"Give me of your bark, O Birch-Tree! Of your yellow bark, O Birch-Tree! Growing by the rushing river, Tall and stately in the valley! I a light canoe will build me, {128} Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing, That shall float upon the river, Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, Like a yellow water-lily!" After this, we read in the story of how Hiawatha slew Pearl-Feather, the greatest of magicians, of many other deeds of Hiawatha, and of his joys and sorrows. Finally, the white man comes. Then Hiawatha is ready for his departure; and his people greatly lament his going. Thus departed Hiawatha, Hiawatha the Beloved, In the glory of the sunset, In the purple mists of evening, To the regions of the home-wind, Of the Northwest wind Keewaydin, To the Islands of the Blessed, To the kingdom of Ponemah To the land of the Hereafter! _Hiawatha_, and other stories in verse, travel round the world in books, and boys and girls read them in every country. But old ballads, the simple songs sung among the peoples of different countries, so old that no one knows how old they are, which we read about in Chapter seventeen, have their own ways of travelling. Some of these ballads crossed the sea when the first settlers came, and in parts of the North American continent to-day, the old words and the old airs are sung by descendants of the people who first brought them across the ocean. Two of the places where these ballads are still sung are in North Carolina, and in Nova Scotia where sailors and lumberjacks sing many shanties or songs. {129} The most beautiful old songs, however, on this continent are the French chansons of Quebec which were brought over from France when the French first came to Canada. Now French settlement in Canada ceased early in the eighteenth century, so these songs must at least be as old as the seventeenth century. They are probably considerably more than three hundred years old. Various collections of the _chansons_ have been published. Many of them are happy and romantic songs. One of the most beautiful is a Christmas song. Here is the story of the song told very briefly. Then you will find the song printed in its own French words. If you do not know French well, still you should try to make out the meaning of the words. No translation can give the meaning, or the perfume, as we sometimes say, of the beautiful old song exactly.