I Embarked then, as I have stated, at St. Maloes; we stood out to sea, and, on the 6th of May 1791, about eight in the morning, discovered the peak of the island of Pico, one of the Azores. A few hours afterwards we came to an anchor in a wretched road, over a bottom of rocks, off the island of Graciosa. A description of it will be found in the History of Revolutions. The precise date of the discovery of this island is not known.

This was the first foreign soil I had ever trodden: for this very reason the recollection which I have retained of it has the impress and vivacity of youth. I have not failed to carry Chactas to the Azores, and to make him discover that famous which the first navigators pretended to have found on these shores.

Driven by the winds, after leaving the Azores, upon the bank of Newfoundland, we were obliged 0096 90 to put into the island of St. Pierre. “T. and myself”—I again quote the History of Revolutions , “made an excursion into the mountains of that dreary island. We were enveloped in the fogs with which it is incessantly covered, wandering amid clouds and gusts of wind, listening to the roar of the sea which we could not discover, losing ourselves on a dreary and mossy moor, and on the bank of a reddish torrent, which rolled on among rocks.”

The valleys are studded in different parts with that species of pine, the young shoots of which serve to make a bitter beer. The isle is surrounded by several rocks, among which that called the Dovecote, because the sea-fowl build their nests there in spring, is conspicuous. I have given a description of it in the Spirit of Christianity.

The island of St. Pierre is separated from Newfoundland by a strait only, which is rather dangerous: from its desolate shore may be seen the still more desolate coast of Newfoundland. In summer the beach of these islands is covered with fish drying in the sun, and in winter with white bears, which feed on the offal left by the fishermen.

When I was at St. Pierre, the capital of the island consisted, as far as I remember, of a street of considerable length, built along the shore. The inhabitants, 0097 91 who are very hospitable, cordially offered us their houses and their tables. The governor resided at the extremity of the town. I dined with him twice or three times. He cultivated some European vegetables in one of the ditches of the fort. I recollect that after dinner he showed me his garden , and we then went and sat down at the foot of the flag-staff planted on the fortress. The French flag floated over our heads, while we gazed on a wild sea and the dreary coasts of Newfoundland, and talked of our own country.

After a fortnight's stay, we left the island of St. Pierre, and, steering to the south, reached the latitude of the coasts of Maryland and Virginia: here we were overtaken by calms. We enjoyed a most beautiful sky; the night, sun-rise, and sun-set, were admirable. In the chapter of the Spirit of Christianity , entitled Two Prospects of Nature , already quoted, I have described one of those scenes of nocturnal pomp, and one of those magnificent sunsets. “The globe of the sun, ready to plunge into the waves, was seen between the rigging of the ship in the midst of boundless space,” &c.

An accident was on the point of putting an end to all my plans.

The heat was oppressive: the ship, in a dead calm, 0098 92 without sails, and overloaded by her masts; was tossed by the swell. Scorched on the deck, and tired of the motion, I determined to bathe; and though we had no boat out, I threw myself from the bowsprit into the sea. All went on well at first, and several of the passengers followed my example. I swam about without taking any notice of the ship; but, on turning my head, I perceived that the current had already carried her to a considerable distance. The crew had hastened upon deck, and veered a small cable to the other swimmers. Sharks appeared about the ship, and muskets were fired at them from on board, for the purpose of scaring them away. The swell was so great as to delay my return and to exhaust my strength. I had an abyss beneath me, and the sharks were liable every moment to deprive me of an arm or a leg. The crew bestirred themselves to hoist out a boat, but were first obliged to set up a pulley, and this operation took considerable time.

By the greatest good fortune an almost insensible breeze sprang up; the ship, moving a little, approached me; I seized the end of the rope, but my companions in temerity were clinging to it, and when we were drawn to the side of the ship, they bore with all their weight upon me, as I was at the 0099 93 extremity of the file. We were thus fished up one by one, which took a considerable time. The swell continued, and at each roll of the ship we were plunged ten or a dozen feet in the water, or suspended the same height in the air, like fishes at the end of a line. At the last immersion I was on the point of swooning; another roll and it would have been all over with me. At length I was hoisted half dead upon the deck: had I been drowned it would have been a good riddance for myself and others.

Some days after this accident we descried land, the outline of which was marked by the tops of some trees that seemed to rise from the bosom of the water: the palm-trees at the mouth of the Nile subsequently discovered to me the shore of Egypt in the same manner. A pilot came on board. We entered the bay of Chesapeak, and the same evening a boat was sent off for water and fresh provisions. I joined the party that went ashore, and half an hour after leaving the vessel I trod the soil of America.

I remained some time with my arms crossed, gazing around me with a mixture of feelings and ideas which I could not then unravel, and which I am now unable to describe. This Continent, unknown 0100 94 to the rest of the world during all the ages of antiquity and a great number of modern ages—the first savage destinies of this Continent, and its second destinies since the arrival of Christopher Columbus—the domination of the monarchies of Europe shaken in this New World—the old society finishing in young America—a republic of a kind hitherto unknown, announcing a change in the human mind and in the political order—the part which my country had borne in these events—those seas and those shores owing their independence in part to the French flag and to French blood—a great man arising at once from amid discord and deserts—Washington dwelling in a flourishing city, where, a century before, William Penn had purchased a piece of land from some Indians—the United States sending to France across the Ocean the revolution and the liberty which France had supported by her arms—lastly, my own designs, the discoveries which I purposed attempting in these native wilds, which still extended their vast empire behind the narrow realm of a foreign civilization: such were the subjects which confusedly engaged my mind.

We advanced towards a house at a considerable distance, to purchase what the occupants might be 0101 95 willing to sell. We traversed small woods of balsam-trees and Virginia cedars, which perfumed the air. I saw mocking-birds and cardinal-birds flying about, and their notes and colours proclaimed a new climate. A negro girl, fourteen or fifteen years old, of extraordinary beauty, came and opened the gate to a house, which at once resembled an English farm-house and the habitation of a colonist. Herds of cows were grazing in artificial pastures surrounded with a palisade, in which gray, black, and striped squirrels were sporting; some negroes were sawing pieces of timber, while others were at at work in the plantations of tobacco. We bought some cakes made of maize flour, some fowls, eggs, and milk, and returned to our ship at anchor in the bay.

We weighed and stood into the road, and afterwards into the harbour of Baltimore. As we approached Baltimore the water became narrower; it was perfectly calm: it seemed as though we were sailing up a river bordered with long avenues. Baltimore presented itself to our view as if situated at the extremity of a lake. Opposite to the city rose a hill shaded with trees, at the foot of which some houses were begun to be built. We moored at the quay of the port. I slept on board, 0102 96 and did not go on shore till the following day. I took up my quarters at the inn to which my baggage was conveyed. The students retired with their superior to the establishment prepared for them, whence they have dispersed themselves over America.

Baltimore, like all the other great cities of the United States, was not so extensive as it is at present: it was a handsome town, very clean, and very lively. I paid the captain for my passage, and gave him a farewell dinner at a very good tavern near the harbour. I engaged a place in the stage which ran three times a week to Philadelphia. At four in the morning I took my seat in this vehicle, and there I was, rolling over the high roads of the New World, where I knew nobody and where I was not known to a single creature; my fellow travellers had never seen me, nor was I likely ever to see them again after our arrival in the capital of Pennsylvania.

The road which we travelled was rather marked out than made. The country was very bare and very flat; few birds, few trees, some scattered houses, no villages—such was the aspect of this tract, and it made a disagreeable impression upon me.

On approaching Philadelphia we met with country people going to market, public vehicles and very elegant private carriages. Philadelphia appeared to me to be a fine city: the streets broad; some, planted with trees, intersected each other at right angles, in regular order, from north to south and from east to west. The Delaware runs parallel to the street which borders its western bank: it is a river which would be considerable in Europe, but which is thought nothing of in America. Its banks are low and far from picturesque.

Philadelphia, at the period of my visit (1791), did not yet extend to the Schuylkill; the ground, as you advanced towards that stream, was merely divided into lots, upon which some detached houses were then building.

The aspect of Philadelphia is cold and monotonous. In the cities of the United States in general there is a want of public edifices, and, above all, of ancient edifices. Protestantism, which sacrifices nothing to the imagination, and which is itself new, has not erected those towers and those domes with which the ancient Catholic religion has crowned Europe. At Philadelphia, at New York, at Boston, there is scarcely any thing that rises above the VOL. I H 0104 98 mass of the walls and roofs. The eye is distressed by this uniform level.

The United States excite rather the idea of a colony than of a mother-country: you there find usages rather than manners. You are sensible that the inhabitants are not natives of the soil: that society, so fair in the present, has no past; the towns are new, the tombs are of yesterday. This it was which led me to observe in The Natchez: “The Europeans had as yet no tombs in America when they had already dungeons there. These were the only monuments of the past for that society without ancestors and without recollections.”

There is nothing old in America excepting the woods, the offspring of the soil and of liberty, the mother of all human society; these are certainly an equivalent for monuments and ancestors.

A man landing like myself in the United States, full of enthusiasm for the ancients, a Cato seeking wherever he goes the austerity of the primitive manners of Rome, must be exceedingly scandalized to find every where elegance in dress, luxury in equipages, frivolity in conversation, inequality in fortunes, the immorality of gaming-houses, the noise of ball-rooms and of theatres. At Philadelphia I could have fancied myself in an English 0105 99 town; there was nothing to indicate that I had passed from a monarchy to a republic.

From my History of Revolutions it may be seen, that at this period of my life I was a warm admirer of republics: but I did not believe them to be possible in the age of the world at which we had arrived, because I was acquainted only with liberty after the manner of the ancients, liberty the daughter of morals in a nascent society: I was ignorant that there was another liberty, the offspring of knowledge and an ancient civilization; a liberty, the reality of which has been proved by the representative republic. In order to be free, a man is not now-a-days obliged to plough his little field with his own hands, to repel the arts and sciences, to have nails like claws and a filthy beard.

My political disappointment no doubt occasioned the spleen which caused me to write the satirical note against the Quakers, and even somewhat against all the Americans, which note may be found in my History of Revolutions. In other respects the appearance of the people in the streets of the capital of Pennsylvania was pleasing: the men were decently dressed, the women, especially the Quakeresses, with their uniform bonnet, looked extremely pretty. H 2

I met with several planters from St. Domingo and a few French emigrants. I was impatient to begin my journey to the desert: every body advised me to proceed to Albany, where, being much nearer to the back-settlements and the Indian nations, I should be more likely to meet with guides and to obtain information.

When I arrived at Philadelphia, General Washington was not there. I was obliged to wait a fortnight for his return. I saw him pass in a carriage drawn at a great rate by mettlesome horses, driven four-in-hand. Washington, according to my ideas at that time, was of course Cincinnatus; Cincinnatus in a coach and four somewhat deranged my republic of the year of Rome 296. Could Washington, the dictator, be any other than a down, urging his oxen with the goad, and holding the handle of the plough? But when I went to deliver my letter of recommendation to this great man, I found in him the simplicity of the old Roman.

A small house in the English style, resembling the neighbouring houses, was the palace of the President of the United States: no guards, nor even footmen. I knocked: a servant-girl opened the door. I enquired if the general was at home; she answered, that he was. I replied, that I had a 0107 101 letter to deliver to him. The girl asked me my name, which is difficult of pronunciation for an English tongue, and which she could not retain. She then said, mildly, “Walk in, Sir,” and conducting me down one of those long, narrow passages, which serve for lobbies to English houses, she ushered me into a parlour, where she requested me to wait for the general.

I was not agitated. Neither greatness of soul, nor superiority of fortune, overawes me: I admire the former without being overwhelmed by it; the latter excites in me more pity than respect. The face of man will never daunt me.

In a few minutes the general entered. He was a man of tall stature, with a calm and cold rather than noble air: the likeness is well preserved in the engravings of him. I delivered my letter in silence: he opened it, and turned to the signature, which he read aloud, with exclamation, “Colonel Armand!” for thus he called, and thus the letter was signed by, the marquis de la Rouairie.

We sat down; I explained to him as well. as I could the motive of my voyage. He answered me in French or English monosyllables, and listened to me with a sort of astonishment. I perceived it, and said with some emphasis, “But it is less difficult to 0108 102 discover the north-west passage than to create a nation as you have done.” “Well, well, young man!” cried he, giving me his hand. He invited me to dine with him the following day, and we parted.

I was exact to the appointment. The conversation turned almost entirely on the French revolution. The general showed us a key of the Bastille: those keys of the Bastille were but silly playthings which were about that time distributed over the two worlds. Had Washington seen like me the conquerors of the Bastille in the kennels of Paris, he would have had less faith in his relic. The gravity and the energy of the revolution were not in those sanguinary orgies. At the time of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685, the same populace of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine demolished the Protestant church at Charenton with as much zeal as it despoiled the church of St. Denis in 1793.

I left my host at ten in the evening, and never saw him again: he set out for the country the following day, and I continued my journey.

Such was my interview with that man who gave liberty to a whole world. Washington sunk into the tomb before any little celebrity had attached to my name. I passed before him as the most unknown 0109 103 of beings; he was in all his glory, I in the depth of my obscurity. My name probably dwelt not a whole day in his memory. Happy, however, that his looks were cast upon me! I have felt myself warmed for it all the rest of my life. There is a virtue in the looks of a great man.

I have since seen Buonaparte. Thus Providence has granted me a sight of the two personages whom it pleased to place at the head of the destinies of their respective ages.

If we compare Washington and Buonaparte, man to man, the genius of the former seems of a less elevated order than that of the latter. Washington belongs not, like Buonaparte, to that race of the Alexanders and Cæsars, who surpass the ordinary stature of mankind. Nothing astonishing attaches to his person; he is not placed on a vast theatre; he is not pitted against the ablest captains and the mightiest monarchs of his time; he traverses no seas; he hurries not from Memphis to Vienna and from Cadiz to Moscow: he defends himself with a handful of citizens on a soil without recollections and without celebrity, in the narrow circle of the domestic hearths. He fights none of those battles which renew the triumphs of Arbela and Pharsalia; he overturns no thrones to re-compose others with 0110 104 their ruins; he places not his foot on the necks of kings; he sends not word to them in the vestibules of his palaces, Qu'ils se font trop attendre, et qu' Attila s'ennuie.

Something of stillness envelopes the actions of Washington; he acts deliberately: you would say that he feels himself to be the representative of the liberty of future ages, and that he is afraid of compromising it. It is not his own destinies but those of his country with which this hero of a new kind is charged; he allows not himself to hazard what does not belong to him. But what light bursts forth from this profound obscurity! Search the unknown forests where glistened the sword of Washington, what will you find there? graves? no! a world! Washington has left the United States for a trophy of his field of battle.

Buonaparte has not any one characteristic of this grave American: he fights on an old soil, surrounded with glory and celebrity; he wishes to create nothing but his own renown; he takes upon himself nothing but his own aggrandizement. He seems to be aware that his mission will be short, that the torrent which falls from such a height will speedily be exhausted: he hastens to enjoy and to abuse his glory, as men do a fugitive youth. Like the gods 0111 105 of Homer, he wants to reach the end of the world in four steps: he appears on every shore, he hastily inscribes his name in the annals of every nation; he throws crowns as he runs to his family and his soldiers; he is in a hurry in his monuments, in his laws, in his victories. Stooping over the world, with one hand he overthrows kings, and with the other strikes down the revolutionary giant; but in crushing anarchy he stifles liberty, and finally loses his own in the field of his last battle.

Each is rewarded according to his works: Washington raises his nation to independence: a retired magistrate, he sinks quietly to rest beneath his paternal roof, amid the regrets of his countrymen and the veneration of all nations.

Buonaparte robbed a nation of its independence: a fallen emperor, he is hurried into an exile where the fears of the world deem him not safely enough imprisoned in the custody of the ocean. So long as, feeble and chained upon a rock, he struggles with death, Europe dares not lay down its arms. He expires: this intelligence, published at the gate of the palace before which the conqueror had caused so many funerals to be proclaimed, neither stops nor astonishes the passenger: what had the citizens to deplore?

The republic of Washington subsists, whereas the empire of Buonaparte is destroyed: he died between the first and second voyage of a Frenchman, who found a grateful nation where he had fought for a few oppressed colonists.

Washington and Buonaparte sprang from the bosom of a republic: both born of liberty, the one was faithful to it, the other betrayed it. Their lot in futurity will be as different as their choice.

The name of Washington will spread with liberty from age to age; it will mark the commencement of a new era for mankind.

The name of Buonaparte also will be repeated by future generations; but it will not be accompanied with any benediction, and will frequently serve for authority to oppressors, great or small.

Washington was completely the representative of the wants, the ideas, the knowledge, and the opinions of his time; he seconded instead of thwarting the movement of mind; he aimed at that which it was his duty to aim at: hence the coherence and the perpetuity of his work. This man, who appears not very striking, because he is natural and in his just proportions, blended his existence with that of his country; his glory is the common patrimony of 0113 107 growing Civilization: his renown towers like one of those sanctuaries, whence flows an inexhaustible spring for the people.

Buonaparte might, in like manner, have enriched the public domain: he acted upon the most civilized, the most intelligent, the bravest and the most brilliant nation of the earth. What rank would he occupy at this day in the universe, if he had combined magnanimity with the heroic qualities which he possessed—if, Washington and Buonaparte in one, he had appointed liberty the heir to his glory.

But this prodigious giant did not completely connect his destinies with those of his contemperaries: his genius belonged to modern times, his ambition was of by-gone ages; he did not perceive that the miracles of his life far surpassed the value of a diadem, and that this Gothic ornament would ill become him. Sometimes he advanced a step with the age, at others he retrograded towards the past; and whether he opposed or followed the current of time, by his immense strength he repelled the waves or hurried them along with him. In his eyes men were but an engine of power; no sympathy subsisted between their happiness and his. He promised to deliver and he fettered hem; he secluded 0114 108 himself from them; they withdrew from him. The Kings of Egypt placed their sepulchral pyramids not among flourishing fields, but amid sterile sands; those vast tombs stand like eternity in the desert: in their image Buonaparte built the monument of his renown.

Those who, like me, have beheld the conqueror of Europe and the legislator of America, now turn their eyes from the stage of the world: a few players who excite tears or laughter, are not worth looking at.

A stage similar to that which brought me from Baltimore to Philadelphia, carried me from Philidelphia to New York, a gay, populous, and commercial city, which, however, was then far from being what it is at present. Thence I went on pilgrimage to Boston, to salute the first field of battle of American freedom. “I have seen the plains of Lexington; I have paused there in silence, like the traveller at Thermopylæ, to contemplate the graves of those warriors of the two worlds who died the first in obedience to the laws of their country. When treading this philosophic ground, which told me in its mute eloquence how empires are lost and erected, I confessed my nothingness before the 0115 109 ways of Providence, and bowed my forehead in the dust.” *

Returning to New York, I embarked in the packet which set sail for Albany, ascending the river Hudson, otherwise called North River.

In a note to the History of Revolutions I have described part of my voyage up this river, on the banks of which one of Bonaparte's kings, and what is still more, one of his brothers, is now lost among Washington's republicans. In the same note I have made mention of Major André, that unfortunate young man, concerning whose fate a friend, whose loss I shall never cease to deplore, used such bold and affecting language, † when Buonaparte was about to ascend the throne on which Marie Antoinette had once sat.

On reaching Albany I called upon a Mr. Swift, for whom a letter had been given to me at Philadelphia. This American traded for furs with the Indian tribes comprised in the territory ceded by England to the United States: for in America the civilized powers divide among themselves, without ceremony, lands which do not belong to them. After listening to me, Mr. Swift made some very 0116 110 rational objections; he told me that I could not undertake an expedition of such importance, at once, alone, unaided, unsupported, without recommendations to the English, American, and Spanish posts, which I should be obliged to pass; that, were I even so fortunate as to traverse without accident so many deserts, I should arrive at icy regions, where I should perish with cold or hunger. He advised me to begin with seasoning myself by an excursion into the interior of America, by making myself acquainted with the Sioux, the Iroquois, and the Esquimaux; to live for some time among the hunters in the Canadian woods and the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company. Having acquired this preliminary experience, I might then, with the assistance of the French government, prosecute my hazardous enterprize.

This advice, the correctness of which I could not help acknowledging, thwarted me: I had supposed that I should have nothing to do but to set out immediately, and go straight to the pole, just as you may go from Paris to St. Cloud. I nevertheless concealed my vexation from Mr. Swift. I requested him to procure me a guide and horses, that I might proceed to the fall of Niagara, and thence to Pittsburg, from which place I might descend 0117 111 the Ohio. I had still in my head the original plan of route which I had formed for myself.

Mr. Swift hired for me a Dutchman who spoke several Indian dialects. I bought two horses, and hastened to leave Albany.

The whole country extending between that town and Niagara is now inhabited, cultivated, and traversed by the famous New York canal; but at that time great part of this tract was a waste.

