Tezpi sent out other birds, one of which was the humming-bird; this bird alone returned again to the boat, holding in its beak a branch, covered with leaves. Tezpi now knowing that the earth was dry, being clothed with fresh verdure, quitted his bark near the mountain Colhucan, or Ararat. A tradition of the same fact, the deluge, is also found among the Indians of the Northwest. I received (says a late traveller) the following account from a chief of one of the tribes, in his own words, in the English:—“An old man, live great while ago, he wery good man, he have three son. The Great Spirit tell him, go make raft—build wigwam on top: for he make it rain wery much. When this done, Great Spirit say, put in two of all the creatures, then take sun, moon—all the stars, put them in—get in himself, with his _Equa_, (wife,) children, shut door, all dark outside. Then it rain much hard, many days. When they stay there long time—Great Spirit say, old man, go out. So he take diving animal, sa goy see if find the earth: so he went, come back, not find anything. Then he wait few days—send out mushquash, see what he find. When he come back, brought some mud in he paw; old man wery glad; he tell mushquash, you wery good, long this world stand, be plenty mushquash, no man ever kill you all. Then few days more, he take wery prety bird, send him out, see what it find; that bird no come back: so he send out one white bird, that come back, have grass in he mouth. So old man know water going down. The Great Spirit say, old man, let sun, moon, stars go out, old man too. He go out, raft on much big mountain, when he see prety bird, he send out first, eating dead things—he say, bird, you do no right, when me send, you no come back, you must be black, you no prety bird any more—you always eat bad things So it was black.” The purity of these traditions is evidence of two things: first, that the book of Genesis, as written by Moses, is not, as some have imagined, a cunningly devised fable, as these Indians cannot be accused of Christian nor of Jewish priestcraft, their religion being of another cast. And second, that the continents of America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, were anciently united, so that the _earlier_ nations came directly over after the confusion of the ancient language and dispersion—on which account its purity has been preserved more than among the more wandering tribes of the old continents.