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and foftnefs not unlike the fweet low notes of birds. In the mouths 

 of the men, it commands a compafs of the wildefl variety ; as if they 

 had followed the courfe of their own great rivers, copying as they ad- 

 vanced, the liquid founds of their fmooth fwift waters, their murmurs 

 and broken noifes, the hollow fwell of the furge, and the refounding 

 of the catarafl. In reality, their defcriptions and animated difcourfes, 

 borrow correfponding expreffive tones from all that fpeaks forcibly and 

 feelingly in nature ; and if my conception be right, the Greeks them- 

 felves can fcarcely furnilh any thing more fonorous, nor the Italians more 

 foft. I wifli I could make the Indians here fpeak :* if I could, I am 



perfuaded 



I prefer this derivation to the laboured attempts to derive its name from the Spanifti. 

 Capo di Nada, Cape Nothing, fay the learned miflionaries, is the origin of the name of 

 Canada. I have here interpofed fome derivations from the Iroquois, whofe language 

 and the allied tongue of the Hurons, form the only interruption to the dominion of 

 the Algonkin, in the direft line of afcent from the coaft by the way of the lakes, 

 into the interior. Above lake Ontario we find the wandering tribe called MilTifages, pro- 

 perly Miffifakis, which fignifies the difperfed over the land, the French, I believe, called 

 them gens de terre : the famous ide of Michdimakina, literally the great Turtle, from its 

 refemblance to a floating turtle : lake Michigan, or the great lake : the Outagami, or 

 Fox river : the Ilinois, or the river of the men : the Mijji-fipi or wandering river, or the 

 Mijfi-ftpi, Turley river, from mijjijjie a wild turkey, which there abound ; or Milchijlpi, 

 the great river, the common Indian name : tlie Malomini, or ivild rice nation, from via- 

 lomin, wild rice, which abounds in their country, improperly called by the French folles 

 avoines, the wild oat nation, and in our late bed maps, called Monomonis, improperly, 

 alfo, as I conceive. Above Lake Superior we find Nipigan, the clear water lake, or 

 the deeping or fmooth lake, or perhaps the lake of death : for tiipi fignifies water, nipa 

 Deep, and nipe death. Mitigan, properly tranflated the lake of the woods, from 

 miiig wood ; and the tinipi, called IVinipig, which receives the waters from the ftony 

 mountains near the Pacific, to deliver them to the fetters of the frozen fea of Hudfon ; 

 and which, in the language of the Algonkins, near the Atlantic, is one of the names 

 for the ocean. 



* Were I called upon to give examples of French or Italian poetry, without re- 

 curring to their poets, 1 (hould recoUeft the fate of the Ermenonville EngUlh Infcrip- 

 tions, and the French verfes of the Germans, and at once decline the tafk. The In- 

 dian lyre is yet unftrung : how then attempt to guefs at its mufical compafs, or difcovef 

 its poffible tones ? Conceiving they may ferve to gratify curiofity, I fet down here 



fome 