When I found myself, after passing the Mohawk, in woods which had never been subject to the axe, I fell into a sort of intoxication, to which I have thus adverted in the History of Revolutions: —“I went from tree to tree, to the right and the left indiscriminately, saying to myself—Here are no more roads to follow, no more towns, no more close houses, no more presidents, republics, or kings.— And to try whether I, was at length reinstated in my original rights, I indulged in a thousand whimsical acts, which enraged the tall Dutchman, who officiated as my guide, and who in his heart believed that I was mad.”

We entered the ancient territories of the six Iroquois nations. The first Savage we met with was a young man, who was walking before a horse on which rode a female Indian, dressed in the fashion 0118 112 of her tribe. My guide wished them good day as we passed.

It is already known that I was fortunate enough to be received on the frontiers of the wilderness by one of my countrymen, by the M. Violet, who was dancing-master to the Savages. They paid him for his lessons in beaver skins and bears' hams. “In the midst of a forest appeared a sort of barn; in this barn I found a score of Savages, male and female, bedaubed like conjurors, their bodies half bare, their ears slashed, with raven's feathers on their heads, and rings passed through their nostrils. A little Frenchman, powdered and frizzed in the old fashion, in a pea-green coat, a drugget waistcoat, and muslin frill and ruffles, was scraping away on his kit, and making the Iroquois caper to the tune of Madelon Friquet. In speaking of the Indians, M. Violet always said, Ces messieurs sauvages , and ces dames sauvagesses. He highly extolled the agility of his scholars; in fact, I never witnessed such gambols. M. Violet, holding his kit between his chin and his chest, tuned the important instrument; he cried out in Iroquois: To your places! and the whole company fell a-capering like a band of demons.” *

This introduction to savage life, by a ball given to Iroquois Indians by a former scullion of General Rochambaut's, was an extraordinary thing for a disciple of Rousseau's. We pursued our route. I shall now let the manuscript speak for itself: I give it as I find it, sometimes in the form of a narrative, at others in that of a journal; sometimes in letters, and sometimes in mere annotations.

We arrived on the banks of the lake to which the Onondagas, an Iroquois tribe, have given their name. Our horses needed rest. I sought with my Dutchman a spot suitable for our encampment. We found one in a dell, at a place where a river rushes impetuously from the lake. This river has not run one hundred fathoms due north when it turns eastward, and pursues a direction parallel to the bank of the lake, On the outside of the rocks which encircle the latter.

It was in the bend of the river that we prepared our lodging for the night: we planted two tall poles in the ground, and laid a third horizontally across their forks; pieces of birch bark, one end resting upon the earth and the other against the transverse pole, formed a roof worthy of our palace. A fire was kindled to cook our supper, and to drive away the mosquitoes. Our saddles served for pillows under the ajoupa , and our mantles for bed-clothes.

We fastened bells to the necks of our horses, and turned them loose in the woods: by an admirable instinct those animals never wander so far as to lose sight of the fire, which their masters kindle at night 0121 115 to drive away insects, and to defend themselves from serpents.

From the interior of our hut we enjoyed a picturesque view: before us lay the lake, which was rather narrow, and bordered by forests and rocks; around us the river, encircling our peninsula with green and limpid waters, swept past with impetuosity between its banks.

It was not later than four in the afternoon when our establishment was completed: I took my gun and set out on a stroll in the environs. At first I followed the course of the river; my botanical researches were not successful; I found but few varieties of plants. I remarked numerous families of Plantago virginica , and of some other meadow-beauties, all very common. I quitted the banks of the river for the shores of the lake, but had not better luck; with the exception of a species of rhododendron, I met with nothing worth stopping for. The flowers of that shrub, of a bright rose colour, produced a Charming effect with the blue water of the lake in which they were reflected, and the brown flank of the rock in which they buried their roots.

There were few birds: I perceived but one solitary couple flying about me, and apparently delighting to diffuse movement and love over the immobility 0122 116 and coldness of this spot. From the colour of the male I knew it to be the white bird, or Passer nivalis of ornithologists. I heard also the cry of that species of osprey which has been very aptly characterized by the designation of Strix exclamator. This bird is restless, like all tyrants: I fatigued myself to no purpose in the pursuit of it.

The flight of this osprey had conducted me through a wood to a valley cooped up between bare and rocky hills. In this extremely sequestered spot was seen a wretched Indian hut, built midway up the hill among the rocks: a lean cow was grazing in a pasture below.

I have always been fond of these humble retreats: the animal that is hurt crouches in a corner; the unfortunate person is fearful of spreading abroad sentiments which men repel. Weary with my chace, I seated myself on the top of the hill which I was crossing, facing the Indian hut on the opposite hill. Laying my gun beside me, I indulged in one of those reveries the charms of which I have frequently tasted.

I had scarcely passed a few minutes in this situation, when I heard voices at the bottom of the valley. I perceived three men driving five or six fat cows. After they had put them into the pasture, they went 0123 117 up to the lean cow, which they drove away with sticks.

The appearance of these Europeans in so wild a spot was extremely disagreeable to me: their violence made me dislike them still more. They drove the poor beast among the rocks, with shouts of laughter, exposing her to the danger of breaking her legs. A female savage, apparently as miserable as the cow, came out of the sequestered hut, advanced towards the affrighted animal, gently called her, and offered her something to eat. The cow ran to her, stretching out her neck with a faint lowing expressive of joy. The colonists threatened from a distance the Indian woman, who went back into her cabin. The cow followed her. She stopped at the door, where her friend patted her with her hand, which the grateful animal then licked. The colonists meanwhile retired.

I rose, went down the hill, crossed the valley, and ascending the opposite hill, arrived at the hut, determined to make amends as far as I could for the brutality of the white men. The cow perceived me, and made a motion as if to run away. I advanced cautiously, and reached without scaring her the habitation of her mistress.

The Indian woman had gone within doors. I 0124 118 pronounced the salutation which I had been taught: Siégoh! “I am come.” The woman, instead of returning the customary answer to my salutation: “ You are come! ” made no reply. I conjectured that the visit of one of her tyrants was disagreeable to her. I then began in my turn to caress the cow. The Indian looked astonished; I perceived in her sallow and dejected face signs of emotion and almost of gratitude. These mysterious relations of misfortune filled my eyes with tears: there is a pleasure in weeping over afflictions for which none have ever wept before.

My hostess eyed me for some time with an expression of doubt, as though apprehensive that I was seeking to deceive her: she then advanced a few steps, and came and stroked with her hand the face of her companion in misery and solitude.

Encouraged by this mark of confidence, I said in English, for I had got to the end of my Indian: “She is very lean.” The woman immediately replied in broken English, “She eats very little.” “They drove her unfeelingly away,” rejoined I; and the woman answered, “We are both accustomed to that.” “This pasture then,” I resumed, “is not yours?” “It was my husband's,” she replied, “but he is dead. I have no children, and the whites bring their cows to my pasture.”

I had nothing to offer to this indigent creature: my intention at first was to solicit justice in her behalf, but to whom was I to apply, in a country where the mixture of Europeans and Indians rendered the authorities confused, where the right of force wrested independence from the Savage, and where the civilized man, having become half savage, had shaken off the yoke of the civil authority?

We parted, the Indian woman and I, after shaking hands. My hostess said many things which I did not understand, and which were no doubt wishes for the prosperity of the stranger. If they were not heard by Heaven, it was not the fault of her who uttered them, but the fault of him for whom these prayers were offered up: all souls have not an equal aptitude for happiness, as all soils are not equally adapted to produce crops.

I returned to my ajoupa , where I made a sorry supper. The evening was magnificent; the lake, in profound repose, had not a wrinkle on its surface; the river, murmuring along, bathed our peninsula, which was adorned by false ebony-trees not yet stripped of their flowers; the cuckoo of the Carolinas repeated his monotonous note: sometimes we heard him nearer, at others farther off, according as the bird changed the place of his amorous calls.

Next day I went with my guide to pay a visit to the chief Sachem of the Onondagas, whose village was not far distant. We arrived at this village about ten in the morning. I was immediately surrounded by a crowd of young Savages, who talked to me in their own language, with which they mixed English phrases and some French words: they made a great noise, and appeared to be very merry. These Indian tribes, encompassed by the settlements of the whites, have contracted something of our manners: they have horses and cattle; their huts are provided with furniture and utensils, purchased on the one hand at Quebec, Montreal, Niagara, and Detroit, and on the other in the towns of the United States.

The Sachem of the Onondagas was an old Iroquois, in the strictest sense of the term: his person was a memorial of the ancient usages and the ancient times of the wilderness: large pinked ears, a pearl pendent from the nose, a face bedaubed with various colours, a small tuft of hair on the crown of the head, a blue tunic, a mantle of skin, a leathern belt with the scalping-knife and tomahawk, tattooed arms, mocassins on his feet, and a string or chaplet of shells in his hand.

He received me kindly, and made me sit down on 0127 121 his mat. The young men got hold of my gun; they took off the lock with astonishing address, and put the pieces together again with the same dexterity: it was a mere double-barrel fowling-piece.

The Sachem spoke English and understood French; my interpreter was acquainted with the Iroquois, so that we had no difficulty in conversing together. The old man told me, among other things, that though his nation had always been at war with mine, he had always felt esteem for the latter. He assured me that the Savages had not ceased to regret the French; he complained of the Americans, who would soon not leave to the nations whose ancestors had received them earth sufficient to cover their bones.

I mentioned to the Sachem the distress of the Indian widow: he told me that this woman was really persecuted, and that he had several times solicited the interference of the American commissioners in her behalf, but had not been able to obtain justice: he added, that formerly the Iroquois would have righted themselves.

The Indian women set before us a repast. Hospitality is the last savage virtue still left to the Indians amidst the vices of European civilization. Every body knows what this hospitality formerly 0128 122 was: once admitted into a cabin your person was inviolable: the hearth had the power of the altar; it rendered you sacred. The owner of this hearth would have sacrificed his own life before he would have suffered a single hair of your head to be injured.

When a tribe expelled from its forests, or an individual, came to demand hospitality, he or they began what was called the dance of the supplicant. This dance was executed as follows:

The supplicant advanced a few paces, then paused and looked at the party supplicated, and afterwards retired to his first position. The hosts then struck up the song of the stranger: “Here is the stranger, here is the envoy of the Great Spirit!” After the song, a boy came forward, took the stranger by the hand and led him to the cabin. The boy, as he reached the threshold of the door, said—“Here is the stranger!” and the master of the hut replied, “Boy, bring the man into my cabin!” The stranger, entering under the protection of the boy, went, as among the Greeks, and seated himself upon the ashes of the hearth. The calumet of peace was offered to him; he drew three whiffs, and the women chanted the song of consolation: “The stranger has again found a mother and a wife: the sun will again rise and set for him as before.”

A consecrated bowl was filled with maple juice: it was a calebash or a stone vase which usually stood in the chimney corner, and on which was placed a crown of flowers. The stranger drank half the liquor and passed the bowl to his host, by whom it was emptied.

The day after my visit to the chief of the Onondagas I continued my journey. This aged chief had been present at the taking of Quebec, and at the death of General Wolfe; and I, who was quitting the hut of a savage, had recently escaped from the palace of Versailles, and was just come from the table of Washington.

As we approached Niagara the road became more toilsome; indeed it was only indicated by its being cleared of trees. The trunks of these trees served as bridges over the rivulets, or as fascines in the quagmires. The American population was then pouring towards the grants in Tenessee. The government of the United States sold these grants at a higher or lower price according to the nature of the soil, the quality of the trees, and the course and number of the rivers.

The new settlements exhibited a curious mixture of the state of nature and the civilized condition. In the corner of a forest which had never rung but 0130 124 with the shouts of the Savage and the braying of the fallow-deer, you met with cultivated lands; you perceived from the same point of view the hut of of an Indian and the habitation of a planter. Some of these habitations, already completed, reminded you by their neatness of English or Dutch farm-houses; while others were but half finished, and had no other roof than the dome of a spreading tree.

I was received into these dwellings of a day; I frequently found in them a charming family, with all the conveniences, nay, even the elegances of Europe—mahogany furniture, piano-forte, carpets, mirrors, and all within four paces of the hut of an Iroquois. In the evening, when the servants returned from the woods or the fields, with the axe or the plough, the windows were thrown open; the youthful daughters of my host sang, while accompanying themselves on the piano, the music of Paësiello and Cimarosa, in sight of the wilderness, and sometimes to the distant murmur of a waterfall.

In the best situations villages were erecting. It is impossible to conceive the feelings and the delight experienced on seeing the spire of a new steeple rising from the bosom of an ancient American forest. As English manners stick to the English wherever they are, so, after traversing countries where there 0131 125 were no traces of inhabitants, I perceived the sign of an inn dangling from the branch of a tree by the road side, and swinging to and fro in the wind of the desert. Hunters, planters, Indians, met at these caravanserais; but the first time I slept in one of them I vowed it should be the last.

One evening, on entering one of these singular inns, I was astounded at the sight of an immense bed constructed in a circular form round a post; each traveller came and took his place in this bed, with his feet to the post in the centre, and his head at the circumference of the circle, so that the sleepers were ranged symmetrically, like the spokes of a wheel, or the sticks of a fan. After some hesitation, I took my place in this singular machine, because I saw nobody in it. I was just dropping asleep when I felt a man's leg rubbing along mine: it was my great devil of a Dutchman's who was stretching himself beside me. I never was so horrified in my life. I leaped out of this hospitable contrivance, cordially execrating the good old customs of our good old ancestors, and went and lay down in my cloak in the moonshine: this companion of the traveller's couch was nothing less than agreeable, cool, and pure.

Here is a chasm in the manuscript, or rather the substance of that portion has been inserted in my other works. After a journey of several days, I reached the river Genesee. On the other side of that river I witnessed the miracle of the rattle-snake attracted by the sound of a flute: * farther on I met with a family of Savages, and passed the night with that family, at some distance from the fall Of Niagara. The account of that meeting, and the description of that night are to be found in the History of Revolutions and the Spirit of Christianity.

The Savages about the fall of Niagara in the English territory, were appointed to guard the frontier of Upper Canada in that quarter. They came to meet us armed with bows and arrows, and prevented us from passing.

I was obliged to send the Dutchman to Fort Niagara to solicit the governor's permission to enter the territory of his Britannic Majesty: this wrung my heart a little, for I bethought me that France had formerly commanded in these countries. My guide returned with the permission, which I still preserve: it is signed “Gordon, captain.” Is it not singular that I should have found the same English name over the door of my cell in Jerusalem?

I sojourned two days in the village of the Savages. The manuscript furnishes in this place the minute of a letter which I wrote to one of my friends in France. It is as follows:

Letter written among the Savages of Niagara.

I must relate to you what occurred yesterday morning among my hosts. The grass was still covered with dew; the wind wafted perfume from the forests; the leaves of the wild mulberry-tree were laden with the cocoons of a species of silk-worm, and the cotton-plants of the country, reversing their expanded capsules, resembled white rosebushes.

The women, assembled at the foot of a thick purple beech, were engaged in various occupations. Their youngest infants wore slung in hammocks to the branches of the tree: the breeze of the forest rocked these aërial cradles with an almost insensible motion. The mothers rose from time to time to see if their children were asleep, or if they had been awakened by the multitude of birds which were singing and fluttering about. It was a charming scene.

The interpreter and I were sitting apart with the 0134 128 warriors, to the number of seven; we had each a long pipe in our mouths: two or three of these Indians spoke English.

Some boys were at play at a little distance; but amid their sports, whether leaping, running, or throwing balls, they uttered not a word. You heard none of the stunning clamour of European children: these young Savages bounded like kids, and were silent as they. A great boy seven or eight years old, would sometimes leave his companions, go to his mother for suck, and then return to his sports with his playfellows.

The child is never weaned by force: after making a meal on other food, it drains the mother's breast, like the cup which is emptied at the conclusion of a feast. If the whole nation were perishing with hunger, the child would still find a source of life in the maternal bosom. This custom is probably one of the causes which prevent the American tribes from increasing so fast as European families.

The fathers spoke to the children, and the children answered the fathers. I inquired of my Dutchman the purport of this colloquy, and he gave me the following account of it:

A Savage of about thirty called his son, and begged him not to leap so violently. The boy replied, 0135 129 It is reasonable —and returned to his play without heeding in the least what his father had said to him.

The boy's grandfather called him in his turn, and said, Do such a thing , and the little boy did it. Thus he disobeyed his father who requested , and obeyed his grandfather who commanded. The father is held in but little respect by the child.

The latter is never chastised: he acknowledges no other authority than that of age and his mother. The crime reputed most heinous and unexampled among the Indians is that of a son rebelling against his mother. When she becomes old he supports her.

With regard to the father, while he is young the child cares not for him; but when he is further advanced in years his son honours him, not as a father, but as an old man, that is to say, a person of experience, and capable of giving good advice.

This method of bringing up children in all their independence might be expected to render them ill-tempered and capricious; the children of the Savages, however, are neither the one nor the other, because they wish for nothing but what they know they can obtain. If a child happens to cry for something which his mother does not possess, he is told to go and take that thing wherever he has seen it: now, as he is not the stronger, and is sensible VOL. I. K 0136 130 of his weakness, he forgets the object which he coveted. If the young Savage obeys nobody, nobody obeys him—herein consists the whole secret of his gaiety or of his reason.

The Indian children never quarrel or fight: they are neither noisy, intermeddling, nor peevish: in their look they have a something serious as happiness, noble as independence.

We could not bring up our youth in this manner; we should first be obliged to get rid of our vices: now, we find it easier to bury them in the hearts of our children, merely taking care to prevent these vices from appearing externally.

When the young Indian feels a fondness for fishing, hunting, war, politics, springing up within him, he studies and imitates the arts which he sees his father practise: he then learns to sew a canoe, to make a net to manage the bow, the musket, the tomahawk, the hatchet, to fell a tree, to build a hut, to explain the belts. What is an amusement for the son becomes an authority for the father: the right conferred by the strength and intelligence of the latter is acknowledged, and this right raises him by degrees to the power of Sachem.

The girls enjoy the same liberty as the boys: they do nearly what they please, but they stay more with 0137 131 their mothers, who instruct them in household duties. When an Indian girl has misbehaved, her mother merely sprinkles water in her face, and says, Thou art a disgrace to me. This reproach seldom fails of producing the desired effect.

We remained till noon at the door of the hut: the sun had become scorching. One of our hosts advanced toward the little boys, and said to them, Children, the sun will eat your heads, go and sleep,—'Tis very true ,— they all exclaimed; and by way of manifesting their obedience, they continued their play, after they had admitted that the sun would eat their heads.

But the women rose, one showing sagamité in a wooden bowl, another a favourite fruit, and a third unrolling a mat to lie down upon: they called the obstinate troop, subjoining to each name some term of endearment. The children instantly flew, like a covey of birds, to their mothers. The women laid hold of them laughing, and each, with considerable difficulty carried off her son, who ate in his mother's arms what she had given him.

Adieu: I know not if this letter, written amidst the forests, will ever reach you.

From the village of the Indians I proceeded to K 2 0138 132 the fall of Niagara: the description of this cataract, placed at the end of Atala is too well known to be repeated here; besides, it forms part of a note also in the History of Revolutions: but in the same note there are some particulars so intimately connected with the history of my Travels, that it may not be amiss to introduce them in this place.

At the fall of Niagara, the Indian ladder which was formerly there being broken, I resolved, in spite of the remonstrances of my guide, to venture upon the descent to the bottom of the cataract by a peaked rock two hundred feet in height. Notwithstanding the roaring of the fall and the tremendous abyss which boiled below me, I was not at all dizzy, and arrived within forty feet of the bottom. Here the smooth and vertical rock presented neither root nor cleft for a footing. I remained suspended at full length by my hands, unable either to get up or down; I felt my fingers, tired of supporting the weight of my body, ready to give way, and inevitable death stared me in the face. Few men have in their lives passed two such minutes as I then numbered, hanging over the abyss of Niagara. At length my hands opened, and I fell. By the most unparalleled good fortune, I found myself on the solid rock, where I should have expected to be dashed 0139 133 into a thousand pieces, and yet I did not feel much hurt. I was within half an inch of the abyss, and had not rolled into it: but when the cold from the water began to penetrate me, I perceived that I had not come off so well as I had at first imagined. I felt an insupportable pain in my left arm; I had broken it below the elbow. My guide, who was looking at me from above, and to whom I made a sign, ran and fetched some Savages, who with great difficulty drew me up with ropes of birch bark, and carried me to their habitation.

This was not the only risk that I ran at Niagara: on my arrival I had repaired to the fall, having the bridle of my horse twisted sound my arm. While I was stooping to look down, a rattlesnake stirred among the neighbouring bushes; the horse was startled, reared, and ran back towards the abyss. I could not disengage my arm from the bridle, and the horse, more and more frightened, dragged me after him. His fore-legs were all but off the ground, and squatting on the brink of the precipice, he was upheld merely by the bridle. I gave myself up for lost, when the animal, himself astonished at this new danger, made a fresh effort, threw himself forward with a pirouette, and sprang to the distance of ten feet from the edge of the abyss.

