114 JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 
its base gradually spreading out, it became an 
extensive bank, which the rays of the sun at 
length hardened into firm land. Notwithstand- 
ing the power that Weesack-ootchacht here dis- 
played, his person is held in very little reverence 
by the Indians; and, in return, he seizes every 
opportunity of tormenting them. His conduct is 
far from being moral, and his amours, and the 
disguises he assumes in the prosecution of them, 
“are more various and extraordinary than those 
of the Grecian Jupiter himself: but as his ad- 
ventures are more remarkable for their eccen- 
tricity than their delicacy, it is better to pass 
them over in silence. Before we quit him, how- 
ever, we may remark, that he converses with all 
kinds of birds and beasts in their own languages, 
constantly addressing them by the title of bro- 
ther, but through an inherent suspicion of his 
intentions, they are seldom willing to admit of 
his claims of relationship. The Indians make 
no sacrifices to him, not even to avert his wrath. 
They pay a kind of worship, however, and make | 
—* a being, whom sad term Kepooc 
“This deity is represented sometimes by 1 
images of the human figure, but more commonly 
merely by tying the tops of a few willow bushes 
together ; and the offerings to him consist 4 
