fourteen feet long, which would have given to the monster the almost
incredible length of eighty feet.

The Prince Seravalle, while digging, in the fall of the year 1834, for
an ammunition store on the western banks of the Buona Ventura, picked up
a beautiful curved ivory tusk, three feet long, which, had it not been
for its jet black colour, would have been amazingly alike to that of a
large elephant.

Some pieces of it (for unhappily it was sawn into several parts) are now
in the possession of the governor of Monterey and Mr. Lagrange, a
Canadian trader, who visited the territory in 1840.]

"One summer, and it was a dreadful one, the moon (_i.e._ the sun)
remained stationary for a long time; it was of a red blood colour, and
gave neither night nor days. Takwantona, the spirit of evil, had
conquered Nature, and the sages of the Shoshones foresaw many dire
calamities. The great _Medecines_ declared that the country would soon
be drowned in the blood of their nation. They prayed in vain, and
offered, without any success, two hundred of their fairest virgins in
sacrifice on the altars of Takwantona. The evil spirit laughed, and
answered to them with his destructive thunders. The earth was shaken and
rent asunder; the waters ceased to flow in the rivers, and large streams
of fire and burning sulphur rolled down from the mountains, bringing
with them terror and death. How long it lasted none is living to say;
and who could? There stood the bleeding moon; 'twas neither light nor
obscurity; how could man divide the time and the seasons? It may have
been only the life of a worm; it may have been the long age of a snake.

"The struggle was fearful, but at last the good Master of Life broke his