which was attended by a smaller number, and broke up as before, in
confusion, on Atotarho's appearance. The unwearied reformer sent forth
his runners a third time; but the people were disheartened. When the
day of the council arrived, no one attended. Then, continued the
narrator, Hiawatha seated himself on the ground in sorrow. He enveloped
his head in his mantle of skins, and remained for a long time bowed down
in grief and thought. At length he arose and left the town, taking his
course toward the southeast. He had formed a bold design. As the
councils of his own nation were closed to him, he would have recourse to
those of other tribes. At a short distance from the town (so minutely
are the circumstances recounted) he passed his great antagonist, seated
near a well-known spring, stern and silent as usual. No word passed
between the determined representatives of war and peace; but it was
doubtless not without a sensation of triumphant pleasure that the
ferocious war-chief saw his only rival and opponent in council going
into what seemed to be voluntary exile. Hiawatha plunged into the
forest; he climbed mountains; he crossed a lake; he floated down the
Mohawk river in a canoe. Many incidents of his journey are told, and in
this part of the narrative alone some occurrences of a marvelous cast
are related, even by the official historians. Indeed, the flight of
Hiawatha from Onondaga to the country of the Caniengas is to the Five
Nations what the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina is to the
votaries of Islam. It is the turning point of their history. In
embellishing the narrative at this point, their imagination has been
allowed a free course. Leaving aside these marvels, however, we need
only refer here to a single incident, which may well enough have been of
actual occurrence. A lake which Hiawatha crossed had shores abounding in
small white shells. These he gathered and strung upon strings, which he
disposed upon his breast, as a token to all whom he should meet that he
came as a messenger of peace. And this, according to one authority, was