It is a very beautiful kingdom, Alain, and I
think you are the Prince in disguise!"
NOTES
[1] Kanonghsionni was the name which the Iroquois gave themselves. It
appears that at this time they occupied the country along the St.
Lawrence held some centuries before by the Ojibways and later, in the
time of Champlain, by the Hurons.
[2] Hiawatha is generally said to have founded the league of the Five
Nations. Although these nations were united against any attack from
outside they were not always free from interior enmities and
dissensions, and the Mohawks in particular were objects of the fear and
dislike of their neighbors, as the significance of their sobriquet
clearly shows.
[3] Aneda is said to be the Iroquois word for spruce. When Champlain's
men were attacked by scurvy in the same neighborhood half a century
later, the Iroquois no longer lived there, and this remedy was not
suggested.
[4] Rose quartz has this property.
THE MUSTANGS
Bred to the Game of the World as the Kings and the Emperors played it,
Fate and our masters hurled us over the terrible sea.
When the sails of the carracks were furled the Game was the Game that
we made it,--
We that were horses in Spain were gods in a realm to be!
Swift at the word we sped, we fought in the front of the battle,--
Ah, but the wild men fled when they heard us neigh from afar!
The field was littered with dead, cut down like slaughtered cattle
--Ah, but the earth is red where the Conquistadores are!
Now does the desert wake and croon of hidalgos coming--
Now for her children's sake she is whetting her sword to slay,
And the armored squadrons break, and our iron-shod hoofs are drumming
On the rocks of the mountain pass--we are free, we are off and away!
Hush--did a man's foot fall in the pasture where we go straying?
Listen--is that the call of a man aware of his right?
Hearken, my comrades all--once more the Game they are playing!
Masters, we come, we come, to be one with you in the fight!
XIII
THE WHITE MEDICINE MAN
"Cavalry without horses, in ships without sailors, built by blacksmiths
without forges and carpenters without tools.
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