I had come off with a simple fracture of my arm: a couple of laths, a bandage, and a sling, were sufficient for my cure. My Dutchman would not go any farther; I paid him, and he returned home. I made a fresh bargain with some Canadians of Niagara, who had part of their family at St. Louis, in the Illinois, on the Mississipi.

The manuscript now presents a general survey of the lakes of Canada.

The surplus waters of Lake Erie are discharged into Lake Ontario, after they have formed the fall of Niagara. The Indians found about Lake Ontario white balsam in the balsam-tree, sugar in the maple, the walnut, and the cherry-tree, a red dye in the bark of the perousse , and roofs for their huts in the bark of the white wood: they found vinegar in the red berries of the vinegar-shrub, honey and cotton in the flowers of the wild asparagus, oil for their hair in the sunflower, and a panacea for wounds in the universal plant. The Europeans have superseded these gifts of nature by the productions of art: the Savages have disappeared.

Lake Brie is more than a hundred leagues in circumference. The nations which peopled its banks were exterminated two centuries ago by the Iroquois; a few roving hordes afterwards infested the countries in which they durst not settle.

It is a frightful thing to see the Indians venturing in bark boats on this lake, which is subject to tremendous storms. Hanging their Manitous to the stern of their canoes, they dash, amid whirlwinds of snow, into the agitated billows. These 0142 136 billows, on a level with the gunwale of the canoes, or rising above it, seem on the point of engulphing them. The dogs of the hunters, standing up with their fore-paws on the edge of the canoe, howl piteously; while their masters, maintaining a profound silence, strike the water in cadence with their paddles. The canoes advance in a line: at the prow of the first stands a chief, who cries incessantly Oah , the first vowel in a high, short note, and the second in a low, long note: in the last canoe there is another chief, also standing, and working a great oar in the form of a tiller. The other warriors are seated cross-legged at the bottom of the canoes: through the fog, the snow, and the waves, you perceive nothing but the feathers with which the heads of these Indians are adorned, the outstretched necks of the howling dogs, and the shoulders of the two Sachems, pilot and augur: you would take them for the gods of these waters.

Lake Erie is famous also for its serpents. In the western part of this lake, from Viper Islands to the shores of the continent, over a space of more than twenty miles are spread large water-lilies: in summer the leaves of these plants are covered with serpents entwined in one another. When the reptiles happen to move in the sunshine, you see them roll their 0143 137 rings of azure, purple, gold, and ebony; in these horrible knots, doubly and trebly formed, you can distinguish nothing but sparkling eyes, tongues with a triple dart, throats of fire, tails armed with stings or rattles, which whisk about in the air like whips. A continual hissing, a noise similar to the rustling of dead leaves in a forest, issue from this impure Cocytus.

The strait which opens a passage from Lake Huron to Lake Erie derives its celebrity from its woods and pastures. Lake Huron abounds in fish: the artikamegue , and trout weighing two hundred pounds, are caught in it. The island of Mantimoulin was once famous: it contained the remnant of the nation of the Ontaways, who were descendants, according to the Indians, of the Great Beaver. It has been observed that the water of Lake Huron, as well as that of Lake Michigan, increases for seven months, and diminishes in the like proportion during the next seven. All these lakes have a more or less perceptible ebb and flood.

Lake Superior occupies a space of more than four degrees, between the 46th and 50th degrees of north latitude, and not fewer than eight degrees, between the 87th and 95th of longitude west from the meridian of Paris; that is to say, this inland 0144 138 sea is one hundred leagues broad, and about two hundred in length, with a circumference of nearly six hundred leagues.

Forty rivers pour their waters into this immense basin: two of them, the Allinipigon and the Michipicroton, are considerable streams; the latter rises in the vicinity of Hudson's Bay.

The lake is adorned with islands; among others, Maurepas Island, off the north coast; Pontchartrain Island, off the east coast; Minong Island, toward the southern part; and the island of the Great Spirit, or Island of Souls, in the west. The latter might constitute the territory of a state in Europe, measuring thirty-five leagues in length, and twenty in width.

The remarkable capes of the lake are: Point Kioucounan, a kind of isthmus running two leagues into the waters; Cape Minabeaujou, resembling a lighthouse; Cape Thunder, near the bay of the same name; and Cape Rochedebout, which rises perpendicularly from the beach, like a broken obelisk.

The south shore of Lake Superior is low, sandy, and destitute of shelter; the north and east coasts, on the contrary, are mountainous, and exhibit a succession of sharp-pointed rocks. The lake itself 0145 139 is scooped in the rock. Through its green and transparent water the eye discerns, at the depth of more than thirty and forty feet, masses of granite of different shapes, and some of which look as if they had been recently sawed by the hand of the workman. When the voyager, leaving his canoe to drift along, and leaning over its edge, contemplates the crest of these submarine mountains, he cannot enjoy the sight for any length of time; his eyes become dim, and he turns dizzy.

Struck with the extent of this reservoir of water, the imagination expands with space: agreeably to the common instinct of all mankind, the Indians have attributed the formation of this immense basin to the same power which rounded the vault of the firmament: to the admiration excited by the view of Lake Superior they have added the solemnity of religious ideas.

These Savages have been induced to make this lake the principal object of their worship by the air of mystery which Nature has been pleased to attach to one of her grandest works. Lake Superior has an irregular ebb and flood: its waters, during the most intense heats of summer, are as cold as ice six inches beneath their surface; and they rarely 0146 140 freeze in the severe winters of these climates even when the sea itself is frozen.

The productions of the earth round the lake vary according to the different soils: on the east coast nothing is to be seen but forests of rickety maples, blown down, and growing almost horizontally in the sand; to the north, wherever the solid rock leaves some dell, some slope of a valley for vegetation, you see gooseberry-bushes without thorns, and garlands of a species of vine bearing fruit resembling the raspberry, but of a paler rose-colour. Single pines arise here and there from among those shrubs.

Among the great number of landscapes presented by these solitudes, two are particularly worthy of notice.

On entering Lake Superior by the Strait of St. Mary you perceive on the left some islands curving in a semicircle, and which, being all planted with flowering trees, look like nosegays standing in water. On the right the capes of the continent project into the waves; some of them are clothed with a greensward which blends its verdure with the double azure of the sky and the water; others, composed of a red and white sand, resemble stripes 0147 141 of inlaid-work at the bottom of the bluish lake. Between these long bare capes are interspersed blunt promontories, covered with woods, which are reflected upside down in the crystal mirror beneath. Sometimes, the trees standing close together, form a thick curtain along the shore; at others, farther apart, they border the land like avenues; at such times their distant trunks permit the eye to obtain glimpses of wonderful views. The plants, the rocks, the colours, diminish in size or change their tints according as the landscape recedes from or draws nearer to the sight.

These islands in the south, and these promontories in the east, inclining to the west towards one another, form and embrace a vast road, which is calm when tempests convulse the other parts of the lake. Here sport myriads of fish and water-fowl: the black duck of Labrador perches on the point of a breaker, the waves environ this anchorite in mourning with festoons of their white foam; divers plunge beneath the waters, re-appear, and again vanish; the bird of the lakes skims the surface of the waves, and the kingfisher quickly flaps his azure wings to fascinate his prey.

Beyond the islands and promontories enclosing this road, at the outlet of the Strait of St. Mary, the 0148 142 eye discovers the liquid and boundless plains of the lake. The moveable surfaces of these plains rise and are gradually lost in the distance: from emerald green they pass to a light blue, then to ultramarine, and then to indigo. Each tint dissolving into the next, the last terminates at the horizon, where it joins the sky by a bar of dark azure.

This landscape, on the lake itself, is properly a summer landscape; it ought to be enjoyed when Nature is calm and smiling: the second landscape is, on the contrary, a winter landscape; it requires a tempestuous and naked season.

Near the river Allinipigon rises an enormous and isolated rock, which overlooks the lake. To the west stretches a chain of rocks, some lying, others planted in the soil, these lifting into the air their bare peaks, those their rounded summits; their green, red, and black sides retain the snow in their clefts, and thus blend the colour of alabaster with that of the granites and porphyries.

There grow some of those trees of pyramidal form which Nature intermingles with her grand architecture and her grand ruins, as columns to her edifices, standing or fallen: the pine shoots up from the plinths of rocks, and plants bristling with icicles hang drooping from their cornices. You might 0149 143 take them for the ruins of a city in the deserts of Asia: pompous monuments, which before their fall towered above the woods, and which now bear forests rests on their humbled tops.

Behind the chain of rocks which I have just described, a narrow valley runs like a trench: in the middle of it flows the River of the Tomb. This valley presents in summer nothing but a sickly yellow moss; stripes of fungi, with crowns of different colours, border the interstices of the rocks. In this desert covered with snow, the hunter discovers in winter the birds or the quadrupeds clothed in white by the cold merely by the coloured bills of the former, and the black muzzles and red eyes of the latter. At the extremity of the valley, and far beyond it, you discern the tops of the hyperborean mountains, in which God has placed the sources of the four mightiest rivers of North America. Born in the same cradle, they discharge themselves, after a course of twelve hundred leagues, at the four points of the horizon, into four oceans: the Mississipi is lost to the south in the Gulph of Mexico; the St. Lawrence pours, to the east, into the Atlantic; the Ontaway empties itself, to the north, into the Polar Sea; and West River rolls in the direction from 0150 144 which it is named, the tribute of its waters to the ocean of Nontouka. *

This survey of the lakes is followed by the commencement of a journal which bears no other indication than that of the hours.

The sky is serene over my head, the water limpid beneath my canoe, which scuds before a light breeze. On my left rise peaked hills, flanked with rocks, from which hang convolvuluses with white and blue flowers, festoons of bignonias, long grasses, and rock-plants of all colours: on my right extend immense pastures. As the canoe advances, new scenes and new points of view open upon me: sometimes they are solitary and smiling valleys, at others naked hills; here, it is a forest of cypresses, the dark porticoes of which meet the eye; there, it is a light wood of maples, through which the sunshine plays as through lace.

Primitive liberty, at last I have found thee! I pass like that bird which flies before me, which pursues its way at random, and is embarrassed only by the choice of shades. Here I am such as the Almighty created me, sovereign of nature, borne triumphant over the waters. While the inhabitants of the rivers accompany my canoe, those of the air sing me their hymns, the beasts of the earth salute me, and the forests bow their tops as I pass. Is it on the brow of the man of society or on mine that VOL. I I. 0152 146 the seal of our immortal origin is stamped? Run and shut yourselves up in your cities; go, submit to your petty laws; earn your bread in the sweat of your brow; live on the pittance of poverty; slaughter one another for a word, for a master; doubt the existence of God, or adore him under superstitious forms — while I will roam my wilds; not a single throb of my heart shall be repressed, not one of my thoughts shall be fettered: I shall be free as nature, acknowledging no sovereign but Him who lighted up the suns, and who with a single motion of his hand set all the worlds revolving in their spheres. *

Seven P.M.

We crossed the fork of the river, and followed the south-east branch. We sought along the channel for a creek where we might land. We entered one which runs under a promontory covered with a wood of tulip-trees. Having drawn our canoe ashore, some collected dry branches for our fire, while others prepared the ajoupa. I took my gun, and penetrated into the neighbouring wood.

I had not proceeded a hundred paces into it before I perceived a flock of turkeys busily feeding on the berries of ferns, and the fruit of the lote 0153 147 tree. These birds differ much from those of their family naturalized in Europe: they are larger; their plumage is slate-coloured, tipped on the neck, the back, and the extremities of the wings, with a copper-red; and according to the reflection of the light it glistens like burnished gold. These wild turkeys frequently assemble in large numbers. At night they perch on the tops of the highest trees: at dawn, their repeated cries are heard from these lofty posts, but soon after sun-rise their clamour ceases, and they fly down into the forests.

We rose very early, to take advantage of the cool of the morning; the baggage was carried on board, and we unfurled our sail. On either side we had high lands covered with forests, the foliage of which displayed all imaginable hues—scarlet passing to red, a dark yellow to a bright gold colour, reddish brown to light brown, green, white, azure, in a thousand tints more or less faint, more or less bright. Close to us there was all the variety of the prism; at a distance, in the windings of the valley, the colours were blended and lost in velvet-like grounds. The trees harmonized their forms together, some spreading out into the shape of a fan, others shootup into cones, others swelling into globes, and others being cut into pyramids: but we must be content 0154 148 with the enjoyment of this sight, without attempting to describe it.

Ten A. M.

We advance slowly; the breeze has ceased, and the channel begins to be narrow. The sky is becoming overcast.

Noon.

It is impossible to ascend higher in the canoe; we must now change our mode of travelling: we shall drag our canoe ashore, take out our provisions, arms, and furs for the night, and penetrate into the woods.

Three o'clock.

Who can describe the feelings that are experienced on entering these forests, coeval with the world, and which alone afford an idea of the creation, such as it issued from the hands of the Almighty. The light falling from above, through a veil of foliage, diffuses through the recesses of the wood a changing and moveable chiaro-scuro, which gives to objects a fantastic grandeur. Every now and then you have to climb over prostrate trees, upon which grow other generations of trees. In vain I seek an outlet in these wilds; deceived by a stronger light, I advance through grass, nettles, mosses, lianes, and deep mould, composed of the remains of vegetables; 0155 149 but I arrive only at an open spot formed by some fallen pines. The forest soon becomes darker again; the eye discerns nothing but the trunks of oaks and walnut-trees, succeeding each other, and appearing to stand closer and closer according to their distance: the idea of infinity presents itself to my mind.

Six o'clock.

Having got a glimpse of another light spot, I proceeded towards it. Here I am at the point itself:—a spot more melancholy than the forests by which it is surrounded. It is an ancient Indian cemetery. Let me rest awhile in this double solitude of death and nature: is there an asylum in which I should like better to sleep for ever?

Seven o'clock.

Being unable to get out of these woods we have encamped in them. The reflexion of our fire extends to a distance: illumined from below by the scarlet light, the foliage looks as if tinged with blood; the trunks of the nearest trees rise like columns of red granite; but the more distant, scarcely reached by the light, resemble in the depths of the wood pale phantoms ranged in a circle on the margin of profound night.

Midnight.

The fire begins to die away; the circle of its light diminishes. I listen: an awful calm rests upon these forests; you would say that silence succeeds silence. In vain I strive to hear in a universal tomb some noise indicative of life. Whence proceeds that sigh? from one of my companions: he expresses pain, though asleep. Thou livest then, thou sufferest-such is man!

Half past Twelve.

The repose continues, but the decrepid tree snaps asunder: it falls. The forests re-bellow; a thousand voices are raised. The sounds soon subside; they die away in almost imaginary distances: silence again pervades the desert.

One A. M.

Here comes the wind; it runs over the tops of the trees; it shakes them as it passes over my head. Now it is like the wave of the sea, sadly breaking against the shore.

Sounds have awakened sounds. The forest is all harmony. Are they the full tones of the organ that I hear, while lighter sounds wander through vaults of verdure? A short silence succeeds; the aerial music begins again: every where soft complaints, murmurs, which comprize within themselves 0157 151 other murmurs; each leaf speaks a different language, each blade of grass has its particular note.

An extraordinary noise is heard: it proceeds from that frog which imitates the bellowing of the bull. From all parts of the forest, the bats, clinging to the foliage, raise their monotonous voices: you might fancy that you heard a continued knell, or the tolling of the funeral bell. Every thing conveys to us some idea of death, because that idea is at the bottom of life.

Ten A. M.

We have resumed our route, and descended to an inundated valley: branches of oak-willow extended from one bunch of reed to another served us for a bridge to cross the morass. We are cooking our dinner at the foot of a hill covered with wood, which we shall presently climb, to look out for the river that we are in quest of.

One o'clock.

We are again pursuing our course: the moorgame promise us a good supper this evening.

The road becomes steep, the trees rare; a slippery heath covers the side of the mountain.

Six o'clock.

We have reached the summit: below us nothing is to be seen but the tops of the trees. A few 0158 152 isolated crags rise out of this ocean of verdure, like elevated rocks above the surface of the sea. The carcase of a dog, hanging from a pine branch, indicates an Indian sacrifice offered to the Spirit of this desert. A torrent precipitates itself at our feet, and presently unites with a small river.

Four A. M.

The night has been peaceful. We have resolved to return to our boat, because we have no hope of finding a way through these woods.

Nine o'clock.

We breakfasted beneath an aged willow, quite covered with convolvuluses, and eaten up by large toadstools. But for the mosquitoes this place would have been very agreeable: we were obliged to make a great smoke with green wood to drive away our enemies. The guides announced a visit from some travellers, who might be about two hours' march from the place where we were. This acuteness of hearing is absolutely wonderful; many an Indian can hear the steps of another Indian at the distance of four or five hours' journey, by clapping his ear to the ground. In about two hours we were actually joined by a family of Savages, who set up a shout of welcome, which we joyfully answered.

Noon.

Our visiters inform us that they have heard us for two days past; that they knew we belonged to the white skins, as the noise which we made in our march was greater than the noise made by red skins. I inquired the cause of this difference, and was told that it arose from the mode of breaking the branches and clearing a way. The white also reveals his race by the heaviness of his tread; the sound which he produces does not progressively increase: the European turns in the wood; the Indian proceeds in a right line.

The Indian family is composed of two women, a child, and three men. Returning together to the boat, we have made a great fire on the bank of the river. Mutual kindness prevails among us: the women have cooked our supper, consisting of salmon-tront and a large turkey. We warriors smoke and chat together. Tomorrow our visiters will assist to carry our canoe to a river which is but five miles from the spot where we are.

Here finishes the journal. A detached page which follows it transports us into the midst of the Apalachian mountains. It is subjoined:

The Apalachian mountains are not, like the Alps 0160 154 and the Pyrennees, mountains piled irregularly upon one another, rising above the clouds, and having their summits covered with snow. To the west and north they resemble perpendicular walls of some thousand feet, from the top of which descend the rivers that fall into the Ohio and Mississipi. In this sort of great chasm are seen paths winding with the torrents through the precipices. These paths and these torrents are bordered by a species of pine, the top of which is of a sea-green colour, while the trunk, almost lilach, is dotted with dark spots produced by a flat black moss.

Towards the south and east the Apalachians are scarcely deserving of the name of mountains: they gradually subside to the tract bordering on the Atlantic; they pour upon this tract other rivers which fecundate forests of evergreen oaks, maple, walnut, mulberry, chesnut, pines, firs, copalms, magnolias, and a thousand species of flowering shrubs.

After this short fragment comes a piece of considerable length on the course of the Ohio and of the Mississipi, from Pittsburg to Natchez. This part opens with a description of the monuments of the Ohio. The Spirit of Christianity contains a passage and a note respecting the monuments; but 0161 what I have written in that passage and note differs in many points from what I here submit to the reader. *

Figure to yourself remains of fortifications or buildings, occupying an immense space. Four kinds of works are remarkable in them: square bastions, moons, half moons, and tumuli. The bastions, moons, and half-moons, are regular; the ditches broad and deep, the entrenchment made of earth, with parapets in the form of inclined planes; but the angles of the glacis correspond 0162 156 with those of the ditches, and are not inscribed like the parallelogram in the polygon.

The tumuli are burial-places of a circular form. Some of these graves have been opened; at the bottom has been found a coffin composed of four stones, in which were human bones. Over this coffin was another coffin, containing another skeleton, and so on to the top of the pyramid, which might be from twenty to thirty feet high.

These buildings cannot be the work of the present nations of America: the people who erected them must have possessed a knowledge of the arts, superior even to that of the Mexicans and the Peruvians.

Ought these to be attributed to the modern Europeans? I find no account of any that penetrated in ancient times into the Floridas, but Ferdinand de Soto; and he never advanced beyond a village of the Chickasaws on one of the branches of the Mobile: besides, with a handful of Spaniards, how could he have thrown up all that earth, and for what purpose?

Was it the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians of old who, in their trading voyages round Africa and to the Cassiterides, were driven to the continent of America? In this case, before they had penetrated further westward they must have formed settlements on the coasts of the Atlantic; how happens it then that we find not the least trace of their passage in Virginia, Georgia, and the Floridas? Neither the Phoenicians nor the Carthaginians interred their dead as the dead are interred in the fortifications of the Ohio. The Egyptains did something of the sort, but the munimies were embalmned, and those in the American tombs are not: it cannot be alleged that the ingredients were wanting here: gums, resins, camphors, salts, abound every where.

May Plato's Atlantis have once existed? Was Africa ever joined in unknown ages to America? Be this as it may, a nation of which we know nothing, a nation superior to the Indian tribes of the present day, has dwelt in these wilds. What nation was this? What revolution has swept it away? When did this event happen? Questions which launch us into the immensity of the past, in which nations are swallowed up like dreams.

