of the hen, and the other means by which beasts, and
birds, and other creatures, at this day make known their wants and
wishes, were then unknown. If the ox was hungry, or the dog wished to
visit a cousin, he said so, and if the hog wanted his belly scratched,
he spoke out like a man. If the cock felt proud, instead of jumping
upon a pole, and flapping his wings, and uttering a senseless
cock-a-doodle-doo, as the vain thing does now, he asked the pullet "if
she did not think he was a handsome fellow," and she replied _ay_ or
_no_, as she thought. The panther told his mother, in plain
intelligible words, if he wanted a wife; and when the hen had excluded
her egg, instead of cackling, she said, "There!" There was then no
difficulty in understanding the beasts, for they told their wants and
wishes in good plain Indian, which was far better than it is now, when
you are obliged to guess at half they say. And not only could they
convey their meaning better, but their meaning was worth more when you
knew it. In truth the beasts at that time were much wiser and more
cunning than men, and where the Indian caught one beaver in his trap,
the beaver caught ten Indians in his. In war and peace their schemes
and stratagems were better devised, and more successfully executed,
and their talks[A] were as full of sweet and wise words as the sky is
of wild pigeons in the season of their flight from the rigours of
approaching winter. What a pity that the folly of the Great Chief of
the Elks should have lost the beasts the most important faculties
conferred upon them by the Great Hare, and led to the withdrawing of
the all-glorious gift of speech.

[Footnote A: _Talk_--oration, also synonimous with "cabinet council,
or general meeting, with a view to matters of high importance."]

There was among the Ottawas, that lived on the banks of the Lake of
the Great Beaver(1), a young man whose origin none knew with
certainty, but who was supposed by all to be a son of the god. Sixteen
snows before the time of which I am speaking, there was found in the
great village of our people, upon the morning of a warm day in the
Frog-Moon, a little boy who might have seen the flowers bloom
twice--older he could not have been. None knew whence he came, nor
could he tell them, or give any information whereby it could be
ascertained who were his parents, or what the place of his birth, or
why he was abandoned. He did not belong to the tribe--of that they
were