"Joy came no more to the bereaved lover. The chase afforded him no pleasure, for who was to share his spoils? He found no joy in pursuing the salmon, for no one lived to reward his successful quest with the smile of approbation. He told his discontent in the ears of his people, and spoke of his determination, at all events, to rejoin his beloved maiden. She had but removed, he said, to some happier region, as the Arctic birds fly south at the approach of winter; and it required but due diligence on his part to find her. Having prepared himself, as a hunter prepares himself, with a store of pemmican, or dried beef, and armed himself with his war-spear and bow and arrow, he set out upon his journey to the Land of Souls. Directed by the old tradition of his fathers, he travelled south to reach that region, leaving behind him the great star, and the fields of eternal ice. As he moved onwards he found a more pleasant region succeeding to that in which he had lived. Daily, hourly, he remarked the change. The ice grew thinner, the air warmer, the trees taller. Birds, such as he had never seen before, sang in the bushes, and fowls of many kinds, before unknown, were pluming themselves in the warm sun on the shores of the lake. The gay woodpecker was tapping the hollow beech; the swallow and the martin were skimming along the level of the green vales. He heard no more the cracking of branches of trees beneath the weight of icicles and snow;--he saw no more the spirits of departed men dancing wild dances on the skirts of the Northern clouds(2); and the farther he travelled the milder grew the skies, the longer was the period of the sun's stay upon the earth, and the softer, though less brilliant, the light of the moon. Noting these changes as he went with a joyful heart--for they were indications of his near approach to the land of joy and delight--he came at length to a cabin, situated on the brow of a steep hill, in the middle of a narrow road. At the door of this cabin stood a man of a most ancient and venerable appearance. He was bent nearly double with age; his locks were white as snow; his eyes were sunk very far into his head, and the flesh was wasted from his bones till they were like trees from which the bark had been peeled. He was clothed in a robe of white goat-skin, and a long staff supported his tottering limbs whithersoever he walked. The Chepewyan began to tell him who he was, and why he had come thither, but the aged man prevented him, by saying that he knew all. "There had passed," he said, "to the beautiful island, a little while before, the soul of a tender and lovely maiden, well known to the son of the Red Elk. Being fatigued with her long journey, he had rested awhile in his cabin, and had then told him the story of their long and affectionate attachment, and her persuasion that her lover would attempt to follow her to the Lake of Spirits. She had but just passed, and a little more