The works of which I am treating are situated at the mouth of the great Miami, at that of the Muskingum, at the Creek of the Tombs, and on one of the branches of the Scioto; those which border the latter river occupy a space of more than two hours' march, descending towards the Ohio. In Kentucky, along the Tenessee, among the Siminoles you cannot stir a step without perceiving some vestiges of these monuments.

The Indians agree in stating that when their forefathers came from the west, they found the works on the Ohio in the same state in which they appear at present. But the date of this migration of the Indians from west to east varies according to the nations. The Chickasaws, for example, arrived in the forests which cover the fortifications no more than two centuries ago; they were seven years in performing their journey, marching but once in each year, and taking with them horses which they stole from the Spaniards, before whom they retired.

Another tradition alleges that the works on the Ohio were erected by white Indians. These white Indians came, according to the red Indians, from the east; and when they left the shoreless lake (the sea), they were dressed like the white skins of the present day.

On this slight tradition has been founded the story that about the year 1170, Ogan, a Prince of Wales, or his son Madoc, embarked with a great number of his subjects, * and landed in an unknown

* This is merely a different version of the Icelandic traditions, and of the poetic stories of the Sagas.

It has likewise been asserted, that there are, at the sources of the Missouri, numerous and civilized nations dwelling in military inclosures, like those on the banks of the Ohio; that these, nations keep horses and other domestic quadruped; that they have towns and high roads; and that they are governed by kings. *

The religious tradition of the Indians relative to the monuments of their deserts does not coincide with their historical tradition. Amidst these works, say they, there is a cavern: this cavern is the abode of the Great Spirit; and in this cavern the Great Spirit created the Chickasaws. The country was 0166 160 then covered with water; seeing which the Great Spirit built walls of earth to keep the Chickasaws dry above them.

Let us proceed to the description of the course of the Ohio. The Ohio is formed by the junction of the Monongahela and the Alleghany; the former rising in the south, in the Apalachian or Blue Mountains; the latter in another chain of those mountains in the north between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario; by means of a short portage, the Alleghany communicates with the first-mentioned lake. The two rivers join below the fort formerly called Fort Duquesne, now Fort Pitt, or Pittsburg; their conflux is at the foot of a high hill of stone coal. In uniting their currents they lose their names, and are thenceforward known only by the appellation of Ohio, which signifies beautiful river , and to which it is justly entitled.

More than sixty streams roll their riches to this river; those whose currents run from the east and south spring from heights which divide the waters tributary to the Atlantic from such as descend to the Ohio and the Mississipi; and those which rise in the west and north flow from hills the double slope of which feeds the lakes of Canada and likewise the Mississipi and the Ohio.

The country through which the latter river flows presents in its general features a wide valley bordered by hills of equal height; but it differs in the details as you proceed down the stream.

Nothing can be more fertile than the lands watered by the Ohio: they produce, on the hills, forests of red pine, woods of laurel, myrtle, sugar-maple, and oaks of four kinds: the valleys furnish the walnut, the lote-tree, the ash, and the tupelo; the marshes bear the birch, the aspen, the poplar, and the bald cypress. The Indians make stuffs of the bark of the poplar; they eat the inner bark of the birch; they use the sap of the black alder to cure the fever and to drire away serpents; the oak supplies them with arrows, the ash with canoes.

The herbs and plants are exceedingly diversified: but those which cover the whole country are, buffalo-grass, seven or eight feet high, trefoil, wild oats or wild rice, and indigo.

Beneath a soil every where fertile, at the depth of five or six feet, you generally meet with a bed of white stone, the base of an excellent mould; but on approaching the Mississipi, you first find on the surface of the soil a stiff black earth, then a stratum of chalk of different colours, and below that whole woods of bald cypress, buried in the mud. VOL. I M

It is asserted, that near the banks of the Chanon, two hundred feet below the level of the water, characters have been seen traced on the sides of a precipice: it has been thence concluded that the water formerly ran at this level, and that unknown nations inscribed these mysterious letters as they passed along the river.

A sudden transition of temperature and climate is remarked on the Ohio: in the environs of the Canaway the bald cypress ceases to grow, the sassafras disappears, and forests of oak and elm become more frequent. Every thing assumes a different hue; the greens are darker and their tints more sombre.

On this river there may be said to be no more than two seasons: the leaves drop all at once in November; snow falls very soon afterwards; the northwest wind sets in, and winter commences. A dry cold, with a serene sky, continues till the month of March; the wind then changes to the north-east, and in less than a fortnight the trees, thickly powdered with hoar-frost, are seen covered with blossoms. Summer is blended with spring.

Game is abundant. Striped ducks, blue linnets, cardinal birds, and purple goldfinches, glisten amid the verdure of the trees; the whet-saw imitates the noise of a saw; the cat-bird mews; and the parrots, picking up a few words about the houses, repeat them in the woods. A great number of these birds subsist on insects: the green tobacco caterpillar, the worm of a species of white mulberry-tree, the fire-flies, and the water-spider, constitute their principal food; but the parrots assemble in large flocks, and plunder the fields after they are sown. A premium is given for every head of these birds, and a like premium is paid for the heads of squirrels.

The Ohio furnishes nearly the same kinds of fish as the Mississipi. It is very common to catch in it trout weighing from thirty to thirty-five pounds, and a species of sturgeon, the head of which is shaped like a paddle.

In descending the Ohio, you pass a small river called Big Bone Lick. In America the name of Lick is given to banks of a white and rather clayey earth, which the buffaloes are fond of licking, and in which they scoop hollows with their tongues. The excrements of those animals are so impregnated with the earth of the Lick, as to resemble lumps of lime. The buffaloes frequent the Licks for the sake of the salts which they contain; these salts cure the ruminating aninmals of the gripes occasioned by the crudity of the herbage. The soil of the valley of the Ohio is nevertheless not salt to the taste, but on the contrary extremely insipid. M 2

The lick of the Lick River is one of the largest that we are acquainted with: the vast roads which the buffaloes have trodden through the grass to come at it would be alarming, were it not well known that these wild bulls are the most peaceable of creatures. Part of the skeleton of a mammoth has been discovered in this Lick: the thigh-bone weighed seventy pounds; the ribs measured in their curve seven feet, and the scull three feet; the grinders were five inches broad and eight long, and the tusks fourteen inches from root to point.

Similar remains have been met with in Chili and in Russia. The Tartars pretend that the mammoth still exists in their country, about the mouths of the rivers: it is also asserted that hunters have pursued it to the west of the Mississipi. If the race of these animals is extinct, as there is every reason to believe, when did this destruction happen in countries so distant and in such different climates? We know nothing about it, and yet we are daily calling God to account for his works!

Big Bone Lick is about thirty miles from the river Kentucky, and nearly eight hundred from the Rapids of the Ohio. The banks of the river Ken 0171 165 tucky are perpendicular as walls. In this quarter are the following remarkable objects: a road made by the buffaloes which descends from the top of a hill, springs of bitumen which burns like oil, caverns adorned with natural columns, and a subterraneous lake which extends to an unknown distance.

At the confluence of the Kentucky and the Ohio, the scenery displays extraordinary grandeur: there, herds of roebucks gaze at you from the tops of the rocks as you pass along the river; here, clumps of aged pines shoot out horizontally over the water; smiling plains spread farther than the eye can reach, while curtains of forests veil the bases of mountains, the summits of which are seen in the distance.

This magnificent country is nevertheless called Kentucky, after the name of its river, which signifies river of blood. To its very beauty it is indebted for this inauspicious name. For more than two centuries the nations in the interest of the Cherokees and those which sided with the Iroquois contested the possession of its hunting-grounds. On this field of battle no Indian tribe durst settle: the Shawanoes, the Miamis, the Piankiciawoes, the Wayaoes, the Kaskasias, the Delawares, and the Illinois, came in turn to fight upon it. It was not till about the year 1752 that the Europeans began 0172 166 to know any thing positive concerning the valleys situated to the west of the Alleghany Mountains, at that time called the Endless Mountains, or Kittatinny, the Blue Mountains. Charlevoix had nevertheless treated in 1720 of the course of the Ohio; and Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg, had been marked out by the French at the junction of the two rivers which form the Ohio. In 1752 Lewis Evans published a map of the country situated on the Ohio and the Kentucky; James Macbride made an excursion into the desert in 1754; Jones Finley penetrated into it in 1757; Colonel Boone completely explored it in 1769, and settled in it with his family in 1775. It is asserted that Dr. Wood and Simon Kenton were the first Europeans who descended the Ohio in 1773 from Fort Pitt to the Mississipi. The national vanity of the Americans leads them to attribute to themselves the merit of most of the discoveries in the western parts of the United States: but it must not be forgotten, that the French of Canada and Louisiana, pushing on from the north and from the south, had traversed these regions long before the Americans, who came from the east and who were impeded in their route by the confederation of the Creeks and the Spaniards.

This country is beginning (1791) to be peopled 0173 167 by colonies from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Carolina, and by some of my unfortunate countrymen fleeing from the first storms of the revolution.

Will the European generations be more virtuous and more free on the banks of these rivers than the American generations which they will have exterminated? Will not slaves till the ground under the lash of their master, in these wilds where man roved in absolute independence? Will not prisons and gibbets replace the open cabin and the lofty oak which bears nothing but the neats nests of birds? Will not the very richness of the soil give rise to fresh wars? Will Kentucky cease to be the land of blood , and will the edifices of man embellish the banks of the Ohio more than the monuments of Nature?

From the Kentucky to the Rapids of the Ohio is computed to be about eighty miles. These Rapids are formed by a rock which extends beneath the water in the bed of the river; the descent of these Rapids is neither dangerous nor difficult, the average fall being no more than four or five feet in the space of a mile. The river is divided into two branches by groups of islands in the midst of the Rapids. In going with the stream you may pass 0174 168 without lightening the boats; but it is impossible to ascend without unloading at least in part.

The river at the Rapids is a mile broad. Gliding along this magnificent channel, the eye is arrested at some distance below the fall by an island covered with a wood of elms garlanded with lianes and wild vines.

To the north are seen the hills of Silver Creek: the foot of the first of these hills, which rises perpendicularly, is washed by the Ohio; its side, cut into large red facets, is decorated with plants. Other parallel hills, crowned with forests, rise behind the first: the farther they recede the more elevated they become, till at length their summits, tinged with light, appear of the colour of the sky and vanish.

To the south are savannahs studded with groves and covered with buffaloes, some reclined, others roving about, here grazing, there collected in a group, with heads inclined opposing one another. In the centre of this scene the Rapids, according as they are illumined by the sun's rays, blown back by the wind, or shaded by clouds, curl up into golden waves, whiten with foam, or roll on in a dark-looking current.

At the foot of the Rapid, there is an islet where substances become petrified. This islet in times of inundation is covered with water, and it is asserted that the petrifying quality, confined to this latter spot, does not extend to the neighbouring shore.

From the Rapids to the mouth of the Wabash is reckoned to be three hundred and sixteen miles. This river communicates by means of a portage of nine miles with the Miami of the lake which discharges itself into the Erie. The banks of the Wabash are high; a silver mine has been discovered on them.

Ninety-four miles below the mouth of the Wabash commences a swamp. From this swamp to the Yellow Banks, still descending the Ohio, is fifty-six miles: you leave on the left the mouths of two rivers, which are but eighteen miles distant from one another.

The first of these rivers is called the Cherokee or Tenessee; it springs from the mountains which separate the Carolinas and the Georgias from what is called the west country. It runs at first from east to west at the foot of the mountains; in this part of its course it is rapid and tumultuous: it then turns suddenly to the north; increased by several tributary streams, it expands and slackens its 0176 170 speed, as if to rest itself after a hasty flight of four hundred leagues. At its mouth it is six hundred fathoms broad, and at a place called the Great Bend it forms a sheet of water a league across.

The second river, the Shawano or the Cumberland, is the companion of the Cherokee or Tenessee. It passes its infancy in the same mountains as the latter, and descends with it into the plains. About the middle of it course, being obliged to quit the Tenessee, it hastens to traverse a desert country, and the twins, approaching toward the conclusion of their career, expire at no great distance from each other in the Ohio, which reunites them.

The country watered by these rivers is in general intersected by hills and valleys irrigated by a multitude of streams; yet there are some plains of reeds on the Cumberland, and several extensive marshes. The buffalo and the roebuck abound in this tract, which is still inhabited by savage nations, particularly the Cherokees. The burial-places of the Indians are frequent — melancholy evidences of the ancient populousness of these wilds.

From the Great Swamp on the Ohio to the Yellow Banks, the distance, as I have said, is computed at above fifty-six miles. The Yellow Banks are thus named from their colour; situated on the 0177 171 north bank of the Ohio, you pass close to them, because the water is deep on that side. The Ohio has almost every where a double bank, one for the season of inundations, the other for times of drought.

From the Yellow Banks to the place where the Ohio discharges its waters into the Mississipi, in latitude 36° 51′, is reckoned to be about thirty-five miles.

To form a correct idea of the confluence of the two rivers, you must imagine yourself setting out from a small island off the east bank of the Mississipi, with the intention of entering the Ohio. On the left you perceive the Mississipi, which at this place runs east and west, and which presents a vast agitated and tumultuous body of water; on the right the Ohio, brighter than crystal, calmer than the air, comes slowly from north to south, forming a graceful curve. In ordinary seasons semons they are each nearly two miles wide at the point of their meeting. The volume of their waters is nearly alike; the two rivers opposing an equal resistance, slacken their course, and appear to sleep together for some leagues in their common bed.

The point where their streams unite is elevated about twenty feet above them: composed of mud and sand, this swampy cape is covered with wild 0178 172 hemp, and a sort of vine which creeps along the ground or climbs the long stems of the buffalograss; holm-oaks also grow upon this tongue of land, which is not visible in great inundations. At such times the united waters of the two swollen rivers resemble a prodigious lake.

The confluence of the Missouri and the Mississipi presents a sight perhaps still more extraordinary. The Missouri is an impetuous stream, with a white and muddy current, which precipitates itself with violence into the clear and tranquil Mississipi. In spring it detaches from its banks vast masses of earth: these floating islands are hurried down the Missouri, bearing along with them their trees, covered with leaves or flowers; some standing, others half fallen, they exhibit a wonderful spectacle.

From the mouth of the Ohio to the iron-mines on the east bank of the Mississipi is not more than fifteen miles; from the iron-mines to the mouth of the Chickasaw river is called sixty-seven miles. It is one hundred and four miles further to the hills of Margette, watered by the little river of the same name: this place abounds with game.

Why do we find such charms in savage life? how is it that the man most accustomed to exercise his thinking faculty gladly forgets himself in the 0179 173 tumult of the chace? To rove through the woods, to pursue the wild animals, to build one's own hut, to kindle one's own fire, to cook one's repast with one's own hand near a streamlet, is certainly a very great pleasure. A thousand Europeans have known this pleasure, and never afterwards wished for any other; while the Indian, pent up in our cities, dies of regret. This proves that man is rather an active than a contemplative being; that in his natural condition he wants little; and that simplicity of soul is an inexhaustible source of happiness.

The distance from the river Margette to that of St. Francis is seventy miles. The latter received its name from the French, and it is still a place of rendezvous with their hunting parties.

It is computed to be one hundred and eight miles from the river St. Francis to the Akansas, or Arkansas. The Akansas are still strongly attached to us. Of all the Europeans my countrymen are most beloved by the Indians. This is owing to the gaiety of the French, to their brilliant valour, to their fondness for the chace, and indeed for the savage life; as if the highest degree of civilization approximated to the state of nature.

The river Akansas is navigable for canoes upward 0180 174 of four hundred and fifty miles: it runs through a fine country; its source seems to be concealed in the mountains of New Mexico.

From the river of the Akansas to that of the Yazous is one hundred and fifty-eight miles. This latter river is one hundred fathoms broad at its mouth. In the rainy season large boats may ascend the Yazous upwards of eighty miles: but in this space there is a portage, on account of a small cataract. The Yazous, the Chactaws, and the Chickasaws, formerly dwelt upon the different branches of this river. The Yazous formed but one tribe with the Natchez.

The distance of the Yazous from Natchez by the river is thus divided: from the quarters of the Yazous or Black Bayouk, thirty-nine miles; from Black Bayouk to Stone River, thirty miles; from Stone River to Natchez, ten miles.

From the quarters of the Yazous to Black Bayouk the Mississipi is full of islands, and makes long bends: its breadth is about two miles and its depth from eight to ten fathoms. It would be easy to diminish the distances by cutting through some of these windings. The distance from New Orleans to the mouth of the Ohio, which is but four hundred and sixty miles in a straight line, is eight hundred 0181 175 and fifty-six by the river. This trip might be shortened by at least two hundred and fifty miles.

From Black Bayouk to Stone River are seen stone quarries. These are the first that are met with between the mouth of the Mississipi and the little river which has been named after these quarries.

The Mississipi is subject to two periodical inundations, one in spring, the other in autumn. The first, which is the most considerable, begins in May and is over in June. The current of the river then runs five miles an hour; and the rate at which the counter-currents ascend is nearly the same—an admirable provision of Nature! since, but for these counter-currents, vessels could scarcely go up the river. * At this period the water rises to a great height, overflows the banks, but does not return to the river from which it came, like the water of the Nile: it remains upon the ground, or soaks into the soil, on which it deposits its fertilizing sediment.

The second flood is occasioned by the rains in October, it is not so considerable as that in spring. During these inundations the Mississipi carries along with it enormous floats of wood, and roars 0182 176 furiously. The ordinary velocity of the current of the river is about two miles an hour.

The somewhat elevated lands which border the Mississipi from New Orleans to the Ohio are almost all on the left bank; but these lands recede from or approach the channel more or less, sometimes leaving savannahs several miles in breadth between them and the river. The hills do not always run parallel to the shore; sometimes they diverge into radii at great distances, and present prospects of valleys planted with a thousand sorts of trees; at others they converge to the river, and form a multitude of capes which are reflected in the water. The right bank of the Mississipi is flat, swampy, and uniform, with few exceptions: amidst the tall green or yellow canes which adorn it buffaloes are seen bounding, or the waters of a multitude of ponds appear covered with aquatic birds.

The soil about the river furnishes rhubarb, cotton, indigo, saffron, the wax-tree, sassafras, wild flax: a worm of the country spins a very strong silk. In some of the rivulets the drag brings up large pearl-oysters, but the pearls are not of a fine water. We know of one mine of quicksilver, another of lapis-lazuli, and some iron-mines.

The sequel of the manuscript contains descriptions of the country of the Natchez, and of the coarse of the Mississipi to New Orleans. These descriptions have been wholly transferred to The Natchez.

Immediately after the description of Louisiana there follow in the manuscript some extracts from Bartram's Travels, which I had translated with very great care. With these extracts are intermixed my corrections, my observations, my additions, my reflections, my own descriptions, nearly in the same manner as M. Ramond's notes to his translation of Coxe's Travels in Swisserland. But in my work the whole is more intimately blended, so that it is almost impossible for me to separate what is mine from what is Bartram's, or indeed frequently even to recognize it. I shall therefore leave this part just as it is.

We were propelled by a fresh breeze. The river was soon lost in a lake, which opened before us and formed a basin about nine leagues in circumference. Three islands rose from the centre of this lake; we sailed towards the largest, where we arrived at eight in the morning.

We landed on the skirt of a plain of a circular form, and drew our boat ashore under a clump of chesnut trees, which grew nearly in the water. We built our hut on a little eminence. The eastern breeze blew, and cooled the lake and the forests. We breakfasted on our cakes of maize-flour, and then dispersed over the island, some to shoot, and others to fish and to collect plants.

We remarked a species of hibiscus. This enormous herb, which grows in low, moist situations, shoots up to the height of ten or twelve feet, and terminates in an extremely sharp cone; the smooth 0185 179 leaves, slightly furrowed, are enlivened by beautiful crimson flowers, which may be seen at a great distance.

The agave vivipara grew still higher in the saltcreeks, and presented a forest of plants of thirty feet perpendicular. The ripe seed of this plant sometimes germinates on the parent stock, so that the young plant falls to the ground completely formed. As the agave vivipara frequently grows on the brink of running waters, its bare seeds, carried away by the current, would be liable to perish: Nature has developed them against these particular cases on the old plant, that they may be able to fix themselves by their small roots, the moment they drop from the maternal bosom.

The cyperus of America was common in the island. The tube of this cyperus resembles that of a knotty reed, and its leaf is like that of the leek: the Savages call it apoya matsi. The Indian women of loose life crush this plant between two stones, and rub their breasts and arms with it.

We traversed a prairie enamelled with the yellow-flowering jacobæa, the alcæa with bunches of rose-coloured blossoms, and the purple-crowned obelia. Light breezes, playing on the tops of these plants, N 8 0186 180 broke them into waves of gold, rose-colour, or purple, or formed long trenches in the verdure.

