laid beside each other, forming causeways often for miles. These roads I was informed were made by general Burgoyne in his ill-conducted, and consequently ill-fated expedition. I saw the height on which the gallant Frazer fell, and went over part of the battle ground with painful and humiliated feelings, which I was obliged to conceal, as no one would have sympathized with me. How different are my present ideas on the subject, when pride and prejudice no longer blind my eyes, and I can trace the hand of Omnipotence, baffling the efforts of tyrannic power to strangle the infant Hercules, who is destined to give law to the western world! I do not now recollect whether we slept more than one night on the road from Albany to Fort Edward, but we arrived late in the evening, and Mr. Bedient immediately hired a batteau to take us down Lake George early in the morning; which deprived me from visiting the ruins of the Fort. The passage down the Lake was beautiful, and the scenery romantic in the highest degree. We stopped at the only house then on the borders of the Lake: I think the place was called Rattlesnake Point. There I saw a hunter for the first time. His costume was so different from anything I had hitherto seen, that I conceived him to be an Indian, but on accosting him found he spoke good English. He told me he had been in the woods three months, and had not been as successful as usual: he had two or three dogs with him, the merest skeletons I ever beheld. He told me that in a fortnight he would make them quite fat, by feeding them on rattlesnakes, for which purpose he had come to the Lake, where they were abundant; as also to refresh himself. Cooper's description of Leatherstocking has repeatedly recalled this man to my mind.

In the evening we passed the rock called Roger's leap, which certainly was a feat of activity few men would be equal to, unless pursued as he was by an unrelenting foe; which reduced it to a mere matter of "neck or nothing," with him.

We passed the ruins of Ticonderoga in the night, and slept at an inn, the lower story of which was literally washed by the waters of Lake Champlain; here we were obliged to spend a day before we could procure a boat to convey us down to St. John's at its northern extremity. We passed the first night at a blacksmith and farmer's, where we had every thing clean and comfortable; the contrast between their mode of living and the beings we call farmers in the north of Ireland was painfully striking. The second night we passed at a Judge McNeale's, who I found was a descendant of the McNeales of Clogher, near Bush Mills, and Giant's Causeway: the estate when I left home, was possessed by Sir William Duncan, late of Calcutta in India.

We arrived at St. John's in the night; the commandant had gone to bed, and I was obliged to wait more than an hour in the guard house before I got liberty to seek an inn. In the morning I met Lieut. Boyd of Clare

near Ballycastle, in the north of Ireland, an old acquaintance and neighbour with whom I spent the day.

I took a calaish from St. Johns to Laprairie, and then hired a canoe and man to take me over to Montreal. The fellow took me to a small island about a mile above the town, where he landed and went into the wood. I waited in the canoe for near an hour, and then went in search of him. I found him skulking in the wood. There was something so sinister in his looks, that I began to suspect him of a design to rob me. I made him come to the canoe and embark, swearing that if he did not take me to the main land I would split him to the teeth with my paddle. When we got opposite the windmill above the town, I made him land and shoulder my portmanteau, and thus marched him before me into town. I was directed to O'Sullivan's coffee house, where I took up my abode, intending to rest a few days before I proceeded to Quebec; chiefly that I might get over the effects of the Musquito bites, by which I was absolutely deformed and feverish. I had brought over with me a few guineas of the latest coinage, one of which I gave Mr. O'Sullivan to get changed, and had a hearty laugh at his ignorance and impertinence, when he turned it in his fingers, and with a look half wise half cunning said, It is a very pretty counter. I told him to go and get it weighed, and on his return he was full as servile as before he had been insolent. The next evening I met in the coffee room my old acquaintance and friend, Mr. Andrew Todd. His family and mine had been intimate friends, when we were children. He was now a partner in the house of Todd, Magill & Co.; his uncle Isaac being one of the first merchants in Montreal since the conquest in 1760. To him I imparted my object in going to Quebec; he with great candor, and friendship pointed out the chances against my succeeding with Lord Dorchester, and advised me, if nothing satisfactory was done for me, to return to Montreal and pass the winter; and in the spring I should accompany him to Michilimachinac, where a fair field was open to adventurers in the Indian trade; to which proposition I gave my assent. And now, my dear sir, having arrived at a new resting place, "shall I not take mine ease in mine inn," only promising to take up the thread of my narrative as soon as you express a desire to hear farther from Your ever affectionate, JOHN JOHNSTON.

(To be continued.)

Expedition, says Xenophon, carrieth a point much better than strength. No modern hero profited more by the adoption of this maxim than Bonaparte.

A PROSPECTIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE.

SUPERINDUCED UPON

INDIAN MYTHOLOGY.

IN bringing forward his collection of the historical and imaginative traditions of the Indian tribes, the writer has been aware, that he might, herein, be at the same time the medium of presenting the germs of a future mythology, which, in the hands of our poets, and novelists, and fictitious writers, might admit of being formed and moulded to the purposes, of a purely vernacular literature. So far as his reading of popular literature extends, the tendency of public taste, to avail itself of such a mythology, (notwithstanding those who turn up their nose at it, and affect vast dislike for the "nasty Indians,") and to seize upon it as a basis for the exhibition of new and peculiar lines of fictitious creations, is distinctly perceptible. This is shown in various ways, but takes its most formal shape perhaps, if not its exact era, in a series of legends, which first appeared, a few years ago, in London, under the title of "Wild Scenes in the Prairies and Forest," a volume not as well known as it deserves to be, on this side of the water. This volume is subsequently known to have come from the pen of the author of "Greyslaer," and a "Winter in the West." Mr. Hoffman has looked with the eye of an artist, and the taste of a connoisseur, on the scenes spread before him, in the wide prairies, the towering peaks, the deep matted forests, and the wide winding lakes of the western world. Wherever his view was directed, in that wild theatre of western life, or at the Alpine sources of his native stream, the Hudson, he has seen the footprints of the red man, and felt rising in his mind, the strong associations which the sonorous aboriginal names of streams and places have awakened. It is under such views of western scenery that he has, in his "Vigil of Faith," invested with flesh and blood, an aboriginal theory of a future state, and it is in the same spirit that he has cast his tales and legends, and drawn out his geographical descriptions.

