"The Indians have unbounded reverence for this bear. When they kill one, they make exculpating speeches to it, smoke tobacco to it, call it grandfather, ancestor, etc." P. MARTIN DUNCAN, M. B., F. R. S., F. G. S. Kings College, London. The Indians with whom I once lived in the Californian Sierras held the grizzly bear in great respect and veneration. Some writers have said that this was because they were afraid of this terrible king of beasts. But this is not true. The Indian, notwithstanding his almost useless bow and arrow in battles with this monster, was not controlled by fear. He venerated the grizzly bear as his paternal ancestor. And here I briefly set down the Modoc and Mount Shasta Indians' account of their own creation. They, as in the Biblical account of the creation of all things, claim to have found the woods, wild beasts, birds and all things waiting for them, as did Adam and Eve. The Indians say the Great Spirit made this mountain first of all. Can you not see how it is? they say. He first pushed down snow and ice from the skies through a hole which he made in the blue heavens by turning a stone round and round, till he made this great mountain; then he stepped out of the clouds onto the mountain-top, and descended and planted the trees all around by putting his finger on the ground. The sun melted the snow, and the water ran down and nurtured the trees and made the rivers. After that he made the fish for the rivers out of the small end of his staff. He made the birds by blowing some leaves, which he took up from the ground, among the trees. After that he made the beasts out of the remainder of his stick, but made the grizzly bear out of the big end, and made him master over all the others. He made the grizzly so strong that he feared him himself, and would have to go up on top of the mountain out of sight of the forest to sleep at night, lest the grizzly, who, as will be seen, was much more strong and cunning then than now, should assail him in his sleep. Afterwards, the Great Spirit, wishing to remain on earth and make the sea and some more land, converted Mount Shasta, by a great deal of labor, into a wigwam, and built a fire in the center of it and made it a pleasant home. After that, his family came down, and they all have lived in the mountain ever since. They say that before the white man came they could see the fire ascending from the mountain by night and the smoke by day, every time they chose to look in that direction. They say that one late and severe springtime, many thousand snows ago, there was a great storm about the summit of Mount Shasta, and that the Great Spirit sent his youngest and fairest daughter, of whom he was very fond, up to the hole in the top, bidding her to speak to the storm that came up from the sea, and tell it to be more gentle or it would blow the mountain over. He bade her do this hastily, and not put her head out, lest the wind should catch her in the hair and blow her away.