The seneka, which abounded in swampy soils, resembled shoots of red osier in form and colour; some branches trailed along the ground, others shot up into the air: the seneka has a slightly bitter and aromatic taste. Beside it grew the convolvulus of the Carolinas, the leaf of which is like the head of an arrow. These two plants are found wherever there are rattlesnakes: the first is a remedy for their bite, the second is so powerful that the Savages, after they have rubbed themselves with it, handle those formidable reptiles with impunity. The Indians relate, that the Great Spirit, taking compassion on the bare-legged warriors of the red skin, himself sowed these salutary plants, in spite of the remonstrances of the souls of the serpents.

We found the serpentaria on the roots of the great trees; the tree for tooth-ache, the trunk and thorny branches of which are covered with protuberances as large as pigeons' eggs; the arctosa or canneberge, the red cherry of which grows among the mosses, and cures the liver complaint. The black alder, which possesses the property of driving away vipers, grew vigorously in the stagnant waters covered with rust.

An unlooked-for spectacle met our view: we discovered an Indian ruin: it was situated on a hillock, on the margin of the lake; we remarked on the left a cone of earth from forty to forty-five feet high; from this cone ran an ancient road which was carried through a magnificent grove of magnolias and evergreen oaks, and terminated in a savannah. Fragments of vases and various utensils were scattered here and there, in cohesion with fossils, shellfish, petrifactions of plants, and bones of animals.

The contrast of these ruins and the youth of Nature, these monuments of men in a wilderness into which we should have supposed that none had penetrated before us, deeply affected both heart and mind. What people bad inhabited this island? Their name, their race, the time of their existence, are alike unknown; they lived probably when the world which concealed them in its bosom was still unknown to the other three parts of the globe. The silence of this tribe is perhaps contemporaneous with the noise made by great European nations, which have, in their turn, sunk into silence, and left behind them nothing but ruins.

We examined these ruins: from the broken parts of the sandy tumulus sprang a species of poppy, 0188 182 with rose-coloured flower, hanging from an inclined stalk of a pale green. From the root of this poppy the Indians extract a narcotic liquor; the stem and the flower have an agreeable odour, which is communicated to the hand when you touch it. This plant was made to adorn the tomb of a Savage: its roots procure sleep, and the perfume of the flower, which survives the flower itself, is a pleasing image of the recollections which an innocent life leaves behind in the desert.

Pursuing our route and examining the mosses, the pendent grasses, the dishevelled shrubs, and all the train of plants of melancholy port, which love to decorate ruins, we observed a species of œnotherus pyramidalis, from seven to eight feet high, with oblong, dentated leaves, of a very dark green: its flower is yellow. In the evening this flower begins to open, and it completely expands during the night: morning finds it in all its lustre; about the middle of the forenoon it fades; at noon it falls: it lives only a few hours, but those hours it passes under a serene sky. What signifies then the brevity of its life?

A few paces further was a patch of the mimosa or sensitive plant: in the songs of the Savages the 0189 183 soul of a young girl is frequently compared with this plant. *

On our return to our camp we crossed a brook thickly bordered with dionæas; a multitude of ephemera hummed about them. There were also at this parterre three sorts of butterflies: one white as alabaster; another black as the jay, with wings crossed by yellow stripes; the third having a forked tail, and four gold wings barred with blue and studded with purple dots. Attracted by the dionæas, these insects alighted upon them; but no sooner had they touched the leaves than they closed and imprisoned their prey.

After returning to our ajoupa we went a-fishing to make amends for our ill-luck in shooting. Embarking in the canoe, with nets and lines, we coasted the eastern part of the island, bordered with seaweed, and along wooded capes. The trout was so greedy that we caught it with unbaited hooks: the fish, called the gold-fish, was in abundance. Nothing can be more beautiful than this little king of the waters: it is about five inches long; its head is 0190 184 of the colour of ultramarine; the sides and belly sparkle like fire; a brown longitudinal stripe runs along its flanks; the iris of its large eyes shines like burnished gold. This fish is carnivorous.

At some distance from the shore, in the shade of a bald cypress, we observed small pyramids ofmud rising from the bottom of the water and reaching to the surface. A legion of gold-fish made in silence their approaches to these citadels. All at once the water boiled up, and the gold-fish fled. Crabs, armed with shears, issuing from the insulted spot, overthrew their brilliant enemies; but the dispersed bands soon returned to the charge, made the besieged give way in their turn, and the brave but slow-motioned garrison retired backward to recruit itself in the fortress.

The crocodile, floating like the trunk of a tree, the trout, the pike, the perch, the cannelet, the bass, the bream, the drum-fish, the gold-fish, all mortal enemies to each other, were sporting pell-mell in the lake, and seemed to have made a truce, that they might enjoy together the beauty of the evening: the azure fluid was painted with their changing colours. The water was so limpid that it seemed as though you could have touched with 0191 185 your finger the actors in this scene, who were frisking at the depth of twenty feet in their grotto of crystal.

To regain the creek where we had formed our establishment, we had but to let ourselves float at the pleasure of the wind and water. The sun was near setting: in the fore-ground of the island appeared evergreen oaks, the horizontal branches of which formed a parasol, and azaleas, which glistened like net-work of coral.

In the rear of this fore-ground rose papayas, the most beautiful of all trees; their straight, grayish, and carved trunk, from twenty to twenty-five feet in height, supports a tuft of long ribbed leaves, resembling in their outline the graceful S of an antique vase. The pear-shaped fruit is ranged round the stem; you would take them for glass crystals: the entire tree looks like a column of chased silver, surmounted by a Corinthian urn.

Lastly, in the back-ground, the magnolias and the liquidambars rose gradually into the air.

The sun sank behind the curtain formed by the trees of the plain. As he descended, the play of light and shade threw a magical effect over the landscape; here, a ray, stealing through the dome of a great tree, shone like a carbuncle enchased in 0192 186 the dark foliage; there, the light, diverging between the trunk and the branches, cast lengthening columns and moveable trellises upon the greensward. In the sky there were clouds of every colour, some fixed, resembling huge promontories or old towers on the brink of a torrent, others floating in rose-coloured smoke, or in tufts of white silk. A moment sufficed to change the aërial scene: you then saw the mouths of flaming furnaces, rivers of lava, burning landscapes. The same tints were repeated without being confounded; flame parted from flame, pale yellow from pale yellow, violet from violet: all was brilliant, all enveloped, penetrated, saturated with light.

But Nature mocks the pencil of man: when you imagine that she has invested herself with her greatest beauty, she smiles and embellishes herself still more.

On our right were the Indian ruins, on our left our hunters' camp: the island expanded before us its landscapes engraved or modelled in the water. In the east, the moon, touching the horizon, seemed to rest motionless on the distant hills; in the west, the vault of heaven appeared to be melted into a sea of diamonds and sapphires, in which the sun, half-set, looked as though it were dissolving.

The brute animals were, like ourselves, attentive to this grand spectacle: the crocodile, turned towards the luminary of day, spouted from his open mouth the water of the lake in coloured jets; the pelican, perched on a withered bough, praised the author of nature in his way; while the stork soared to bless him above the clouds.

We too will praise thee, God of the universe, who lavishest around so many wonders! The voice of a man shall be raised with the voice of the wilderness: thou shalt distinguish the accents of the feeble son of woman, amid the harmony of the spheres which revolve at thy bidding, and the roaring of the abyss, the gates of which thou hast sealed.

On our return to the island, I made a hearty meal: fresh trout, with tops of canneberge for sauce, were a dish worthy of the table of a king: thus I was much greater than a king. Had Fate placed me upon a throne, and a revolution hurled me from it, instead of dragging on a miserable life in Europe, like a Charles or a James, I would have said to those who coveted it, “You long for my place: well, try your hands at the trade; you will find that it is not so agreeable. Cut one another's throats for my old cloak; I will go and enjoy in the 0194 188 forests of America that liberty which you have restored to me.”

We had a neighbour at our supper: a hole resembling the den of an otter was the habitation of a tortoise: the recluse came forth from her grotto, and gravely took a walk on the margin of the water. These tortoises differ considerably from the sea-tortoise; they have much longer necks. We did not molest the peaceful queen of the island.

After supper I went and sat down by myself on the shore. Nothing was to be heard but the continued sound of the flux and reflux of the lake along the beach: fire-flies shone in the shade, and were eclipsed when they passed through the moonlight. I fell into that kind of reverie which is known to all travellers: no distinct recollection of myself was left me; I felt myself living as a part of the great whole, and vegetating with the trees and the flowers. It is perhaps the most agreeable disposition for man; for even when he is happy, there is in his pleasure a sort of bitterness, a something which might be termed the sadness of felicity. The reverie of the traveller is a sort of fullness of heart and emptiness of head, which permits you to enjoy your existence in quiet. It is by thought that we 0195 189 disturb the felicity which God bestows on us; the soul is tranquil, the mind restless.

The Savages of Florida relate, that in the centre of a lake there is an island where dwell the most beautiful women in the world. The Muscogulges set out several times to attempt the conquest of the magic island; but the elysian retreat, fleeing before their canoes, at length disappeared—a natural image of the time which we lose in the pursuit of our chimeras. In this country was likewise the Spring of Youth. Who would wish to be young again?

Next morning before sun-rise we quitted the island, crossed the lake, and re-entered the river which we had descended to it. This river was full of alligators. These animals are not dangerous but in the water, and especially at the moment of landing. On shore a child may easily outstrip them by walking at an ordinary pace. To prevent ambushes, it is common to set fire to the grass and reeds: it is then a curious sight to see large tracts of water surmounted, as it were, by hair of flame.

When the crocodile of these regions has acquired its full growth, it measures from twenty to twenty-four feet from head to tail. Its body is as large as that of a horse. This reptile would have exactly 0196 190 the form of the common lizard, if its tail were not flattened on both sides like that of a fish. It is covered with scales which are ball-proof, excepting about the head and between the legs. The head is about three feet long; the nostrils are wide; the animal's upper jaw alone is moveable; it opens at a right angle upon the lower jaw: in the former are placed two large teeth like boar's tusks, which give the monster a terrible look.

The female kaïman lays on the ground eggs of a whitish colour, which she covers with grass and mud. These eggs, sometimes to the number of a hundred, form with the mud that buries them little hillocks four feet high and five in diameter at the base: the heat of the sun and the fermentation of the mud hatch the eggs. A female makes no distinction between her own eggs and those of another: she takes under her care all the broods of the sun. Is it not singular to find among the crocodiles the common children of Plato's republic?

The heat was oppressive: we navigated amidst swamps; our canoes leaked, the sun having melted the pitch with which they were caulked. Scorching gusts frequently burst upon us from the north: our hunters predicted a storm, because the savannah rat ran incessantly to and fro along the branches 0197 191 of the evergreen oak; the mosquitoes tormented us cruelly. Luminous meteors were seen in the low grounds.

We passed a very uncomfortable night, without ajoupa , on a peninsula formed by swamps: the moon and all objects were enveloped in a red fog. This morning the breeze failed, and we re-embarked with the intention of endeavouring to reach an Indian village some miles distant; but it was impossible for us to ascend the river long, and we were obliged to land on the point of a cape covered with trees, which commanded an immense view. Clouds are beginning to spring up from the northwestern horizon and slowly rising in the sky. We are making a shelter for ourselves with boughs in the best manner we can.

The sun becomes overcast; the first muttering of the thunder is heard; the crocodiles reply to it with a hollow roar, as one thunder-peal answers another. An immense column of clouds extends from north-east to south-east; the rest of the sky is of a dirty copper colour, semi-transparent, and tinged with the lightning. The wilderness illumined by a false day-light, the storm suspended 0198 192 over our heads and ready to burst, present a scene replete with grandeur.

The tempest commences. Figure to yourself a deluge of fire without wind and without water. The smell of sulphur fills the atmosphere. Nature is lighted as by the flames of a conflagration.

Now the cataracts of the abyss open; the drops of rain are not separate; a sheet of water unites the clouds and the earth.

The Indians say that the noise of thunder is caused by immense birds fighting in the air, and by the efforts of an old man to vomit a viper of fire. In proof of this assertion they show you trees which the lightning has branded with the likeness of a serpent. These storms frequently set fire to the forests; they continue to burn till the conflagration is stopped by the current of some river: these burned forests are converted into lakes and marshes.

The curlews, whose voices we hear in the atmosphere amidst the rain and the thunder, announce the conclusion of the storm. The wind rends the clouds, which fly shattered across the heavens; the thunder and the lightning attached to their flanks 0199 193 follow them; the air becomes cool and sonorous: no relic of the deluge is left but the drops of water which fall in pearls from the foliage of the trees. Our nets and travelling provisions float in the boats filled with water to their gunwales.

The country inhabited by the Creeks (the confederation of the Muscogulges, Siminoles, and Cherokees,) is enchanting. The ground is scooped at intervals into a multitude of basins, which are called wells , more or less spacious, more or less deep: they communicate by subterranean channels with the lakes, swamps, and rivers. Each of these wells is situated in the centre of a little hill planted with the finest trees, and the sides of which resemble those of a vase filled with pure water. In this water sport fish of brilliant colours.

In the rainy season the savannahs become a kind of lakes, out of which the little hills above mentioned rise like islands.

Cuscowilla, a Siminole village, is situated on a chain of gravelly hills, at the distance of four hundred fathoms from a lake: a wood of pines, standing apart from one another, and touching only at their tops, separate the town and the lake: between their trunks, as between columns, you perceive VOL. I O 0200 194 huts, the lake, and its shores, adjoining on one hand to forests, on the other to pastures. It is somewhat in this way that, as we are told, the ruins of Athens are seen between the isolated columns of the temple of Jupiter Olympius. *

It would be difficult to conceive any thing more beautiful than the environs of Apalachucla, the town of peace. From the river Chata-Uche the ground rises as it recedes to the western horizon, not by a uniform acclivity, but a sort of terraces placed one above another.

As you climb from terrace to terrace, the trees change according to the elevation of the ground: on the banks of the river they are oak-willows, laurels, and magnolias; higher up, sassafras and plane-trees; and the last terrace is planted with a forest of oaks, among which is remarked the species that has long white moss trailing from it. Bare and broken rocks rise above this forest.

Winding streams, descending from these rocks, run among flowers and verdure, or fall in sheets of crystal. When the spectator descries from the other side of the river Chata-Uche these vast terraces crowned by the architecture of the mountains, he would imagine that he beheld the temple of Nature 0201 195 and the magnificent flight of steps leading to this monument.

At the foot of this amphitheatre is a plain in which graze herds of European horned cattle, squadrons of horses of the Spanish breed, troops of stags and deer, and battalions of cranes and turkeys, which marble the green ground of the savannah with black and white. This association of wild and domestic animals, and the Siminole huts, where you perceive the progress of civilization amid Indian ignorance, contribute to give to this scene a character which is not to be found elsewhere.

Here finishes the Itinerary properly so called, or the account of the places visited; but there are still in various parts of the manuscript a multitude of particulars respecting the manners and customs of the Indians. These particulars I have collected into chapters, after carefully revising them, and bringing down my narrative to the present time. The thirty-six years which have elapsed since my Travels, have made great additions to our stores of knowledge, and produced many changes both in the Old and the New World; they ought also to have modified the ideas and corrected the opinions of the writer. O 2

There are two modes, equally faithful and unfaithful, of delineating the Savages of North America. One is to treat of their laws and manners only, without entering into the detail of their absurd customs, and of their habits, frequently so disgusting to civilized men. In this case you will see in them nothing but Greeks and Romans; for the laws of the Indians are grave, and their manners often charming.

The other mode consists in representing only the habits and customs of the Savages, without noticing their laws and manners: you then perceive nothing but smoky and infectious cabins, the haunts of a sort of apes who possess the gift of speech. Sidonius Apollinaris complained of being obliged “to listen to the harsh language of the Germans, and to associate with the Burgundian, who rubbed his hair with butter.”

I know not whether the cot of the elder Cato, in the country of the Sabines, was much cleaner than 0203 197 the hut of an Iroquois. The arch Horace might leave us in doubt on this point.

If, again, we give the same features to all the Savages of North America, we shall injure the likeness. The Savages of Louisiana and Florida differed in many points from the Savages of Canada. Without pretending to write a particular history of each tribe, I have given all that I know of the Indians under these heads:

Marriages, Children, Funerals; Harvests, Festivals, Dances, and Sports; The Year, the Division and Regulation of Time, the Natural Calendar; Medicine; Indian Languages; The Chace; War; Religion; Government.

A general conclusion exhibits America as it now appears.

There are two kinds of marriages among the Savages: the one is contracted by the mere consent of the parties, for a longer or shorter time, as agreed upon by themselves. When the term of the engagement expires, the couple separate: nearly of the same nature was the legal concubinage of Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries.

The second kind of marriage takes place likewise by virtue of the consent of the parties, but the relatives interfere. Though this marriage is not limited, like the other, to a certain number of years, still it may be dissolved. It has been remarked that among the Indians this second kind of marriage, the legimate marriage, was preferred by young females and old men, and the first by old women and young men.

When a Savage has resolved upon a legal marriage, he goes with his father to demand the girl of her parents. The father puts on garments which have never before been worn; he adorns his head with new feathers, washes the old painting from his face, lays on new colours, and changes the ring hung to his nose or ears; he takes in his right hand 0205 199 a calumet, the bowl of which is white and the tube blue, and decorated with the tail-feathers of birds. In his left hand he carries his bow unstrung, in the form of a staff. His son follows, laden with bear, beaver, and elk-skins: he carries also two bead necklaces of four rows each, and a live turtle-dove in a cage.

The suitors first repair to the oldest kinsman of the girl; they enter his hut, sit down on a mat before him, and the father of the young warrior addresses him. “There,” says he, “are skins! The two necklaces, the blue calumet, and the turtle-dove, ask thy daughter in marriage.”

If the presents are accepted, the match is concluded; for the consent of the grandfather, or of the oldest Sachem of the family, is of more importance than that of the father. Age is the source of authority among the Savages: the older a man is, the greater is his influence. According to the notions of these people, the divine power springs from the eternity of the Great Spirit.

Sometimes the old kinsman, though he accepts the presents, attaches some restriction to his consent. The applicants are apprized of this restriction, if, in taking three whiffs of the calumet, the smoker puffs out the smoke of the first, instead of swallowing it, as in the case of an unconditional assent.

From the hut of the oldest kinsman, the suitors proceed to the residence of the mother and the girl. When the latter has had unlucky dreams, her fear is great. Her dreams, in order to be propitious, must not have been about spirits, or her ancestors, or her country, but have represented to her cradles and birds and white does. There is nevertheless an infallible method of counteracting sinister dreams, which is to put a red necklace about the neck of a grotesque figure made of oak-wood: among civilized nations, too, hope has its red necklaces and grotesque figures.

After this first application, the whole affair seems to be forgotten; a considerable time elapses before the conclusion of the marriage: the pre-eminent virtue of the Savage is patience. In the most imminent dangers every thing must go on as usual: when the foe is at the gates, a warrior who should omit to smoke his pipe quietly, seated cross-legged in the sun, would be considered as an old woman.

Let the passion of the young man, then, be ever so vehement, he is obliged to affect an air of indifference, and to await the commands of the family.

According to the usual custom, the young couple ought at first to reside in the hut of their old kinsman; but particular circumstances frequently 0207 201 prevent the observance of this practice. In this case the bridegroom builds himself a hut; he almost always chooses a site for it in some sequestered valley, near a spring or stream, and under a wood which may shelter and conceal it.

The Savages are all of them, like Homer's heroes, physicians, cooks, and carpenters. In building the marriage hut, they set up in the ground four posts, a foot in circumference and twelve feet high; these are destined to mark the four angles of a parallelogram of twenty feet by eighteen. Mortises cut in these posts receive the transoms, which, when the intervals are filled with earth, form the four walls of the hut.

In the two longitudinal walls are left two apertures; one serves for the entrance of the whole building; the other leads into a second apartment similar to the first, but smaller.

The suitor is left to lay the foundations of his dwelling by himself; but in the sequel of the work he is assisted by his companions. They arrive singing and dancing; they bring implements of masonry made of wood, and the blade-bone of some large quadruped serves for a trowel. They slap the hand of their companion, leap on his shoulders, rally him on his marriage, and finish the hut. 0208 202 Mounted on the posts and the commenced walls, they form the roof of birch bark or maize straw: mixing the hair of the fallow-deer and the chopped straw of wild oats with red clay, they plaster the walls inside and out with this composition. In the centre or at one end of the large room the workmen plant five long poles, with which they interweave dry grass, and plaster it with mortar: this sort of cone serves for the fire-place, from which the smoke escapes by an aperture left in the roof. The whole of this job is performed amid jests and satirical songs: most of these songs are coarse, but some of them are not destitute of grace. For example:

“The moon hides her brow beneath a cloud; she is shame-faced, she blushes, because she has just risen from the bed of the sun. Thus will—hide her face and blush the day after the nuptials, and we will say to her: Let us look at thine eyes!”

