He replied, that my speech consisted of a mixture of good and ill; the beginning of it was crooked, and the conclusion straight. He said, I had wrongfully blamed him, for the effect of the disorderly conduct of the red people and himself, as it was well known he fasted at different times for several days together; at other times ate green tobacco-leaves; and some days drank only a warm decoction of the button snake-root, without allowing {88} any one, except his religious attendant, to come near him; and, in every other respect, had honestly observed the austere rules of his religious place, according to the beloved speech that _Ishtohoollo Elóa Aba_ gave to the _Loáche_ of their forefathers: but _Loak Ishtohoollo_ was sorely vexed with most of their young people for violating the chastity of their neighbours wives, and even among the thriving green corn and pease, as their beds here and there clearly proved; thus, they spoiled the power of his holy things, and tempted _Minggo Ishto Elóa_, “the great chieftain of the thunder,” to bind up the clouds, and withold the rain. Besides, that the old women were less honest in paying their rain-makers, than the English women behaved to their beloved men, unless I had spoken too well of them. The wives of this and the other person, he said, had cheated him, in not paying him any portion of the last year’s bad crop, which their own bad lives greatly contributed to, as that penurious crime of cheating him of his dues, sufficiently testified; not to mention a late custom, they had contracted since the general peace, of planting a great many fields of beans and pease, in distant places, after the summer-crops were over, on the like dishonest principle; likewise in affirming, that when the first harvest was over, it rained for nothing; by that means they had blackened the old beloved speech, that _Ishtohoollo Eloa_ of old spoke to his _Loáche_, and conveyed down to him, only that they might paint their own bad actions white. He concluded, by saying, that all the chieftains, and others present, as well as myself, knew now very well, from his honest speech, the true cause of the earth’s having been so strangely burnt till lately; and that he was afraid, if the hearts of those light and mad people he complained of, did not speedily grow honest, the dreadful day would soon come, in which _Lóak Ishtohoollo_ would send _Phutchik Keeraah Ishtò_, “the great blazing star,” _Yahkàne eeklénna, Loak loáchàché_, “to burn up half of the earth with fire,” _Pherimmi Aiúbe_, “from the north to the south,” _Hassé oobèa perà_, “toward the setting of the sun,” where they should in time arrive at the dreadful place of darkness, be confined there hungry, and otherwise sorely distrest among hissing snakes and many other frightful creatures, according to the ancient true speech that _Ishtohoollo Aba_ spoke to his beloved _Loáche_.