37 



Such have been the efforts to deversify the same 

 object : one sect considered it a leviathan oi' 

 unwieldy bulk, spouting torrents of brine 

 through its spiracles; while another butcher, 

 and pack it in a tub. 



It can answer no good purpose to follovy 

 this course any farther ; and yet I entreat you 

 to return with me to the Shawanece's tradition, 

 notwithstanding my having observed that little 

 faith could be put in it : traditions in general 

 are so clouded with fable, as to obscure any 

 truths they may happen to contain. 



However clouded the sublime tradition of 

 the Shawanece Indian may be with fiction, still 

 my experience has discovered a considerable 

 degree of truth to prevail in it. I early disco- 

 vered, that the description pointed at some stu- 

 pendous voracious animal ; cruel, fleet, and 

 capable of bounding suddenly on his prey. 

 Furnished with carnivorous teeth to consume, 

 and with claws to rend and destroy : in short, 

 a monster of the tiger line, endowed with every 

 bloody and malignant property, and differing 

 in every character but bulk from the mammoth, 

 whose qualities 1 so lately defined. 