The strokes of the hammer, the rattling of trowels, the cracking of broken branches, the laughter, the shouts, the songs of the workmen, are heard to a distance, and families come from their villages to partake of these diversions.

The hut being finished without, it is plastered inside with mortar, when the country furnishes lime, or with clay in default of mortar. The turf left in 0209 203 the interior of the building is pared off: the workmen, dancing on the damp soil, soon stamp the floor smooth and level. This area is then covered with rush mats, with which the walls of the house are also lined. Thus in a few hours they finish a hut, the bark roof of which frequently covers more happiness than the domes of palaces.

Next day all the furniture and provisions belonging to the owner are removed to the new habitation: mats, stools, earthen, and wooden vessels, pots, pails, bears' and elks' hams, dry cakes, sheaves, of maize, plants for food or medicine: these different articles are hung up to the walls or laid upon shelves; in a hole lined with split reeds are thrown the maize and wild oats. The implements of fishing, hunting, war, and agriculture, springes, nets made of the inner bark of the false palm-tree, fish-hooks of beavers' teeth, bows, arrows, tomahawks, hatchets, knives, fire-arms, powder-horns, chichikoués, tambourines, fifes, calumets, thread of roebuck's nerves; stuff made of the bark of the birch or mulberry-tree, feathers, pearls, necklaces, black, blue, and red, for ornament, a multitude of skins, some tanned, others with the hair on—such are the treasures with which the cabin is stored.

A week before the celebration of the nuptials, 0210 204 the bride goes to the hut of purification, a detached building, to which the women retire for three or four days every month, and whither they likewise remove to lie-in. During this week of retirement, the bridegroom hunts: he leaves the game on the spot where he killed it; the women pick it up and carry it to the hut of the parents, for the wedding feast. If the hunter has good luck, this is considered as a favourable omen.

The important day at length arrives. The sorcerers and the principal Sachems are invited to the ceremony. A party of young warriors repair to the habitation of the bridegroom to fetch him; while another party, of young females, proceed in like manner to the residence of the bride. The couple are adorned with the most beautiful feathers, necklaces, and furs, and the most gorgeous in point of colour.

These two parties arrive at the same time, by opposite roads, at the hut of the oldest kinsman, in which a second door has been made facing the ordinary door. Surrounded by his comrades the bridegroom appears at one of the doors; the bride, with her companions, at the other. All the Sachems of the party are seated in the cabin, with pipes in their mouths. The young couple advance, and place 0211 205 themselves on rolls of skins at one of the extremities of the hut.

The two parties left at the door then commence the nuptial dance outside the cabin. The young females, provided with wooden spades, imitate the various operations of tillage: while the young warriors, armed with bows, keep guard around them. All at once a hostile party, sallying from the forest, strive to carry off the girls, who throw down their spades and run away: their brothers fly to their succour. A sham fight succeeds; and the assailants are repulsed.

This pantomime is followed by other scenes represented with natural vivacity: they exhibit pictures of domestic life, household duties, in-door employments and pleasures—touching occupations of the mother of a family. This spectacle terminates with a round, in which the girls turn in a direction contrary to the course of the sun, and the young warriors according to the apparent motion of that luminary.

The feast follows: it consists of soups, game, cakes of maize-flour, canneberge, a soft of vegetable, may-apples, a kind of fruit which grows on a species of grass, fish, broiled meat, and roasted birds. The juice of the maple or sumach is drunk out of 0212 206 large calebashes, and small cups of beech-wood are used for a preparation of cassina, a hot liquid which is taken like coffee. The excellence of the entertainment consists in the profusion of the viands.

When the feast is over, the company retire. Twelve persons only, six Sachems of the husband's family, and six matrons of the wife's, remain in the hut. These twelve persons, seated on the ground, form two concentric circles: they hold, each at one end, a reed six feet long in a horizontal direction. The husband has in his right hand a roebuck's foot; and the wife lifts up a bunch of maize in her left. The reed is painted with various hieroglyphics, which indicate the age of the new-married couple, and the moon in which the marriage takes place. The presents of the husband and his family are laid at the wife's feet; these consist of a complete dress, the petticoat of mulberry bark, the corset of the same, the mantle of birds' feathers or marten skins, the mocassins embroidered with hedgehog's hair, bracelets of shells, and rings or pearls for the nose and ears.

To these habiliments are added a cradle made of reeds, a piece of agaric and gun-flints for striking a light, a pot for boiling meat, a leathern strap for carrying burdens, and a billet for the fire. The 0213 207 cradle sets the heart of the young wife a-throbbing; the pot and the strap do not alarm her: she looks submissively at these marks of domestic servitude.

The husband is not left without a lesson. A tomahawk, a bow, and a paddle, bespeak his duties —to fight, to hunt, and to navigate the canoe. Among some tribes, a green lizard, of the species which is so rapid in its motions that the eye can scarcely follow them, and a basket full of dead leaves, intimate to the new-made husband that time flies and man falls. These people teach in emblems the moral of life, and indicate by them the part of the labours which Nature has allotted to each of her children.

The young couple, enclosed in the double circle of the twelve relatives, having declared that they desire to be united, the oldest kinsman takes the reed six feet long, and divides it into twelve pieces, which he distributes among the twelve witnesses. Each witness is obliged to deliver up his portion of the reed to be reduced to ashes, if the couple should ever demand a divorce.

The young females, who conducted the bride to the cabin of the oldest kinsman, accompany her with songs to the nuptial hut, whither the young warriors escort the bridegroom. The guests return 0214 208 to their villages: they throw pieces of their garments into the rivers, and burn part of their provisions, by way of sacrifice to the Manitous.

In Europe people marry to escape the military laws: among the Savages of North America no person is allowed to marry till he has fought for his country. A man was not deemed worthy to be a father before he had proved himself capable of defending his children. In consequence of this manly custom, it was not till the day of his marriage that a warrior began to enjoy public consideration.

Plurality of wives is permitted; a contrary abuse sometimes consigns a woman to several husbands: the ruder tribes offer their wives and daughters to strangers. It is not depravity, but a deep sense of their wretchedness, which urges the Indians to this sort of infamy: they expect to render their family more fortunate by changing the paternal blood.

The Savages of the north-west were anxious to have offspring by the first Negro whom they saw: they took him for an evil spirit, and hoped that by naturalizing him among them, they should conciliate the black genii, and secure protectors among them.

Adultery in the wife was formerly punished among the Hurons by cutting off the nose: it was 0215 209 intended that her crime should be engraven for life upon her face.

In case of divorce the children are adjudged to the mother: among the animals, say the Savages, it is the female that brings up the young.

A woman who becomes pregnant in the first year of her marriage is taxed with incontinence; she sometimes takes the juice of a species of rue to destroy the too early fruit of her womb: and yet—such are the inconsistencies natural to men—a woman is not esteemed till the moment when she becomes a mother. As a mother she is summoned to the public deliberations; the more children she has, especially if they are sons, the more she is respected.

A husband who has lost his wife, marries her sister when she has one; in like manner a woman who loses her husband marries his brother, if he has a brother: this was very nearly the Athenian law. A widow left with a large family of children is in great request.

As soon as the first symptoms of pregnancy manifest themselves, all intercourse between husband and wife is suspended. Towards the end of the ninth month, the wife retires to the hut of purification, where she is attended by the matrons. No man, the husband himself not excepted, dare enter VOL. I. P 0216 210 this hut. The woman remains there thirty or forty days after delivery, according as she has given birth to a girl or a boy.

When the father has received intelligence of the birth of his child, he takes a calumet of peace, about the tube of which he twists tendrils of the wild vine, and hastens to acquaint the different members of the family with the happy news. He first repairs to the maternal relations, because the child belongs exclusively to the mother. Going up to the most aged Sachem, after puffing whiffs of smoke towards the four cardinal points, he hands his pipe to him, saying, “My wife is a mother!” The Sachem takes the pipe, smokes in his turn, and as he removes the pipe from his lips, he asks, “Is it a warrior?”

If the reply is affirmative, the Sachem puffs three whiffs towards the sun, if negative he draws but one. The father is conducted ceremoniously to a greater or less distance, according to the sex of the infant. A Savage, when he becomes a father, assumes a quite different sort of consequence in the nation; his dignity of man commences with his paternity.

After the thirty or forty days of purification, the mother prepares to return to her cabin. There the relatives assemble to give the child a name. The fire is extinguished; the old ashes are cast to the 0217 211 winds, and a pile of fragrant woods is provided. The priest or sorcerer, with a match in his hand, holds himself in readiness to kindle the new fire; and the places around are purified by being sprinkled with spring water.

Presently the young mother approaches: she comes alone clad in a new dress, for she must not wear any thing that she had previously used. Her left breast is uncovered; her infant, completely naked, is pressed to it; she places one foot on the threshold of the door.

The priest sets fire to the pile: the husband advances and receives his child from the hands of his wife. He acknowledges it at once, and owns it aloud. Among some tribes the relatives of the same sex as the infant alone attend this ceremony. After kissing the lips of the child, the father delivers it to the oldest Sachem; it is then handed round to the whole family, and receives the blessing of the priest and the good wishes of the matrons.

They next proceed to the choice of a name: the mother still remains at the threshold of the hut. Each family has usually three or four names which recur alternately; but only those on the mother's side are ever thought of. According to the notion of the Savages, it is the father who creates the soul 0218 212 of the infant; the mother begets merely the body: * it is therefore deemed but just that the body should have a name which comes from the mother.

When they design to confer a particular honour on a child, they give it the oldest name in the family, that of its grandmother, for instance. From that moment the child occupies the place of the female whose name it has received; in speaking of it they assign to it that degree of relationship which is revived by its name: thus an uncle can address his nephew by the title of grandmother —a custom which would be ludicrous, were it not infinitely touching. It may be said to restore ancestors to life; it reproduces in the feebleness of the first years the feebleness of old age; it connects and approximates the two extremities of life, the beginning and the end of the family; it communicates a kind of immortality to ancestors, by supposing them to be present in the midst of their posterity; it increases the attentions which the mother pays infancy by the recollection of those which were bestowed on hers: filial tenderness redoubles maternal affection.

After the name has been given, the mother enters the hut; the infant is delivered back to her, and 0219 213 thenceforward it belongs to her alone. She places it in a cradle. This cradle is a small board of the lightest wood, on which is laid a bed of moss or wild cotton: on this couch the infant is deposited stark naked; two bands of soft skin prevent its falling, without depriving it of the power of motion. Above the child's head is a hoop, over which is spread a veil to keep off the insects, and to afford coolness and shade to the little creature.

I have spoken elsewhere of the Indian mother; * I have described how she carries her children; how she suspends them from the branches of trees; how she sings to them; how she dresses them, lulls them to sleep and awakes them; how she mourns them when they die: how she sheds her milk on the turf of their grave, or catches their spirits upon the flowers. †

After marriage and birth, it would be right to treat of death, which closes the scenes of life; but I have so often described the funerals of the Savages, that this subject is almost exhausted.

I shall not therefore repeat what I have said in Atala and The Natchez relative to the manner in 0220 214 which the deceased is habited and painted, and the language in which they address him. I shall merely add, that among all the tribes it is customary for people to ruin themselves on account of the dead. The family distributes what it possesses among the guests invited to the funeral feast; and they must eat and drink up every thing in the cabin. At sunrise they set up a loud howling over the coffin of bark on which the corpse is laid; at sun-set the howling is repeated; this lasts three days, at the expiration of which the deceased is interred. A hillock is thrown up over his grave; if he had been a renowned warrior, a stake painted red marks the place of sepulture.

Among several tribes the relatives of the deceased inflict wounds on their arms and legs. For a whole month the cries of grief are continued at sun-set and sun-rise, and for several years the anniversary of the loss sustained is greeted by the same cries.

When a Savage dies in winter while hunting, his body is kept on branches of trees, and the last honours are not paid to his remains till after the return of the warriors to the village of his tribe. The same practice formerly prevailed among the Muscovites.

Not only have the Indians different prayers and 0221 215 ceremonies, according to the degree of kindred, the dignity, the age, and the sex of the deceased person, but they have also seasons of public exhumation, * of general commemoration.

Why are the savages of America among all the nations of the earth those who pay the greatest veneration for the dead? In national calamities the first thing they think of is to save the treasures of the tomb; they recognize no legal property but where the remains of ancestors have been interred. When the Indians have pleaded their right of possession they have always employed this argument which in their opinion was irrefragable: “Shall we say to the bones of our fathers—Rise and follow us to a strange land?” Finding that this argument was disregarded, what course did they pursue? they carried along with them the bones which could not follow.

The motives of this attachment to sacred relics may easily be discovered. Civilized nations have monuments of literature and the arts for memorials of their country; they have cities, palaces, towers, columns, obelisks; they have the furrows of the plough in the fields cultivated by them; their 0222 216 names are engraven in brass and marble; their actions are recorded in their chronicles.

The Savages have none of these things: their names are not inscribed on the trees of their forests; their huts, built in a few hours, perish in a few moments; the wooden spade with which they till the soil has but just skimmed its surface, without being capable of turning up a furrow; their traditional songs are vanishing with the last memory which retains, with the last voice which repeats them. For the tribes of the New World there is therefore but a single monument—the grave. Take from the Savages the bones of their fathers, and you take from them their history, their laws, and their very gods; you rob these people in future times of the proof of their existence, and of that of their nothingness.

HARVESTS.

It has been asserted and believed that the Savages derive no benefit from the soil; this is an error. They are principally hunters, it is true, but all of them apply themselves to some kind of culture, and all know how to employ plants and trees for the purposes of life. Those who occupied the fine country now forming the states of Georgia, Tenessee, Alabama, and Mississipi, were in this respect more civilized than the natives of Canada.

Among the Savages all public labours are festivals. When the last frosts were past, the Siminole, Chickasaw, and Natchez women, provided with spades of walnut-tree wood, lifted upon their heads baskets containing compartments filled with the seeds of maize, water-melons, beans, and sunflowers. They repaired to the common field, for which was usually chosen a situation easy to be defended, such as a neck of land between two rivers, or a spot surrounded by hills.

At one end of the field the women ranged themselves in a line, and began to break up the earth with their spades moving backwards.

While they thus freshened the old soil without forming any trench other women followed them, sowing the space prepared by their companions. The beans and the maize were thrown together on the ground; the stalks of the maize being intended to serve for sticks to support the climbing vegetable.

Young girls were employed in making beds of fine black mould: on these beds they spread the seeds of gourds and sunflowers, and kindled around them fires of green wood, for the purpose of accelerating germination by means of the smoke.

The sachems and sorcerers presided over these operations, while the young men roved round about the common field, and drove away the birds by their shouts.

FESTIVALS.

The festival of the green corn took place in the month of June. A certain quantity of maize was gathered while the grain was yet full of milk. With this grain, which is then excellent, they made tossomanony , a sort of cake, which serves for provision in time of war or in hunting expeditions.

The ears of maize, having been set on the fire. in spring-water, are removed when half boiled, and 0225 219 roasted at a fire, without blaze. When they have acquired a reddish colour the seed is picked out and thrown into a poutagan , or wooden mortar. The grain is moistened with water and pounded. The paste thus formed, when cut into slices and dried in the sun, will keep a very long time. To prepare it for use it need but be steeped in water, cocoanut milk, or maple liquor: in this state it affords a wholesome and agreeable food.

The principal festival of the Natchez was the festival of the new fire, a sort of jubilee in honour of the sun, at the season of the great harvest. The sun was the chief divinity of all the tribes bordering on the empire of Mexico.

A public crier went through the villages proclaiming the ceremony with the sound of a conch, in these terms:

“Let every family prepare the virgin vessels, and garments which have never been worn; let the huts be cleansed; let the old seed, the old clothes, the old utensils, be thrown away and burned in the common fire in the midst of each village; let the malefactors return and the Sachems forget their crimes!”

This amnesty granted by men to men at the moment when the earth lavished its treasures upon 0226 220 them, this general invitation of the happy and the unfortunate, of the innocent and the guilty, to the great banquet of Nature, was a touching relic of the primitive simplicity of the human race.

On the second day the crier again made his appearance: he enjoined a fast of seventy-two hours, a strict abstinence from all pleasure, and at the same time prescribed the medicine of purification. All the Natchez took also a few drops of the juice of a root which they called the root of blood. This root belongs to a species of plantain, and yields a red liquor which is a violent emetic. During the three days of abstinence and prayer, profound silence was observed; and the people strove to detach their thoughts from earthly things, and to fix them exclusively on Him who ripens the fruit on the tree, and the corn on the stalk.

At the conclusion of the third day the crier proclaimed the opening of the festival fixed for the next morning.

No sooner had the dawn begun to tinge the sky than the young females, the young warriors, the matrons, and the Sachems, were seen advancing along paths glistening with dew. The temple of the Sun, a large building which received light by two doors alone, one facing the east and the other 0227 221 the west, was the place of meeting. The east door was opened; and the floor and sides of the temple were spread with fine mats, painted and adorned with various hieroglyphics. Baskets, ranged in order in the sanctuary, contained the bones of the oldest chiefs of the nation, like the tombs in our Gothic churches.

On an altar placed opposite to the east door so as to receive the first rays of the rising sun, stood an idol representing a chouchouacha. This animal, of the size of a sucking pig, has the coat of a badger, the tail of a rat, and the paws of a monkey: the female has at her belly a pouch in which she carries her young. On the right of the image of the chouchouacha was the likeness of a rattlesnake, and on the left a grotesque figure rudely carved. In a stone vase before these symbols was kept a fire of oak-bark, which was never suffered to go out but on the eve of the festival of the new fire or the harvest: the first fruits were hung around the altar, and the people arranged in the temple in the following order:

The Great Chief, or the Sun , on the right of the altar; on the left, the Female Chief; the only woman who had a right to enter the sanctuary; next to the Sun were placed successively the two war 0228 222 chiefs, the two officers for making treaties, and the principal Sachems; by the side of the Female Chief were seated the edile, or inspector of the public works, the four heralds who proclaimed the festivals, and then the young warriors. On the ground before the altar, pieces of dried reeds, laid obliquely upon one another, formed concentric circles, the different revolutions of which, as they receded from the centre, embraced a diameter of twelve or thirteen feet.

The high priest, standing at the threshold of the temple, kept his eyes fixed on the east. Before he presided at this feast be plunged three times into the Missisipi. He was wrapped in a white robe of birch bark, girt round the loins with the skin of a serpent. The old stuffed owl which he carried on his head had given place to the skin of a young bird of the same species. The priest slowly rubbed two pieces of dry wood against one another, and pronounced in a low tone certain magical words. Two assistants at his side held by the handles two goblets full of a sort of black sherbet. All the women, with their backs turned to the east, resting with one hand on their spades, and holding their little children with the other, formed on the outside a large circle at the door of the temple.

This ceremony had in it something august: the true God makes himself felt even in false religions; the man who prays is respectable; prayer addressed to the Deity is so holy in its. nature that it imparts something sacred even to him by whom it is, uttered, whether innocent, guilty, or unfortunate. It was an affecting sight to behold a nation assembled in the wilderness at the season of harvest, to thank the Almighty for his bounty, and to praise that Creator who perpetuates the memory of the creation by commanding every morning his sun to rise upon the world.

Profound silence meanwhile pervaded the congregation. The high-priest attentively observed the variations of the heavens. When the colours of aurora, changed from rose to crimson, began to be traversed by rays of pure flame, and became more and more lively, the priest accelerated the collision of the two pieces of dry wood. A match made of elder pith was prepared to catch the spark. The two masters of the ceremonies advanced with measured steps, the one towards the Great Chief, the other toward the Female Chief. They bowed from time to time; and stopping at length before the Great Chief and the Female Chief, they stood perfectly motionless.

A flood of flame poured from the east, and the upper portion of the sun's disk appeared above the horizon. At that instant the priest pronounced the sacred Oah; fire issued from the wood heated by the friction; the match was lighted, and the women, outside the temple, suddenly turned round, and raised simultaneously their infants and their implements of husbandry towards the orb of day.

The Great Chief and the Female Chief drank the black sherbet presented to them by the masters of the ceremonies, and the sorcerer set fire to the circles of reed: the flame wound about following their spiral direction. The oak bark was kindled on the altar, and this new fire afterwards served as new seed for the extinguished fires of the village. The Great Chief struck up the hymn to the sun.

The circles of reed being consumed, and the hymn finished, the Female Chief left the temple, and put herself at the head of the women; who, ranged in a line, repaired to the common harvest field: the men were not allowed to follow. They went to gather the first-fruits of the maize, for the purpose of offering up part in the temple, and of making with the rest unleavened bread for the banquet at night.

On their arrival at the plantations, the women plucked in the plot of ground allotted to their respective 0231 225 families some of the finest ears of maize—a superb plant, the stalks of which, seven feet in height, surrounded with green leaves and supporting a roll of golden grains, resemble the distaffs adorned with ribbons which our peasant girls consecrate in the village churches. Thousands of blue thrushes, and small pigeons no larger than a blackbird, the plumage of which is gray mixed with brown, alight on the stems and fly away at the approach of the female reapers, who are completely hidden in the avenues by the tall corn. The black foxes also sometimes commit considerable ravages in these plantations.

