as yet

Hiawatha was absent.

Messengers were dispatched to hasten He his attendance, but they found him gloomy and depressed. told them that evil lay in his path, and felt that he should be called to make some great sacrifice ; nevertheless he would attend the council. The talismanic white canoe, in which he always made his voyages, and which the people had learned to reverence, was got out and Hiawatha and his daughter took their

seats.

Gliding

silently

down

the

deep waters of the

Seneca, the canoe reached the outlet and entered on the placid

Onondaga. As the canoe of the venerated chief appeared, he was welcomed with loud shouts ; but while he was measuring his steps towards the council ground, a long and low sound was heard, and instantly all eyes were turned upward, where a com pact mass of cloudy darkness appeared, which gathered size and velocity as it approached, and appeared to be directed inevitably to fall in the midst of the assembly. Every one fled but

Hiawatha and

his daughter, who calmly awaited the issue. The force of the descending body was like that of a sudden

storm

;

and hardly had Hiawqtha paused, when an immense

bkd, with long distended wings, came down, with a swoop, and crushed the daughter to the earth. The very semblance of a

human being was destroyed in tne remains of the girl, and the

THE INDIAN TRIBES

head and neck of the bird were buried in the ground from the* force of the fall.