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.
LEGEND OF COATUIT BROOK.[51]
There was once amongst the Marshpees—a small tribe who have their hunting-grounds on the shores of the Great Lake, and near the Cape of Storms[52]—a woman whose name was Awashanks. She was rather silly and remarkably idle. For days together she would sit doing nothing, while the other females of the village were busily employed in weeding the corn, or bringing home fuel from the distant wood, or drying the fish, or thatching the cabins, or mending the nets, or their husbands' apparel, or preparing the weapons of the chace. Then she was so very ugly and ill-shapen that not one of the youths of the village would have aught to say to her by way of courtship or marriage. She squinted very much; her face was very long and thin; her nose excessively large and humped; her teeth crooked and projecting; her chin almost as sharp as the bill of a loon, and her ears as large as those of a deer and similarly shaped. Her arms, which were very long, were nothing but fleshless bones; and the legs upon which she stood seemed like two pine poles stript of their bark. Altogether she was a very odd and strangely formed woman, and wherever she went never failed to excite much laughter and derision among those who thought that ugliness and deformity were fit subjects for ridicule.