The women returned to the temple, carrying the first fruits in bundles on their heads; the high-priest received the offering, which he deposited on the altar. The east door of the sanctuary was then closed, and the west door opened.

Assembled at the latter door when the day was about to close, the multitude formed a crescent, the two points of which were turned towards the sun: the assistants, with their right arms raised, presented the unleavened loaves to the orb of light. The sorcerer sung the evening hymn; it was a hymn of praise to the sun at his setting: his nascent rays VOL. I. Q 0232 226 had caused the maize to grow; his departing rays sanctified the cakes made of the gathered grain.

At nightfall fires were lighted, and at these were roasted-young bears, which, being fattened on wild grapes, were excellent eating at this season of the year. Turkeys of the savannahs, black partridges, and pheasants of a larger kind than those of Europe, were broiled upon the coals. These birds, cooked in this manner, were called the food of the white men. The beverage and fruits served up at these repasts were the juice of smilax, maple, plane, and white walnut-tree, may-apples, plankmines, and walnuts. The plain was illumined by the flames of the fires on every side were heard the sounds of the chichikoué, the tambourine, and the fife, mingled with the voices of the dancers and the plaudits of the multitude.

If at these festivals any unfortunate person, withdrawing from the company, stood apart watching the sports of the plain, a Sachem would go up to him and enquire the cause of his dejection: he healed his woes, if they were not past cure, or at least relieved them, if of such a nature that they could not be wholly dispelled.

The maize is reaped by pulling up the stalks, or 0233 227 by cutting them at the height of two feet from the ground. The grain is preserved in skins, or in pits lined with reeds. The ears are also kept entire, and the grain is husked as wanted. To reduce it to flour it is pounded in a mortar, or ground between two stones. The Savages also use hand-mills purchased from the Europeans.

The harvest of the wild oats, or wild rice, immediately follows the maize harvest; but this I have described in another place. *

MAPLE SUGAR HARVEST.

The juice of the maple was and still is collected by the Savages twice a year. The first collection takes place about the end of February, March, or April, according to the latitude of the country in which the sugar-maple grows. The liquor collected after the slight night-frosts is converted into sugar by being boiled over a strong fire. The quantity of sugar obtained by this process differs according to the qualities of the tree. This sugar, light of digestion, and of a greenish colour, has an agreeable and somewhat acid taste. Q 2

The second collection takes place when the sap of the tree has not sufficient consistency to become sugar. This sap is condensed into a sort of treacle or syrup, which, dissolved in spring water, furnishes a cooling beverage during the heats of summer. Great care is taken to preserve the maple-woods of the red and white species. The most productive maples are those the bark of which looks black and scabby. The Savages conceive that these appearances are occasioned by the black red-headed woodpecker, which pierces such trees in which the sap is most abundant. They consequently respect this woodpecker as an intelligent bird and a good spirit.

About four feet from the ground two holes are made in the trunk of the maple, three quarters of an inch deep, and bored obliquely upward, to facilitate the effusion of the sap.

These first two incisions are turned to the south: two similar ones are made towards the north. These holes are afterwards bored, according as the tree yields its sap, to the depth of two inches and a half. Two wooden troughs are placed on the two sides of the tree facing the north and south, and tubes of elder are introduced into the holes, to conduct the sap into these troughs.

Every twenty-four hours the sap which has run 0235 229 off is removed; it is carried into sheds covered with bark, and boiled in a pan of water, care being taken at the same time to skim it. When it is reduced to one half by the action of a clear fire, it is poured into another pan, in which it is again boiled till it has acquired the consistence of a syrup. Being then taken from the fire, it is allowed to stand for twelve hours. At the expiration of that time it is emptied into a third pan; but care must be taken not to shake the sediment deposited at the bottom of the liquor.

The third pan is in its turn set upon charcoal half-burned and without flame. A little fat is thrown into this syrup to prevent its boiling over. When it begins to be ropy, it must be poured into a fourth and last wooden vessel, called the cooler. A strong female keeps stirring it round without stopping, with a cedar stick, till it acquires the grain of sugar. She afterwards runs it off into bark moulds, which give to the coagulated fluid the shape of small conical loaves: the operation is then finished.

In making molasses only the process ends with the second boiling.

The maple juice keeps running for a fortnight, and this fortnight is a continued festival. Every 0236 230 morning the maple wood, usually irrigated by a stream of water, is visited. Groups of Indians of both sexes are dispersed at the foot of the trees; the young people dance or play at different games; the children bathe under the inspection of the Sachems. From the gaiety of these Savages, from their demi-nudity, from the sprightliness of their dances, from the not less noisy wrestling-matches of the bathers, from the coolness of the water, and from the venerable age of the trees, you might imagine you beheld one of those frolics of Fauns and Dryads described by the poets:

Tum vero in numerum Faunos ferasque videres Ludere.

FISHERY.

The Savages are as skilful in fishing as expert in the chace. They fish with hooks and nets; and they also know how to empty ponds. But they have great public fisheries. The most celebrated of all these fisheries was that of the sturgeon, which took place in the Mississipi and its branches. It opened with the marriage of the net. Six warriors and six matrons carrying the net advanced into the midst of the spectators in the public place, 0237 231 and demanded in marriage for their son, the net, two young females whom they pointed out.

The parents of the girls signified their consent, and the girls and the net were married by the sorcerer with the customary ceremonies. The Doge of Venice married the sea.

The marriage was succeeded by characteristic dances. The people then proceeded to the river where the canoes and boats were assembled at the bank. The new wives, enveloped in the net, were borne at the head of the procession: the party embarked, after providing themselves with pine-torches. and stones for striking fire. The net, its wives, the sorcerer, the Great Chief, four Sachems, and eight warriors as rowers, put off ill a large canoe, which took the lead of the fleet.

This fleet sought some bay frequented by the sturgeon. By the way they fished for any sort of fish; for trout with the drag-nets, and for the armed fish with the hook. The sturgeon is struck with an harpoon fastened to a cord, which is tied to the inner bar of the canoe. The fish when struck strives to escape and draws the canoe after it; but by degrees its speed decreases, and it rises to the surface of the water and expires. The different attitudes of the fishermen, the play of the oars, the 0238 232 motion of the sails, the position of the canoes, grouped or scattered, showing the side, the prow, or the stern, exhibit altogether a most picturesque sight: the scenery on shore forming the motionless back-ground to this moving picture.

At nightfall torches were lighted in the canoes, and their flame was repeated in the surface of the water. The canoes being now pretty close together, threw masses of shade on the reddened waves; you would have taken the Indian fishermen moving about in these vessels for their own Manitous, those fantastic beings, begotten by superstition and the dreams of the Savage.

At midnight the sorcerer gave the signal for retreat, declaring that the net wished to retire with its two wives. The canoes drew up in two lines. A torch was symmetrically and horizontally placed between every two rowers on board the canoes; these torches, parallel with the surface of the river, appeared or were intercepted from view by the undulation of the waves, and resembled flaming oars plunging into the water to speed the canoes along.

The epithalamium of the net was then sung: the net, in all the glory of a bridegroom, was declared conqueror of the sturgeon, which wears a crown, and is twelve foot in length. The rout of the whole 0239 233 army of fish was delineated;—the lencornet, the barbs of which serve to entangle its enemy; the chaousaron, provided with a dentated lance, hollow and perforated at the end; the artimegue, which unfurls a white flag; the crabs, which precede the warrior-fish to clear the way for them—all these were vanquished by the net.

Then came stanzas describing the affliction of the widows of these fishes. “In vain these widows learn to swim: never more shall they behold those with whom they love, to rove in the submarine forests; never more shall they repose with them on beds of moss covered by a transparent dome.” The net is invited, after all these exploits, to sleep in the arms of its two wives.

DANCES.

Among the savages, as among the ancient Greeks and most infant nations, dancing is mixed with all the actions of life. They dance at marriages, and the women partake of this dance; they dance to welcome a guest, and to smoke a calumet; they dance at the harvest; they dance at the birth of a child; and they dance above all for the dead. Every hunting party has its dance, which consists in the imitation of the motions, manners, and cries, of 0240 234 the animal which they are going in pursuit of: they climb like a bear, build like a beaver, gallop round and round like a bison, bound like a roebuck, howl like a wolf, yelp like a fox.

In the dance of the brave, or war-dance, the warriors, completely armed, range themselves in two lines; a boy marches before them, with a chichikoué in his hand: this is the child of dreams , the child who has dreamt under the inspiration of the good or evil Manitous. Behind the warriors comes the sorcerer, prophet, or augur, who interprets the dreams of the boy.

The dancers presently form a double circle, bel lowing softly, while the boy, remaining in the centre of this circle, utters, with downcast eyes, some unintelligible words. When the boy raises his head the warriors leap and bellow louder: they devote themselves to Athaënsic, the Manitou of hatred and revenge. A sort of leader of the band keeps time by striking upon a tambourine. Sometimes the dancers fasten to their feet small bells purchased from the Europeans.

If they are on the point of setting out on an expedition a chief takes the place of the boy, harangues the warriors, strikes with a club the image of a man or that of the enemy's Manitou, rudely delineated 0241 235 on the ground. The warriors, renewing the dance, in like manner attack the image, imitate the attitudes of a man fighting, brandish their clubs or their hatchets, handle their muskets or their bows, and wave their knives with convulsions and howlings.

On the return of the expedition, the war-dance is still more frightful: heads, hearts, mangled limbs, scalps with their bloody hair, are suspended to stakes fixed in the ground. The victors dance about these trophies, and the prisoners who are to be burned are witnesses of these horrible merrimakings. I shall treat of some other dances of this nature in the article on war.

SPORTS.

Play is an action common to man: it has three sources—nature, society, and the passions. Hence three sorts of sports: the sports of childhood, the sports of manhood, and the sports of idleness or of the passions.

The sports of childhood, invented by the children themselves, are found all the world over. I have seen the little Savage, the little Bedouin, the little Negro, the little Frenchman, the little Englishman, the little German, the little Italian, the little Spaniard 0242 236 the little oppressed Greek, the little oppressing Turk, throw the ball and trundle the hoop. Who taught these children, differing so widely in their races, their manners, and their countries—who taught them all the same games? The Master of mankind, the Father of the one great family: he taught innocence these amusements for the development of the bodily powers; he made them a want of nature.

The second class of games is that which, serving to teach an art, is a want of society. In this class must be placed the gymnastic games, the chariot-races, the naumachia, of the ancients; the jousts, the tilts, the tourneys, and feats of arms, of the middle ages; the tennis, the fencing, the horse-races, and games of address, of the moderns. The theatre, with its pomp, is a thing apart, and genius claims it as one of its creatures. In the same predicament are certain combinations of the mind, as draughts and chess.

The third sort of games, the games of chance, is the class in which man risks fortune, honour, nay sometimes even liberty and life, with a folly which borders on madness: this is a want of the passions. Dice among the ancients, cards among the moderns, and the game of bones among the Savages of North 0243 237 America, belong to the number of these baneful recreations.

All the three kinds of games of which I have been treating are to be found among the Indians. The games of their children are those of ours; they have ball and tennis, * racing, and shooting with the bow, for youth; and besides, the game of feathers , which reminds us of an ancient game of chivalry.

The warriors and the young, girls dance round four poles, to which are fastened feathers of different colours. From time to time a young man quits the ranks of his companions, and snatches a feather of the colour worn by his mistress: he sticks this feather in his hair, and rejoins the dancers. From the disposition of the feather, and the form of the steps, the girl guesses the place which her lover indicates for their meeting. There are warriors who take feathers of a colour not worn by any of the females, to signify that they are not in love, or are not loved. Married women are admitted only as spectators on these occasions.

Among the games of the third class, the games of idleness, or of the passions, I shall describe only that of the bones.

At this game the Savages stake their wives, their children, and their liberty; and when they have played upon promise and lost, they keep their promise. Strange inconsistency! Man, who frequently violates the most sacred oaths, who laughs at the laws, who scruples not to cheat his neighbour, and sometimes his friend, who makes a merit of deceit and duplicity, considers it a point of honour to fulfil the engagements of his passions, to keep his word with guilt, to be sincere towards the frequently culpable authors of his ruin and the accomplices of his depravity!

In the game of the bones, also called the game of the dish , two persons only hold the hand; the rest of the players bet for or against: the two adversaries have each their marker. The game is played on a table, or on the bare ground.

The two players who hold the hand are provided with six or eight dice, or bones, resembling peachstones, cut into six unequal faces: the two largest faces are painted, the one white, the other black.

The bones are mixed in a somewhat concave wooden dish; the player makes this dish spin round; then striking the table or the ground, he causes the bones to leap up into the air.

If all the bones, when they fall, turn up the same 0245 239 colour, the player wins five points; if five out of six or eight present the same colour, the player wins but one point for the first time; but if the same player repeats the same trick, he sweeps the whole, and wins the game, which is forty.

The same number of points as one gains, the same number he takes from his antagonist. The winner continues to hold the hand; the loser gives up his place to one of the betters at his elbow, appointed at pleasure by the marker on his side. The markers are the principal persons in this game; they are chosen with great caution; and those are especially preferred whose Manitou is supposed to be the strongest and the most skilful.

The appointment of markers is attended with violent altercations. If one party has chosen a marker whose Manitou, that is, fortune, is deemed formidable, the other party opposes this nomination. Sometimes a person entertains a very high idea of the power of the Manitou of a man whom he detests; in this ease interest gets the better of passion, and he selects this man for marker in spite of the hatred which he feels for him.

The marker holds in his hand a small board, on which he notes the throws with red chalk: the Savages throng round the players; all eyes are fixed 0246 240 on the dish and the bones; each of the spectators offers prayers, and makes promises to the good spirits. Sometimes the amount of the stakes depending on the chance of the dice is immense for Indians: some stake their huts; others strip off their clothes, and stake them against those of the betters on the opposite side; others again, having lost all they possess, offer their liberty against a trifling stake, and propose to serve the man who shall win it of them for a certain number of months or years.

The players prepare for their ruin by religious observances: they fast, they watch, they pray; the unmarried keep away from their mistresses, the married men from their wives; dreams are carefully noted. The parties concerned provide themselves with a little bag, into which they put all the things of which they have dreamt, bits of wood, leaves of trees, fishes' teeth, and a hundred other Manitous supposed to be propitious. During the game, intense anxiety is painted in every face: the assembly would not be more deeply interested if the fate of the nation were at issue. They crowd round the marker; they strive to touch him, to place themselves under his influence; it is a real frenzy: each cast is preceded by profound silence, and followed by 0247 241 loud acclamations. The applause of those who win, the imprecations of those who lose, are lavished upon the markers; and men usually modest and temperate in their language vomit forth abuse incredibly gross and atrocious.

When the cast is to be decisive, the gamblers frequently pause before they proceed to it: betters on one side or the other declare that the moment is unlucky, and that the bones must not yet be made to leap out. One player, apostrophizing these bones, reproaches them with their malignity, and threatens to burn them: another desires that the game may not be decided till he has thrown a bit of tobacco into the river: several with loud shouts call for the final cast, but a single voice need but oppose it, and the cast is by right suspended. At length, when all the parties seem to have agreed to terminate the affair, one of the betters cries: “Stop! stop! it is the furniture of my hut that brings me ill luck!” He runs to his cabin, breaks all the furniture in pieces, and throws them out of doors, and then returns, saying, “Play away! play away!”

A better frequently takes it into his head that his ill luck is owing to a particular person: that person is in consequence obliged to retire, if he is not concerned in the game, or if there is not to he found VOL. I R 0248 242 another man whose Manitou is able, in the opinion of the better, to overcome the Manitou of him who causes the ill luck. It has happened that French commandants in Canada, present at these deplorable scenes, have been necessitated to retire to gratify the whims of an Indian. Whims of this kind are not to be treated lightly; the whole nation would take up the quarrel in behalf of the player, religion would interfere in the matter, and blood would be spilt.

Lastly, when the decisive cast is played, few of the Indians have the courage to endure the sight of it: most of them throw themselves on the ground, shut their eyes, stop their, ears, and await the decree of fortune as they would a sentence of life or death.

THE YEAR.

The Savages divide the year into twelve moons, a division which occurs to all mankind; for the moon, disappearing and returning twelve times, cuts the year in a visible manner into twelve parts; whilst the solar year, the real year, is not indicated by variations in the sun's disk.

DIVISION OF TIME.

The twelve moons derive their names from the labours, the blessings, and the afflictions of the Savages, the gifts and accidents of Nature; consequently, the names vary according to the country and custom of the different tribes. Charlevoix furnishes a considerable number of them. A modern traveller (M. Beltrami) gives the following names of the months of the Sioux and the Chipaways.

Names of the Months in the Sioux Language.

Months of the Chipaways in the Algonquin Language.

Years are numbered by snows or by flowers; the aged man and the young girl thus find the symbol of their ages in the name of their years.

NATURAL CALENDAR.

In astronomy, the Indians scarcely know any thing beyond the polar star; they call it the motionless star , and direct their course by it at night. The Osages have observed and named some constellations. By day the Savages have no need 0251 245 of compass; in the savannahs the points of the grass which incline to the south, and in the forests the moss which attaches itself to the trunks of the trees on the side facing the north, indicate those two points. They draw upon bark geographical maps in which the distances are specified by nights' journeys.

The different boundaries of their territory are rivers, mountains, a rock where a treaty has been concluded, a grave on the margin of a forest, a cavern of the Great Spirit in a valley.

The birds, the quadrupeds, the fishes, serve the Savages for barometer, thermometer, and calendar. They say that the beaver has taught them the arts of building and government, the carcajou to hunt with dogs, because he goes a-hunting with the wolves, and the water-sparrow to fish with an oil which attracts the fishes.

The pigeons, in endless flights, and the American woodcocks with ivory bills, are the heralds of autumn to the Indians; the parrots and woodpeckers foretell rain by their tremulous whistling.

When the notes of the maukawis, a species of quail, are heard in the month of April from sunrise to sunset, the Siminole makes sure that the frosts are over, and the women sow the summer 0252 246 seeds: but when the maukawis perches at night upon a cabin, the inhabitant of that cabin prepares for death.

If the white bird sports aloof in the air, this indicates a storm; if it flies in the evening before the traveller, throwing itself from one wing upon the other, as if frightened, it forebodes danger.

In critical circumstances for the country, the sorcerers affirm that Kitchi-manitou appears above the clouds, borne by his favourite bird, the wakon, species of bird-of-paradise, with brown wings and tail adorned with four long green and red feathers.

The harvesting, the games, the hunting-expeditions, the dances, the meetings of the Sachems, the ceremonies of marriage, birth, and death, are all regulated by observations gleaned from the history of nature. It is obvious that these usages must infuse much grace and poetry into the ordinary language of these people. Ours make merry at the Grenouillère climb a well-greased pole, reap in the middle of August, sow onions at the feast of St. Fiacre, and marry on St. Nicholas's day.

Among the Savages the science of the physician is a sort of initiation; it is called the great medicine: the members of this profession are admitted into it as into a kind of free-masonry. It has its secrets, its dogmas, and its rites.

If the Indians could banish from the treatment of diseases the superstitious customs and impostures of the priests, they would know all that is essential to be known in the healing art; nay, we might even assert, that this art is ahnost as far advanced among them as among the civilized nations.

They are acquainted with a great number of simples proper for healing wounds, and with the use of the garent-oguen , which they also call aba soutchenza, on account of its form: it is the ginseng of the Chinese. With the inner bark of the sassafras they stop intermittent fevers: the roots of the ivy-leaved lychnis enable them to reduce swellings of the abdomen: they employ the bellis of Canada, which is six feet high, and has thick channeled leaves, against mortification; it completely cleanses ulcers, whether reduced to powder, or applied raw and bruised. The three-leaved hedisaron, the red flowers of which are arranged like an ear of corn, possesses the same virtue as the bellis.

According to the Indians, the form of plants has analogies and resemblances to the different parts of the human body which those plants are destined to cure, or to the noxious animals whose venom they neutralize. This observation appears worthy of attention: the simple tribes who disdain the indications of Providence less than we do, are less liable to mistakes than we.

One of the principal remedies employed by the Savages in many diseases is the vapour-bath. For this purpose they build a hut which they call the Sweaters' Hut. It is constructed of boughs of trees, planted in the ground in a circle, and fastened together at top, so as to form a cone. They are covered externally with the skins of different animals: a very small aperture is left close to the ground for an entrance, by which the patient crawls in on all fours. In the centre of this stove is a pan full of water which is made to boil by means of red-hot stones that are thrown into it: the steam which rises from the pan is burning hot, and in a very few minutes the patient is covered with perspiration.

