to be prostrated by a storm or be afflicted with the rot; and wherefore it is that they are always greatly alarmed when they discover that a cornfield has been touched, as they say, by the Evil One. But the harvest moon is now near at hand, and the chiefs and medicine men have summoned the people of the several villages to prepare themselves for the autumnal festival. Another spot of ground is selected, and the same sanctifying ceremony is performed that was performed in the previous spring. The most expert hunter in each village has been commissioned to obtain game, and while he is engaged in the hunt the people of his village are securing the blessing of the Great Spirit by drinking, with many mystic ceremonies, the liquid made from seven of the most bitter roots to be found among the mountains. Of all the game which may be obtained by the hunters, not a single animal is to be served up at the feast whose bones have been broken or mutilated; nor shall a rejected animal be brought within the magic circle, but shall be given to those of the tribe who, by some misdeed, have rendered themselves unworthy to partake of the feast. The hunters are always compelled to return from the chase at the sunset hour, and long before they come in sight of their villages they invariably give a shrill whistle, as a signal of good luck, whereupon the villagers make ready to receive them with a wild song of welcome and rejoicing. The pall of night has once more settled upon the earth, the moon is in its glory, the watch-fire has been lighted within the magic circle, and the inhabitants of the valley are again assembled together in one great multitude. From all the cornfields in the valley the magicians have collected the marked ears of corn, and deposited them in the kettles with the various kinds of game which may have been slaughtered, from the bear, the deer, and the turkey, to the opossum, the squirrel, and the quail. The entire night is devoted to eating, and the feast comes not to an end until all the food has been dispatched, when, in answer to an appropriate signal from the medicine men, the bones which have been stripped of their flesh are collected together and pounded to a kind of powder, and scattered through the air. The seven days following this feast are devoted to dancing and carousing, and at the termination of this period the inhabitants of the valley retire to their various villages, and proceed to gather in their crops of the sweet maize or Indian corn. THE OVERFLOWING WATERS. A TRADITION OF THE CHOCTAWS.