subsist on;
and if they were unsuccessful in the hunt, they could get nothing to
eat. Two of our young hunters having killed a deer, made a fire in the
wood, to broil part of the flesh. When they were about to satisfy
their hunger, they beheld a beautiful woman descend from the clouds,
and seat herself near the young men. They said to each other, 'It is a
spirit that has smelt our broiled venison, and perhaps wishes to eat
of it: let us offer some to her.' They presented her with the tongue.
She was pleased with the taste of it, and said, 'Your kindness shall
be rewarded. Come,' said she, 'to this place after thirteen moons, and
you will find something that will be of great benefit in nourishing
you and your children to the latest generation.'

"The hunters, deeply impressed with what the fair one had said,
watched with something like impatience the appearance and
disappearance of moon after moon, till the thirteenth moon had come
and gone, and then they repaired to the spot where they were to
receive their reward. To their surprise, they found plants they did
not know, but which have been constantly cultivated ever since, to the
great advantage of man. Where the woman's right hand had rested, they
found maize; where her left hand had touched the ground, they
discovered beans; and where she had sat, tobacco grew luxuriantly."

We are accustomed to speak of the sun as "he," and of the moon as
"she," but in many other countries the former is considered to be
feminine, and the latter masculine. In Hindoo mythology the moon is a
male deity, and is represented as the son of the patriarch Atri, who
procreated him from his eyes; but by others it is said the moon arose
from the milk sea when it was churned by the gods to procure the
beverage of immortality. An old writer says that the sun supplies the
moon, when reduced by the draughts of the gods to a single ray; and in
the same proportion as the moon is exhausted by the celestials, it is
replenished by the sun, for the gods drink the nectar accumulated in
the moon during half the month; and from this being their food, they
are immortal. When the remaining portion of the moon consists but of a
fifteenth part, the Manes (infernal spirits, or inferior deities)
approach it in the afternoon, and drink the remaining portion of
nectar. And probably in this statement are to be found grounds for the
superstitious belief that the time when the moon is increasing is more
fortunate th