MICMAC MYTHOLOGY 49

ebbing tide as it returned again to the ocean; there he makes his home in the Acadie of the blessed, until the faithless interlopers have either changed their barbarian habits, or gone to their own place. \Vhen all men shall have learned to honour Truth he will return and usher in the millennium amidst the wildest rejoicing of the elements.

But oh, the people are weary of waiting for his return, the stoutest hearts are failing; for search—party after search-party has come back, bringing only ample proofs of his unceasing love; Gloos- cap will never return to beautiful Megaiizaqg'g the Acadie, or Whole- some Place of the Micmacs; Kenap and Sakumow now drown the memory of the former times by destroying body and soul with the withering curse of the pale-face, or take up the wall of the old women and re-echo the mournful cry of the Wobekookoogwes, the great Snowy Owl, which comes again with startling clearness from the depth of the forest: “ I am so sorry,—Koo-koo-skoo.” And now as the camp—fire has burned low, and the melancholy cry of the owl resounds through the lonely archways of the forest, let us repeat the final word of the Boos/ce-alao/ewa, the sage story teller, and rev- erently say A’erpeaa’owtsz’t,—the story is ended.

We have spent a few moments, idly perhaps, in hastily reviewing some features of the Mythology of the Micmacs, and we have found aweird delight in studying what was to them most sacred. But the mythology of the people, beautiful as it is, is not by any means the life-giving Truth; the outgrowth of the human mind, this rugged faith must fail to lead that mind to anything outside of itself; for the most magnificent statue on which man ever worked is still at heart a stone. Like Tennyson’s Prophet, the Mythology of the Micmacs is

dead: “ Dead! And the people cried with a stormy cry; ‘ Send them no more for evermore, Let the people die.’

. Dead! ‘ Is he then brought so low?’ And a careless people came from the fields ‘Vith a purse to pay for the show.”