Slowly and with a loud voice the chief sachem began to speak. From the opposite bank of the river the waiting message-bearer caught up the sachem’s words as they were spoken, and with a strong voice shouted them to another dweller of the air, who crouched in the tree-tops far down the river, ready and alert to do the Great Spirit’s bidding. On and on, rolling along the ravines and valleys, leaping from hill-top to mountainside and from mountainside to lake, striding over the forests at a bound—fainter and yet fainter, until lost in the blue distance of the plain—the message of thankfulness and love was borne from the lips of the grateful sachem until it reached the ears of the ever-listening and loving father, and was told to the chiefs who sat in the light of the council-fire that never grows dim. THE WAY OF THE GODS (_Japanese_) Listen, my children, to the true story of the Beginning of the World. When there was neither Heaven nor Earth, nor Sun nor Moon, nor anything that is, there existed in Infinite Space the Invisible Lord of the Middle Heaven. With him were two other Gods. By their miraculous power, a Thing whose shape cannot be described came into existence in the midst of Space, in appearance like a Floating Cloud. Forth from it sprang, as it were, a Flowering Rushsprout, rising from the water—pure, translucent, and bright—which grew and grew and widened and widened infinitely, till it spread over all things and became the Canopy of Heaven. Then downward from the Floating Cloud grew the Under-region—the Realm of Night—which is the Root-region of the World and the abode of Departed Spirits. And the center of the Floating Cloud became the Earth, which was still liquid and formless and without life. After this were born in Heaven seven generations of Gods, and the last and most perfect of these were Izanagi and Izanami. Now, Izanagi and Izanami were the Parents of the World and all that is in it. And it happened in this wise: the Gods of the High Plain of Heaven said to Izanagi and Izanami: “Descend and make of this drifting mud and ocean a firm and beautiful Land, and fill it with living things.” And the Gods placed in their hands a mystic jewelled Spear. Now, in these days the heavens were near to the earth, and the space between was spanned by a Heavenly Floating Bridge. So they set forth bravely on their journey, and, looking down into the space beneath them, they saw in the depths the green plain of the Sea. They held counsel together and said, “Is there not a country beneath?”