hts with which they found it filled. Mild and soft winds, clear
and sweet waters, cool and refreshing shades, perpetual verdure,
inexhaustible fertility, adorned the retreats of the Island of Souls.
There were no tempests of wind laden with snows to smother the unhappy
Chepewyan caught at a distance from his cabin; no rains to sweep the
hills of ice into the vales where he gathered his rock-moss, or tear his
fishing-nets and weirs from their place in the river. Gladly would the
son of the Red Elk have remained for ever with his beloved Rock-rose in
the happy island, but the words of the Master were heard in the pauses
of the breeze, discoursing to him thus:--

"Return to thy father-land, hunter, and tell in the ears of thy nation
the things thou hast seen. Paint to them the joys of the Happy Island,
but be careful to say that they can be enjoyed by the spirits of those
only whose good actions predominate over their evil ones. Say that the
Master does not expect perfection in man, but he expects that man will
do all he can to deserve his love; he expects that sooner than suffer
the wife of his bosom, or the children of his love, to be hungry, he
will journey even to the far Coppermine for salmon, and hunt the white
bear on the distant shores of the Frozen Sea. He expects from him good
temper in his cabin; fearlessness and daring in war; patience and
assiduity in the chase, and great and unceasing kindness to the father
that begot, and the mother that bore him. What, though he have several
times slaughtered more musk-beef than he can eat, speared salmon to be
devoured by the brown eagle, and gathered rock-moss to rot in the
rain?--what, though he have once made game of a priest, and once
trembled at the war-cry of the Knistenaux, and once forgotten to throw
into the fire the tongue of the beaver, as an offering to the Being who
bade it cross his path in a season of scarcity?--and what though _she_
have suffered her father to wear tattered mocassins, and her brothers
broken snow-shoes, and thought of her lover when she should have been
thinking of me, yet will I forgive them, and endow them with felicity,
if their good deeds outweigh the bad. The Master does not expect that
man will never commit folly or error. The clearest stream will sometimes
become turbid; the sky cannot always be cloudless; the stars will
sometimes become erratic--even snow will fall tinged with a colouring
which was not in its nature when I ordered it