water at irregular intervals with a long paddle which she held in the
middle, and which formed a kind of concert with the song, as though
two persons were singing.

It was strange, but her people declared that the sensible soul left
her while she was worshipping the Great Spirit in the _Quiccosan_[A].
There, while performing the sacred dance around the carved posts[B],
her soul was called away to the happy regions, and her mind became
like a cloud in the time of a strong blast, or a dry leaf carried into
the sky by a whirlwind. Others asserted that she had dared to spit
upon a _pawcorance_[C], and for that had been punished by the Great
Being with the loss of her senses. It matters little which was true,
since one of them must have been; for it is only the Great Spirit who
can take away the gift of reason which he bestows, and he only takes
it away from those with whom he is angry. And thus lived the crazed
Aton-Larre--strange that her bosom should have felt the pangs of love,
and that for a being so ugly and misshapen as the little Ohguesse.

[Footnote A: Place of worship--church.]

[Footnote B: The Indians, occupying what is now called Virginia, had
posts fixed around the interior of their Quiccosan, or place of
worship, with men's faces carved upon them. These tribes have long
been extinct.]

[Footnote C: Altar-stone. From this proceeds the great reverence these
tribes had for a small bird, peculiar to that region, and which
continually called out that name. They believed it was the soul of one
of their princes, and thence permitted no one to harm it. But there
was once, they said, a wicked Indian, who, after abundance of fears
and scruples, was, at last, bribed to kill one of them. But he paid
dear for his presumption, for a few days after he was taken away, and
never more heard of.]

This Ohguesse was a youth, whose feet wanted the fleetness, and whose
arm lacked the strength, of a man's, but he was nevertheless the
favourite of the Great Spirit. He was less in stature than a man, and
crooked withal, his height being little more than that of the tall
bird[A] which loves to strut along the sandy shore, picking up the
fish as they flutter joyously along in the beams of the warm and
cheering sun. But if he was diminutive in body he was great in his
soul--what others lacked in wisdom he supplied. His name was Ohguesse,
which signifies a Partridge. His brothers gave him this name because
of his preferring peace t