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This country fay the Indians, lies very far to the 

 weftward fo that the fouls are feveral months, in 

 .arriving at it. They have even vaft difficulties to 

 furmounr, and are expofed to prodigious dangers by 

 the way. They above all things talk mtich of a 

 river they have to pafs, and on which many have 

 been fhipwrecked y of a dog from whom they 

 have much ado to defend themfeives, of a place 

 of torment where they expiate their fins ; of ano- 

 ther, where the fouls of thofe prifoners of war who 

 have been burned are tormented, and where they 

 arrive as late as poflible. 



This notion is the reafon why after the death of 

 thefe wretches, they take great care to vifit every 

 place near their cabbins, ftriking incefTantly with 

 rods and railing the mod hideous cries, in order 

 to drive the fouls to a di ft a nee, and to keep them 

 from lurking about their cabbins, in order to re- 

 venge the torments they have made them under- 

 go. The Iroquois fay, that Atahenftic has her 

 common refidence in this tartarus, and that her 

 fole occupation is the feducing of fouls to their 

 deftruclion but that Joufkeka omits nothing to 

 fecure them againft the wicked defignsof his grand- 

 mother. Amongft the fabulous iiories of what 

 paffes in the lower regions, and which refemble fo 

 much thofe in Homer and Virgil, there is one 

 which feems to have been copied from the fable of 

 Orpheus and Euridice, in which there hardly wants 

 any thing, except to change the names. 



Moreover, Madam, this happinefs, which the 

 Indians hope to enjoy in their imaginary Elyfium, 

 is not believed to be the recompenfe of virtue 

 only ; to have been a good hunter, brave in war, 

 fortunate in all one's enterprifes, to have killed 



