even to overcome the strength of custom or the promptings of vengeance. One of these peculiar privileges is illustrated in the story of Pocahontas, and, notwithstanding the hoary antiquity of the tale, it must be set down here in order to illustrate this and some other points needful to be understood if we are to comprehend the true position of the Amerind woman among her fellows. [Illustration 2: THE DEATH OF MINNEHAHA. After the painting by William L. Dodge. The demi-god Hiawatha, miraculous of birth, tutelary genius of the Indians of North America, wise, benign, powerful, teacher of all good, protector against all ills, marries the lovely Minnehaha, the daughter of the old Dakota arrow-maker.... Not even the power of Hiawatha can save his beloved Minnehaha from the impending and foretold fate which is to be hers. At last "Famine" and "Fever," two unbidden and unwelcome guests, force entrance into her wigwam; she cannot withstand the baleful glare of Death, and, uttering the cry of "Hiawatha! Hiawatha!" she passes alone into "the Kingdom of Ponemah, the land of the Hereafter."] When John Smith--if we are to believe his own account, which in this one instance seems fairly credible--had been taken prisoner by Opechancanough and led before Powhatan for judgment, the matter at issue was summarily settled in this wise: the prisoner was laid upon the ground, his head rested upon a large stone, and a club was poised ready to dash out his brains. Nevertheless, the adventurer's brains, which served him so well afterward when he came to write an account of his perils by land and sea,--being restrained in their flights by no scruples as to the difference between truth and falsehood, were not to be wasted upon the soil of Virginia; for Matoaca, or Pocahontas, as she is more popularly known, the daughter of Powhatan, rushed forward, threw herself upon the body of Smith to shield him from the threatening club, and claimed him for her own under the custom which permitted Indian women thus to rescue captives taken in fight or by wile. The young princess--as the English inaccurately termed her--being but twelve or thirteen years of age at the time, it is not probable that she claimed Smith for her husband, though even this is by no means impossible, as early betrothals were not uncommon among the Amerinds; but she could just as easily and efficaciously adopt him as her brother, and it is more likely that she chose this less drastic method of preserving his life. At all events, Smith was rescued from the fate which had threatened him; and while it is by no means impossible that the wily old savage, Powhatan, had arranged the whole matter, adoption and all, with a view to establishing the closest and most favorable relations with such a conjurer as Smith was held to be,--this view is suggested to future historians in their search for the truth concerning John Smith,--the fact remains that Smith was saved, and one of the noblest