of the Great Lake. His hands and feet were shaped like the fins
of fish, and his head was that of a great haddock. His body was
covered with scales like any other scaly fish; indeed, except that he
walked erect like a human being, and had two legs, and two arms, and
that his eyes were not placed as the eyes of fish are, he might well
have been taken for a fish of a kind not before known. Having surveyed
the lovers for a short time in silence, he demanded "why they were so
gloomy and downcast."

The bashfulness of the maiden prevented her replying, but the Chief of
the Trouts answered that "they loved each other, and wished to live
together, but that the maiden could not exist in his element, nor he
in her's; and hence it appeared they were never to know the joys which
are tasted by those who have their dwelling in one cabin."

"Be not grieved nor hopeless," answered the Spirit; "the impediments
can be removed. I am the genius that presides over the fishes, and was
invested at the beginning with power to procure for them all the
enjoyments they are susceptible of tasting. I cannot transform a trout
into a man--that must be effected by a spirit of the earth--but I can
work the transformation of a man into a trout--under my charm the
Marshpee maiden shall become a beautiful fish of the same species with
the chief."

With that he bade Awashanks follow him into the river. When they had
waded in to a considerable depth, he took up a handful of water and
threw it upon the head of the maiden, pronouncing certain words of
which none but himself knew the meaning. Immediately a change
commenced upon her, attended with such pain and distress that the very
air resounded with her cries. Her body became in a few moments covered
with scales; her ears, and nose, and chin, and arms, disappeared, and
her two legs became joined, forming that part of a fish which is
called the tail--she became a complete trout. Having fully
accomplished the task of transformation, the Genius of the Fishes
delivered her to the Chief of the Trouts. The pair were soon observed
gliding side by side, very lovingly, into the deep and quiet waters.
But, though she had become a trout, she did not forget the land of her
birth. Every season, on the same night as that upon which her
disappearance from the tribe had been wrought, there would be seen two
trouts, of a magnitude surpassing fifty-fold any ever caught by the
Marshpees, busily employed in ploughing out th