direction he pointed, saw land, high land, covered with great trees, and glittering as the sand of the Spirit's Island(2). Behind the shore rose tall mountains, from the tops of which issued great flames, which shot up into the sky as the forks of the lightning cleave the clouds in the Hot Moon. The waters of the Great Salt Lake broke into small waves upon its shores, which were covered with seals sporting, and wild ducks pluming themselves, in the beams of the warm and gentle sun. Upon the shore stood a great many strange people, but, when they saw our warriors step upon the land, and the Man-Fish coming up out of the water, and heard his cry, "Follow me!" they all ran into the woods like startled deer, and our fathers saw no more of them.
"When our fathers were all safely landed, the Man-Fish told them to let the canoe go, "for," said he, "you will never need it more." They had travelled but a little way into the woods when he bade them stay where they were, while he told the Spirit of the land that the strangers he had promised were come, and with that he descended into a deep cave near them. Soon he returned, and with him a creature as strange as himself, or still stranger. His legs and feet were those of a man; he had leggings and mocassins like an Indian's, tightly laced, and beautifully decorated with wampum; but his head was like a goat's, even to the huge horns and long beard; his hands were a goat's fore-feet, and the upper part of his body was covered with moss-coloured hair, soft and shining, like that of the goats which browse upon the steeps of the Spirit's Backbone. Yet he talked like a man, though his voice was the voice of a goat, and his language was one well understood by our fathers. He stood up, with his feet or hands, whichever they might be called, resting upon a little rock before him, like a goat which clambers up to nip the loftier buds, and made them a long speech.
""You are going to a beautiful land," said he, "to a most beautiful land, men from the Clime of Snows. There you will find all the joys which an Indian covets. The beasts you will see will be fat, tame, and numerous as the trees of the forest, and the fowls and birds which will cover your waters and people your woods will be sleek as the forehead of a young girl. Then, how lovely and kind are its maidens, how green and gay its hills and valleys, how refreshing the winds which sweep over the bosom of the great lake on its border, how sweet, clean, and cool, the beautiful streams which wind along its corn-littered vales! Oh, it is a lovely land, and the strangers have done well to leave the misery which awaited them in the regions of the star that never sets, for the peace and happiness which will be theirs in the land of unceasing summer."
"Brothers and chiefs! our ancestors travelled many moons under the guidance of the Man-Goat into whose hands the Man-Fish had put them when he retraced his steps to the Great Lake. They came at length to the land which the Shawanos now occupy. They found it, as the strange spirits had described it, a fit abode for the Great Spirit, a land of good and happy enjoyments to his creatures. They married the beautiful and affectionate maidens of the land, and their numbers increased till they were so many that no one could count them. They grew strong, swift, and valiant, as panthers, bold and brave in war, keen and patient in the chace. They overcame all the tribes eastward of the River of Rivers,[14] and south to the further shore of the Great Lake[15]. The dark-skin, whose eye beheld their badge of war, fawned on them, or fled, became women before them, or sought a region where neither their war-cry nor the twanging of their bows was heard breaking the silence of the dark night.
"Brothers, we are called Shawanos from the name of the river which runs through our hunting-grounds. This is all I have to say."