There are also frequent evidences in the diurnal and magazine press of the country, of late years, in a kind of mixed historical legends, of a growing taste on this subject. Writers seem, at intervals, at least, to be more aware of the eminent difficulty of getting laurels by following the old track of Grecian mythology, beaten as that track was by Greece herself, and smoothed and polished as it has subsequenty been by Roman and English and Continental authors. Germany, has to a great extent, reinvigorated

ancient literature, and made it national and peculiar, by an appeal to her own myths and popular legends, while our writers, for the most part, are yet endeavouring to re-do, re-enact, and re-produce, what the bards and essayists of England alone have forever settled, and rendered it hopeless to eclipse. Originality of literature, if it can be produced in the West, as the critics of Europe leave us room to think, must rely on the scenes, associations, and institutions of the West. Nor will American literature, we apprehend, ever command the attention and receive the sealing approbation of the old world, while it is either built with the materials or dressed out and adorned with the cast off literary decorations of her own authors.

These remarks refer exclusively to an imaginative literature, and have no relation to subjects of science. The defects which have been noticed, in the wide and scattered range of American magazines, and other periodicals, in city and country, east and west, exist in verbosity and redundant description, false sentiment, and erroneous manners. Most of the attempts noticed, at the same time exhibit vigour, and some talent, but they fail strikingly in those essentials of mental costume. They are, to characterize them by a stroke, English figures, drest in moccasins, and holding a bow and arrows.

To render an Indian tale successful, Indian manners, and sentiments, and opinions must be accurately copied. Above all, the Indian mythology and superstitions, as shown in their religious rites and ceremonies, must be observed. It is this mythology that furnishes the poetic machinery of the native fictions. It does more. It furnishes the true theory of their mental philosophy, and lies at the foundation of their often strange and unaccountable acts and policy. It is by the power of Indian manitoes and the Indian JEESUKAWIN, that all their wonders and impossibilities are performed.

The chief points of failure, in the mere literary execution of attempted Indian legends, consist in want of simplicity, conciseness and brevity. Nothing can exceed the doric simplicity of an aboriginal tale. It admits of scarcely any adjectives, and no ornaments. A figure of speech, or a symbol is employed, in cases where comparisons and illustrations, would be used in English composition, or where the native language falls short in words. But ordinary scenes and desires, are expressed in ordinary words. The closest attention, indeed, is required, in listening to, and taking notes of an original legend, to find language simple and child-like enough to narrate what is said, and to give it, as said, word by word, and sentence by sentence.. A school boy, who is not yet smitten with the ambition of style, but adheres to the natural method, of putting down no more words than are just necessary to express the precise ideas, would do it best. And when this has been done, and the original preserved in the words of the Indian story teller, it is often but a tissue of common events

which would possess very little interest, were it not for the mystery or melodramic effect, of their singular mythology. To imitate such a tale successfully, is to demand of the writer an accurate knowledge of Indian manners and customs, often his history and traditions, and always his religion and opinions, with some gleams of the language.

In the introduction of the following legend of the origin of the Evil Spirit, it is only justice to it to say, that the false theory and defects alluded to, as marking the popular effort of writers, have been avoided both in manner and matter, to a degree which surpasses any thing of the kind, which has fallen under our notice. It is in fact, completely successful, and furnishes a model for things of the kind. It is true to the Indian myths-it possesses the appropriate simplicity of thought. It proceeds by the true modus operandi of the natives of telling the story. Its reasonings are not a white man's reasonings. It depicts the Great Spirit, as being characterized not by christian attributes, but by the reasons and caprices of a man. He makes things to please himself, not knowing exactly what they will be, and when they do not strike his fancy, he casts them aside and makes others. He never sees the end from the beginning. He is always trying and trying and "making and making." He is the impersonation in mind, of a perfect Indian philosopher, who only sees and hears, and tastes and desires, like any other Indian. He pitches a lump of clay in the water, and it becomes an island. He casts an old woman against the moon, and there she sticks to this day. (Vide Wyandot Traditions of Good and Evil, No. 3.) He does not reveal any traits-any high moral qualities-anything approaching to the innate holiness of the immaculate Alohim. He is the veritable Indian master of life-the great Wäzheaud or maker; and the idea which Mrs. Smith has eliminated, that Machineto, or the God of Evil, was accidentally created out of the leavings and cast away things of the Creator, helped out with the ravenous and venomous creatures of the sea and land, is a poetical conception worthy the pencil of Salvator Rosa, or the pen of Dante. We commend it to the pencil of Chapman.

MACHINITO, THE EVIL SPIRIT;

FROM THE LEGENDS OF IAGOU.

BY MRS. E. OAKES SMITH.

"The Pagan world not only believes in a myriad of gods, but worships them also It is the peculiarity of the North American Indian, that while he believes in as many, he worships but one, the Great Spirit.”—(Schoolcraft.)

CHEMANITOU, being the master of life, at one time became the origin of á spirit, that has ever since caused himself and all others of his creation