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Excerpt from Two Essays in Folk-Lore: The Fall of Hochelaga, a Study of Popular Tradition; And, "Above" And "Below," A Mythological Disease of Language Set the clouds on fire with redness, And the people from the margin Watched him oating, rising, sinking, Till the birch canoe seemed lifted High into that sea of splendor. We are thus naturally led into a still wider and more important view of the inuence of this remarkable perversion of language on the legendary beliefs and religious opinions of mankind. In many if not all cases, the belief of each people concerning the future life - that is, concerning the abode of the Spirit after death - is con nected with their belief concerning the origin of mankind, or at least of their own race; and these beliefs are largely influenced by this peculiar confusion in the meaning of words expressive of local rela tions. It Should be observed that the terms above and below, as expressing the relative position of places on the surface of the globe, have a different application when used at sea or on the sea coast from that which is customary in the interior of a continent. In the latter case, as has been seen, above or upward signifies upstream, and below down-stream, - as in Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, Upper Canada and Lower Canada. On the ocean, however, or along the seacoast, these expressions apply to the prevailing winds. The mariner makes his way up against the wind, or down before it. In the temperate zone, where westerly winds prevail, the east is below. The sailors of the Massachusetts seaports invariably speak of the coast of Maine as down east. On the other hand, within the tropics, where the trade-winds blow steadily from the east, the west is below. Many years ago, in studying the legendary history and the religions of the natives of the Pacific Islands, I found their whole mythology colored by the inuence of these expressions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare an