your stead." As he finished the last lines of the death song, his brother ran from the woods to his side, and said "I am not a coward. I ran to the woods to get sober, that I might not be killed like a dog. I can soon be ready, and you shall see how a brave can die." He then stepped aside, and blackened his breast; breaking the ashes, he formed a white spot in the centre of his breast. Then leaning his back against the post, he began his death song. As its last doleful note died, far away in the forest glen, he lifted both hands, and bared his breast to the warriors. Twelve arrows pierced it, and he fell, the second Indian victim of intemperance.

NOTE. This traditional story was related to me by Ne-gah-be-an, in the year 1834, while we camped near Drumwood's Island on our way up the Sault St. Marie. It was my purpose some time since to have published a volume of Indian stories, and trust that I shall be able to do so in a short time.

CHAPTER X.

THEIR LANGUAGE AND WRITINGS.

"Here are a few of the most unpleasant words

That ever blotted paper."

SHAKSPEARE.

THE Ojibway language or the language of the Algonquin stock is, perhaps, the most widely spoken of any in North America. The Atlantic tribes partook of this idiom when they were first discovered.

The snows of the North bounded the people who spoke this language on that side, while in the South as far as the Potomac and the mountains of Virginia, down the Ohio, over the plains of Illinois to the East of the upper waters of the Father of Rivers, Nations resided three or four hundred years ago who could speak so as to be understood by each other. A person might have travelled nearly one thousand miles from the head of Lake Superior, and yet not journey from the sound of this dialect.