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very abundant and grow without cultivation. They are attended to the
Happy Regions by the shades of their dogs and guns, and the shades of
their huts and every thing they contained are ready for them the moment
they arrive in these happy regions. The souls of bad men, which are not
separated from the good save by the different feelings and pursuits
which belonged to them in life, wander about, haunted by the phantoms of
the persons or things they have injured. If a man has destroyed his
neighbour's canoe, or his gun, or his bow and arrows, the phantoms of
the wrecks of this property obstruct his passage wherever he goes. He
sees every where the bow, self-drawn, ready to impel an arrow pointed
at his breast, the gun ready poised, the canoe threatening to sink him.
If he has been cruel to his dogs and horses, they also are permitted to
torment him, and to hunt him down, as he in his life-time hunted the
wolf and the deer. The ghosts of the men whom he injured in life are now
permitted to avenge their wrongs, and to inflict on his shade pains
commensurate with those he made them suffer. The spirit of the man, from
whom he stole the ear of soft maize, now snatches from his hungry lips
the red-gilled mushroom, and he, into whose crystal stream he threw
impure substances, in revenge, strikes from his lip the gourd of crystal
water. The good hunter, whose bowstring he enviously cut, fillips him on
the forehead; the warrior whose spear he broke when no human eye beheld
him, now, informed of the unmanly deed by the Spirit who sees all, spits
in his face, as a coward should be spat upon. The soul of the horse
which he overrode, or otherwise maltreated, runs backwards upon him,
with elevated heels and a loud neigh; the dog he whipped too much or too
often rushes upon him with open mouth, and the growl of bitter and
inextinguishable hatred. He steps into the canoe, it sinks beneath him,
and, when his chin is level with the water, it rises beyond his reach.
Lo, there is a gun before him, and the shade of a stately stag nipping
the phantom of a youthful hazel. He makes the attempt to point the gun
towards it, and just as he supposes he has attained the object, and puts
forth his hand to give vent to the winged weapon of death, he finds the
gun has changed its position--the muzzle is pointed towards his own
breast. Thus opposed, thwarted, baffled, by every thing around him,
despised by all things, whether gifted with life or not, he p