Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3

by James Athearn Jones

"It is the surge breaking on the sandy shore, or the night winds rushing through the forest," answered he.

"And tell me what are those lifting their white heads before us, as the snow, which has fallen in a calm, is swept about by the whirlwind which follows it?"

"Billows breaking on the shoals that surround yon little island."

Away then, away goes their little bark, dashing among the wild waves, like a leaf caught up into air by the summer whirlwind, till all at once burst upon the horror-stricken maiden, in their most tremendous and appalling aspect, the waters of the far-famed, the wondrous Oniagarah. See the white sheet of foam which rises in spray, mocking the soaring of the bird of morning. "It is only the Great Spirit that can save us now!" exclaimed the frantic maiden. "Lo, my Moscharr, we hasten to the land of souls!"

"Not the Great Spirit himself, did he will it, could save us," answered the lover in a tone which seemed to be that of impiety. "Were he here himself, with all the Manitous of the earth, and the air, and the flood, and the fire, gathered together from mountain, and valley, and wood, and prairie, he could not save us. Together, Mekaia, we shall sleep in the stormy cataract."

The maiden heard the dreadful words in silence. But even then she showed the depth of her affection. The love of a woman endures through all changes; she shrinks not at death, so the beloved one be at her side. When the beauteous flower of the forest saw her fate approaching, and so near, she sank into the arms of her Moscharr, as though it were pleasanter to die there than elsewhere; and a soft smile, for she smiled even in that dread moment, told that she was most happy to die, if she could die on the breast of him she loved.

But hark, what voice is that calling upon thee, wretched maiden! Did not he who won thy youthful heart, while yet it was little and fluttering, so pronounce the loved word "Mekaia?" Was not that the tone and accent which oft rang through the hollow beech woods, when together ye went to gather the ripened mast, and chanced to separate till the cry recalled? And look—see, one stands upon the beetling rock above thee, amidst the crash and thunder of the eddy into which thou art cast, his arms stretched towards thee, beautiful flower of the wilderness, and his look one of unutterable agony and despair. It is Moscharr, beautiful Mekaia, it is he who sat by thy side in the playful hours of infancy, and won thy little heart ere it knew wherefore it was beating. With the speed of the blast he has followed thy course down the shore of the cataract, and now he stands upon the edge of the terrible gulf, horror depicted in his countenance, his eyes cast upward in supplication to the Great Spirit, that thou mayst yet be preserved, and agony and doubt written on his face, lest the prayer he breathes may not be heard. And if that be thy lover who calls franticly upon thee from the beetling rock, who is he that sits at thy side, wearing the form and semblance of that lover, and speaking with the soft and kind tones which were ever his when addressing the flower of the forest maids? Alas! rose of the wilderness, it is the ruling spirit of the angry flood, the dreadful Manitou of the Cataract!

One tearful look the maiden bestows upon her agonised lover, ere the canoe glides over the precipice, and, swift as rocks hurled by spring rains down the side of the mountains, disappears in the horrid chasm below. One tearful look, one heart-rending shriek, which rises even above the roar of the cataract, as the canoe plunges through the foam, and she is gone from his eyes, like a feather caught up on the wings of a great wind.

What beautiful little bird is that which descends from yon silver-edged cloud, which is floating so high in the heavens that only the vulture may venture a flight thither, or the gray eagle sweep to it in his pride? Beautiful creature! beautiful bird(1)! not so large as the swallow, its neck a bright green, its wings scarlet, mottled with white, and having a train thrice as long as its body, in which are blended all the colours that adorn the rainbow. It came to the spot where the lover, unmanned by the dreadful catastrophe, stood mourning like a mother bereaved of her children, and, thrice circling his head, invited his attention by all the means which could be used by mortals, except that of speech. The lover sees at length the beautiful creature, and knows whose messenger it is. But why comes the herald of hope to him in his hour of despair? Can the Great Spirit, all-powerful as he is, succour him? Can joy be yet in store for him? It must be so, else why has he sent down his own messenger from the sky? That Being is too kind and too good to hold out false hopes; it is not in his nature to intimate an intention of succouring unless he actually entertains such intention. Be comforted, Mountain Plant, thou hast a friend!

And now commenced their toilsome journey down the side of the cataract. The spirit-bird led, and the bereaved lover followed. Poised on joyful wing, the little messenger fluttered before him, singing sweet songs of promise, until they had descended into the frightful abyss, and its secrets stood revealed before them. Terrific sight! tremendous sound! Their eyes were appalled by the view of billows which mount to the very skies—of huge volumes of water, dashing down the dreadful precipice into a vast basin, which seemed large enough to be the tomb of the giant Chappewee; and their ears were saluted with sounds, whose loudness and violence were a thousand times beyond those of the tempest, or the thunder, or the earthquake. Onward they groped their desperate way beyond the fiercest fall, until all at once they came to a dreadful cavern shrouded in the deepest night and gloom. Notwithstanding the whirl of waters, and the impetuous rush of the blast, and, though the earth rocked around them like a canoe on the stormy waves of the Spirits' Bay of Lake Huron(2), yet the brave and patient Moscharr, unwearied and fearless, followed through pass and pitfall, by stream and steep, the flight of his little conductor. Keeping the lamp carried by the spirit-bird in view, he regarded not the huge rocks toppling above his head, and each moment threatening him with instant destruction, but fought on his perilous course, till they had threaded the labyrinth, and found themselves in a cavern, as unlike the first, as the tranquil summer sky is unlike the blustering of the sky in the Moon of Storms.