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Updated: September 15, 2025
It was the bridge of the Wauna, the Bridge of the Gods, the bridge he had seen in his vision eight years before. For a moment his brain reeled, everything seemed shadowy and unreal, and he half expected to see the bridge melt, like the vision, into mist before his eyes.
"It is well," he said, with more than Indian duplicity; "the daughter of Multnomah is to become the wife of Snoqualmie the Cayuse, and the new line that commences with their children will give new chiefs to head the confederacy of the Wauna. The old gives way to the new. That is the sign that the Great Spirit gives in the fall of the Bridge.
Perceiving the mistake that I had made, I ventured an apology for my behavior toward her, and Wauna replied, with a frankness that nearly crushed me: "We all noticed it, but do not fear a retaliation," she added sweetly. "We know that you are from a civilization that we look back upon as one of barbarism."
"In this life, you may yearn for your child, but after this life you sleep," answered Wauna, sententiously. "And how sweet that sleep! No dreams; no waking to work and trial; no striving after perfection; no planning for the morrow. It is oblivion than which there can be no happier heaven." "Would not meeting with those you have loved be happier?" I asked, in amazement.
"Your whole aim in life, then, is to work for the future of your race, instead of the eternal welfare of your own soul?" I questioned, in surprise. "If Nature," said Wauna, "has provided us a future life, if that mysterious something that we call Thought is to be clothed in an etherealized body, and live in a world where decay is unknown, I have no fear of my reception there.
I asked Wauna for the meaning of such stoical reserve, and the explanation was as curious as were all the other things that I met with in Mizora. "If you notice the custom of different grades of civilization in your own country," said Wauna, "you will observe that the lower the civilization the louder and more ostentatious is the mourning.
There was to be no ceremony at the house, and Wauna and I were in the cemetery when the procession entered. As we passed through the city, I noticed that every business house was closed. The whole city was sympathizing with sorrow. I never before saw so vast a concourse of people. The procession was very long and headed by the mother, dressed and veiled in black.
Progress and civilization have brought to us the ideal heaven of the ancients, and we receive from Nature no evidence of any other." "But I do believe there is another," I declared. "And we ought to be prepared for it." Wauna smiled. "What better preparation could you desire, then, than good works in this?" she asked. "You should pray, and do penance for your sins," was my reply.
The lofty ideal of humanity that she represented was smiled at or gently ignored. "The world would be a paradise," said one philosopher, "if such characters were common. But one is like a seed in the ocean; it cannot do much good." When we arrived in the United States, its activity and evident progress impressed Wauna with a feeling more nearly akin to companionship.
The passage through the swiftest part of the current almost swamped our boat. The current that opposed us was so strong, that when we increased our speed our boat appeared to be cleaving its way through a wall of waters. Wauna was perfectly calm, and managed the motor with the steadiest nerves. Her courage inspired me, though many a time I despaired of ever getting out of the rapids.
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