The Indians are not by far such proficients in surgery as in medicine. They have nevertheless contrived to compensate for the want of our instruments by ingenious inventions. They thoroughly understand the bandages applicable to simple fractures: 0255 249 they have bones as sharp as lancets for bleeding and for scarifying rheumatic limbs; they suck the blood by means of a horn, and draw just the prescribed quantity. Shells of gourds, filled with combustible matters to which they set fire, serve them instead of cupping-glasses. They open blisters with the nerves of the roebuck, and make syphons with the bladders of different animals.

The principles of the fumigatory box, employed some time ago in Europe for the recovery of drowned persons, are known to the Indians. For this purpose they employ a large gut, closed at one end, and having a small wooden tube inserted in the other: this gut is inflated with smoke, and the smoke is introduced into the intestines of the patient.

Each family keeps what is called a medicine bag. It is a bag full of Manitous and various simples of great efficacy. This bag is carried to war; in the camp it is a palladium, in the hut a household god.

The women retire to the hut of purification to lie-in: there they are attended by matrons. The latter have a sufficient knowledge of midwifery for ordinary cases, but they have not the instruments requisite for difficult labours. When the child presents 0256 250 wrong, and they cannot turn it, they suffocate the mother, who, struggling with death, delivers herself by the effort of a last convulsion. They always apprize the woman of her situation before they recur to this expedient; and she never hesitates to sacrifice herself. Sometimes the suffocation is not complete, and the infant and the heroic mother are both saved.

It is also the practice in these desperate cases to throw the lying-in woman into a violent fright; a number of young men silently approach the hut of purification, and all at once set up the war-whoop: but this alarm fails of its effect with courageous women, and there are many such.

When a Savage falls sick, all his relatives repair to his hut. The word death is never uttered in the presence of a friend of the patient's: the grossest insult that can be offered to a man is to say, “Thy father is dead.”

We have exhibited the serious side of the medicine of the Savages; let us now turn to the ludicrous side; that side which an Indian Molière would have painted, were there not something melancholy attached to that which reminds us of the moral and physical infirmities of our nature.

If the patient swoons, at such times when he is 0257 251 supposed to be dead, the relatives, seated according to the degrees of consanguinity around the mat of the sick person, set up a howling which may be heard at the distance of half a league. When the patient recovers his senses, the howling ceases, to be renewed at the next crisis.

Meanwhile the sorcerer arrives; the patient asks him if he shall recover: the sorcerer does not fail to answer that none but himself can restore him to health. The patient, believing that he: is at the point of death, then addresses his relatives, comforts them, and exhorts them to dispel sorrow and to eat heartily.

The patient is covered with grass, roots, and pieces of bark; the sorcerer blows with the tube of a pipe on those parts of the body which is supposed to be the seat of the disease: he whispers, into his mouth to exorcise the infernal spirit, if not yet too late.

The patient himself gives directions for the funeral repast: all the provisions left in the hut must be consumed. The first thing they do is to kill the dogs, that they may go and apprize the Great Spirit of the speedy arrival of their master. Notwithstanding these puerilities, the simplicity with which a Savage performs the last act of life has in it something grand.

The sorcerer, in declaring that the patient will die, screens his skill from imputation in case of that event, and excites admiration of his art if the sick person should recover. When he perceives that the danger is over, he says nothing, and commences his incantations.

He first pronounces words which nobody understands; he then exclaims, “I will discover the enchantment I will force Kitchi-Manitou to flee before me!”

He leaves the cabin; the relatives follow him: he runs off to the Sweaters' Hut , to receive the divine inspiration. Ranged in mute terror around this vapour-bath, the relatives listen to the priest, who howls, sings, shouts, and accompanies himself on the chichikouè. Presently he creeps forth from the hut stark naked, his mouth foaming and his eyes distorted: he plunges, dripping with perspiration, into cold water, rolls on the ground, counterfeits death, revives, and flies to his hut, ordering the relatives to go and wait for him at the dwelling of the patient, where he soon arrives, holding a piece of half-lighted charcoal in his mouth and a snake in his hand.

After fresh contortions round the patient, he drops the charcoal, and exclaims, “Wake thee! I 0259 253 promise thee life. The Great Spirit hath, revealed to me what was causing thy death.” Like a raging maniac he falls upon the arm of his dupe, tears it with his teeth, and dropping from his mouth a small bone which he had concealed in it, “There,” cries he, “is the mischief, which I have extracted from thy flesh!” The priest then demands a roebuck and trout to make a feast, without which the patient cannot be cured, and the relatives are obliged to go out immediately a-hunting and fishing.

The physician eats his dinner. This is not sufficient. The patient is threatened with a relapse, unless the mantle of a chief who resides two or three days' journey from the spot be obtained within an hour. The sorcerer knows this to be impossible; but as it is he who both prescribes the task and furnishes a dispensation, he excuses the relatives from the attempt to procure the sacred mantle required by heaven, on condition of their supplying four or five profane mantles of their own in its stead.

The vagaries of the patient, who naturally gets better, heightens the extravagance of this cure: he springs from his couch, and crawls on all fours behind the furniture of the hut. His friends question him to no purpose; he continues his round, and 0260 254 sets up strange cries. They seize him, and replace him on his mat; they conceive him to be under the influence of a paroxysm of his disorder: for a moment he lies quiet, then rising unawares, he runs and throws himself into a pond, from which he is extricated with difficulty. Drink is handed to him. “Give it to that elk,” says he, pointing to one-of his kinsmen.

The physician strives to discover the cause of the new delirium of his patient. “I fell asleep,” gravely replies the latter, “and dreamt that I had a bison in my belly.” The family seem to be thunderstruck; but all at once the persons present cry out that they too are possessed with some animal: one imitates the cry of a carribou, another the barking of a dog, a third the howl of a wolf; while the patient, on his part, counterfeits the bellowing of a bison: the uproar is tremendous. The dreamer is thrown into a perspiration by an infusion of sage and fir-branches, his imagination is cured through the complaisance of his friends, and he declares that the bison has gone out of his body. These fooleries, mentioned by Charlevoix, are acted daily among the Indians.

How happens it that the same man who rose so high when he conceived himself to be at the point of death, sinks so low when he is sure of recoverying? 0261 255 How happens it that sage elders, young men of excellent understanding, and sensible women, submit to the caprices of an ill-regulated mind? These are the mysteries of man — the two-fold evidence of his greatness and of his debasement.

Four principal languages seem to divide North America — the Algonquin and the Huron, in the north and east, the Sioux in the west, and the Chickasaw in the south; but the dialect of each tribe differs in some respects from that of every other.

The ancient Natchez was but a softer dialect of the Chickasaw. Like the Huron and the Algonquin, it admitted but two genders, the masculine and feminine, rejecting the neuter. This is natural to people who attach a meaning to every thing, who hear voices in murmurs, who ascribe hatred and love to plants, who give desires to water, immortal spirits to animals, and souls to rocks. The nouns in Natchez were indeclinable; they merely took in 0262 256 the plural the letter k or the monosyllable ki , if the word terminated with a consonant.

The verbs were distinguished by the characteristic, the termination, and the augment. Thus the Natchez said T-ija , I walk; ni Tija-ban , I walked; ni-ga Tija , I will walk; ni-ki Tija, I have walked.

There were as many verbs as there were substantives exposed to the same action: thus to cat maize was a different verb from to eat venison; to walk in a forest was expressed in a different manner from to walk on a hill; to love a friend was rendered by the verb napitilima , which signifies, I esteem; to love a mistress was expressed by the verb nisakia , which may be translated by I am happy. In the languages of people not far removed from the state of nature, the verbs are either very numerous or very few in number, but loaded with a multitude of letters which vary their significations: the father, the mother, the son, the wife, the husband, have sought different terms to express their different feelings; they have modified, according to the human passions, the primitive speech which God gave to man with existence. This speech was one, and comprized all; man has derived from it languages, with their variations and their riches; languages in which are nevertheless 0263 257 found some words radically the same, remaining as a type or proof of a common origin.

The Chickasaw, the root of the Natchez, is destitute of the letter r , excepting in words derived from the Algonquin, as arrego , I make war, which is pronounced with a sort of tearing to pieces of the sound. The Chickasaw has frequent aspirations for the language of the violent passions, such as hatred, anger, jealousy; in the tender feelings, and in descriptions of nature, its expressions are remarkably sweet and lofty.

The Sioux, who came, according to their tradition, from Mexico to the upper Mississipi, have extended the empire of their language from that river to the Rocky Mountains in the west, and northward to the Red River: there dwell the Chipaways, who speak a dialect of the Algonquin, and are enemies to the Sioux.

The Sioux language hisses in a manner extremely unpleasant to the ear: it is this that has given name to almost all the rivers and places to the west of Canada: the Mississipi, the Missouri, the Osage, &c. We know as yet nothing, or next to nothing, of its grammar.

The Algonquin and the Huron are the mother-tongues of all the tribes of that part of North America VOL. I. S 0264 258 comprized between the sources of the Mississipi, Hudson's Bay, and the Atlantic, as far as the coast of Carolina. A traveller conversant with these two languages might traverse a space of more than eighteen hundred leagues without interpreter, and make himself understood by upwards of a hundred tribes.

The Algonquin language began at Acadia and the Gulph of St. Laurence; turning from the south-east by the north to the south-west, it embraced an extent of twelve hundred leagues. It was spoken by the natives of Virginia, beyond which, in the Carolinas, the Chickasaw language prevailed. The Algonquin idiom, to the north, terminated with the Chipaways. Still further northward the language of the Esquimaux makes its appearance; in the West, the Algonquin language extended to the left bank of the Mississipi: on the right bank prevails that of the Sioux.

The Algonquin has less energy than the Huron, but it is softer, clearer, more elegant: it is commonly used in treaties, and is regarded as the polished or classic language of the desert.

The Huron was spoken by the tribe from which it is named and by the Iroquois, a colony of that tribe.

The Huron is a complete language, having its verbs, nouns, pronouns, and adverbs. The simple verbs have a double conjugation, one absolute, the other reciprocal: the third persons are of both genders, and the numbers and tenses follow the mechanism of the Greek language. The active verbs are multiplied to infinity, as in the Chickasaw language.

The Huron is without labials; it is guttural, and almost all the syllables are aspirated. The diphthong ou forms an extraordinary sound, which is uttered without any motion of the lips. The Missionaries not knowing how to express it in writing, have adopted the figure 8 for the purpose.

The genius of this noble language consists chiefly in personifying the action, that is, in giving an active turn to the passive. The following example is adduced in illustration by Father Rasle. If you asked a European, why God created him, he would tell you: “To know him, to love him, to serve him, and by these means to merit eternal glory.” A Savage would reply in the Huron language: “The Great Spirit thought concerning us: Let them know me, let them love me, let them serve me, then will I cause them to enter into my illustrious felicity.”

The Huron or Iroquois language has five principal dialects. This language has but four vowels, S 2 0266 260 a, e, i, o, and the diphthong 8 , which has somewhat of the nature of a consonant, and of the value of the English w; and it has six consonants, h, k, n, r, s, t.

In the Huron almost all nouns are verbs. There is no infinitive; the root of the verb is the first person in the present indicative.

There are three primitive tenses, out of which all the others are formed: the present indicative, the indefinite preterite, and the simple affirmative future.

There are scarcely any abstract substantives: the few which are to be found have evidently been formed later from the concrete verb, by modifying one of its persons.

The Huron has a dual like the Greek, and two first persons plural and dual; no auxiliary for conjugating verbs, no participles, no passive verbs; the passive is turned into active. I am loved , is expressed by, Such a one loves me. There are no pronouns to express the relations in the verbs: they are known only by the initial of the verb, which is modified as many different times and in as many different ways as there are possible relations between the different persons of the three numbers; and these are almost innumerable. These relations, 0267 261 therefore, are the key to the language. When you have learned these—and they have fixed rules—you find no more difficulties.

One singularity is, that in the verbs the imperatives have a first person.

All the words of the Huron language are susceptible of being compounded together. It is a general rule, with very few exceptions, that the object of the verb, when it is not a proper name, is included in the verb itself, and forms but one word with it; but then the verb takes the conjugation of the noun, for all nouns belong to a conjugation. There are five conjugations.

This language has a great number of expletive particles, which by themselves have no signification, but when introduced in discourse impart great energy and precision. The particles are not always the same for men and for women; each gender has its own.

There are two genders; the noble gender for men, and the non-noble for women, and for the brutes, male and female. To say of a coward that he is a woman, they masculinize the word woman; to say of a woman that she is a man, they feminize the word man.

The mark of the noble and non-noble gender in 0268 262 the singular, dual, and plural, is the same in nouns as in verbs, all of which have in every tense and in every number two third persons, noble and nonnoble.

Each conjugation is absolute, reflected, reciprocal, and relative. I shall adduce an example:

Absolute Conjugation.

For the reciprocal conjugation te is added to the reflected conjugation, and r is changed into h in the three persons of the singular and plural. We shall then have:

Tekatats8ens—I hate myself mutually with some person.

Rlative Conjugation of the same Verb, same Tense.

SING.

DUAL.

The relation of the dual to the dual and to the plural becomes plural. I shall therefore give only the relation of the dual to the singular.

Relation of the Dual to the other Persons.

Kenis8ens— Nos duo te , &c.

The three persons dual to the others are the same as the plural.

PLURAL.

And so with all nouns. On comparing the conjugation of this noun with the absolute conjugation of the verb Iks 8 ens, I hate, it will be seen that they are absolutely the same modifications in the three numbers: k for the first, s for the second, r for the third noble, ka for the third non-noble; ni for the dual. For the plural they add te 8 a, se 8 a rati, konti, 0271 265 changing k into te 8 a, s into se 8 a, ra in rati, ka into konti, &c.

The relation in consanguinity is always that of the greater to the less: for example:

My father, rakenika —He who has me for son (relation of the third person to the first.)

My son, rienha —He whom I have for son (relation of the first person to the third).

My uncle, rakenchaa, rak (relation of the third person to the first.)

My nephew, rion 8 atenha, ri (relation of the first to the third person, as in the preceding verb).

The verb to will cannot be rendered in Iroquois. Instead of it they use ikire, to think, thus:

I will go thither.

Ikere etho iake —I think to go thither.

The verbs which express a thing that no longer exists at the time one is speaking have no perfect, but only an imperfect, as ronnhek 8 e, he did live, he does not now live.

By analogy with this rule, if I did love some one and I still love him, I use the perfect kenon 8 ehon. If I no longer love him, I use the imperfect kenon 8 esk 8 e: I loved, but I love him not now.

So much for the tenses.

As to the persons, the verbs which express a 0272 266 thing that a person does not voluntarily have no first persons, but only a third relative to others. Thus, I sneeze, te 8 akitsionk 8 a, relation of the third to the first: that sneezes me, or makes me sneeze. I yawn, te 8 akskara 8 ata, the same relation of the third non-noble to the first 8 ak, that opens the mouth.

For the terms of verbs, or indirect governments there is a sufficient variety of modifications to the finals which express intelligibly; and these modifications are subject to fixed rules.

Kninons, I buy. Kehninonse, I buy for somebody. Kehninon, I buy of somebody.— Kattennietha, I send. Kehnieta, I send by somebody. Keiatennietennis, I send somebody.

From the mere examination of these languages it is obvious that tribes by us called Savages were far advanced in that civilization which depends on the combination of ideas. The details of their government will serve more and more to confirm this truth. *

When the elders have decided upon an expedition for hunting the beaver or the bear, a warrior goes through the villages from door to door saying: “The chiefs are about to set off: let those who choose to accompany them paint themselves black, and fast, that they may learn from the Spirit of Dreams where the bears and the beavers haunt this year.”

Upon this proclamation all the warriors stain themselves black with soot mixed with bears' grease, and a fast of eight nights commences. This fast is so strict that they must not even drink a drop of water, and keep singing incessantly, that they may have favourable dreams.

When the fast is over the warriors bathe; a grand entertainment is held. Each Indian relates his dreams: if the greater number of these dreams 0274 268 points out a particular place for hunting, thither they resolve to repair.

An expiatory sacrifice is offered to the souls of the bears killed in preceding expeditions, and they conjure them to be favourable to the new hunters; that is to say, they entreat the deceased bears to let the living bears be knocked on the head. Each warrior sings his former exploits against the wild beasts.

Having finished the songs, they set out completely armed. On reaching the bank of a river, the warriors, holding paddles in their hands, seat themselves, two and two, at the bottom of the canoes. At a signal given by the chief, the canoes range themselves in a row; that which takes the lead serves to break the force of the water, when navigating against the course of the river. In these expeditions they take with them hunting-dogs, cords, snares, and snow-shoes.

Having arrived at the appointed place, the canoes are drawn ashore, and inclosed with a palisade filled up with turf. The chief divides his people into companies, each composed of the same number of persons. After this division of the hunters, they proceed to the division of the hunting district. Each company builds a hut in the centre of the lot that falls to its share.

The snow is cleared away; poles are fixed in the ground, and pieces of birch bark set up against these poles. On the bark which forms the walls of the hut are placed other pieces, inclining towards each other; these constitute the roof of the edifice: an aperture is left in the roof for the escape of the smoke. The snow stops up the crevices of the building on the outside, and serves instead of plaster or rough-cast. A fire is lighted in the middle of the hut; the floor is covered with skins; the dogs sleep at the feet of their masters; and the party, instead of suffering from cold, are stifled with heat. The whole place is filled with smoke; and the hunters, whether sitting or lying, strive to get below this smoke.

They wait till the snows have fallen, and till the north-west wind, clearing the sky again, has brought with it a dry frost, to commence beaver-hunting. But during the days which precede this monsoon, they employ themselves in catching other animals, such as wolves, foxes, and musk-rats.

The traps employed for these animals are planks of different sizes and thickness. A hole is made in the snow; one end of the plank is laid on the ground, the other end is set up on three pieces of wood in the form of the figure 4. The bait is 0276 270 fastened to one of the limbs of this figure; the animal that comes to seize it creeps under the plank, pulls at the bait, throws down the trap, and is crushed to death.

The baits differ according to the animals for which they are destined: for the beaver they employ a piece of aspen wood, for the wolf and fox a lump of flesh, and for the musk-rat walnuts, and various sorts of dried fruit.

The traps for wolves are set at the entrance of passes, or at the outlet of a thicket; for foxes, on the slope of hills at some distance from warrens; for the musk-rat, in ash copses; for otters, in the ditches of prairies, and among the reeds of ponds.

The traps are examined in the morning. The hunters set out from the hut two hours before daylight. They walk over the snow in snow-shoes, eighteen inches long and eight broad, of an oval shape before, and ending in a point behind: the curve of the ellipsis is of birch wood, bent and hardened at the fire. The transverse and longitudinal bands are made of stripes of leather, six lines each way, and they are strengthened with osier twigs. The shoe is fastened to the foot by means of three fillets. Without this ingenious contrivance it would be impossible to stir a step in winter in 0277 271 these regions; but they are at first galling and fatiguing, because they oblige the wearer to turn his knees in, and to keep his legs wide asunder.

When the Indians proceed to examine and to take up the traps in the months of November and December, they have generally to go through storms of snow, hail, and wind: they can scarcely see six inches before them. The hunters march in silence, but the dogs, scenting the prey, set up a howling. It requires all the sagacity of the Savage to find the traps, buried, with the tracks themselves, under snow and ice.

A stone's throw from the traps the hunter stops to wait for day-light; he stands motionless amidst the tempest, with his back turned to the wind and his fingers thrust into his mouth. From each hair of the skins in which he is clothed hangs an icicle, and the tuft of hair which crowns his head becomes a helmet of ice.

At the first dawn of day, when they perceive that the traps are down, they hasten to secure the prey. A wolf or a fox, with his back half broken, shows the hunters his white teeth and black throat: the dogs soon put him out of his misery.

The fresh snow is swept away, the trap is set again with a fresh bait, and care is taken to place 0278 272 the ambush to leeward. Sometimes the traps are thrown down without taking the game: this accident is owing to the cunning of the foxes, which attack the bait by thrusting forward their paw by the side of the plank, instead of creeping under the trap, and bear off the booty safe and sound.

If this first visit to the traps has been lucky, the hunters return in triumph to the hut: the noise which they then make is incredible; they recount the captures of the morning; they invoke the Manitous; they shout all together; they are delirious with joy; and the dogs are not silent. This first success they regard as a most favourable omen for the future.

When the snow has ceased to fall, and its frozen surface glistens in the sun, the beaver-hunt is proclaimed. Solemn prayers are first offered to the Great Beaver, and an oblation of tobacco is presented to him. Each Indian provides himself with a club to break the ice, and a net to entangle the prey. But be the cold in winter ever so intense there are certain small ponds in Canada which never freeze: this phenomenon is owing either to the abundance of warm springs, or to the particular exposure of the ground.

These reservoirs of uncongealable water are often 0279 273 formed by the beavers themselves, as I have observed in the article on Natural History. The following is the manner in which those peaceful creatures of God are destroyed.

In the dyke of the pond where the beavers dwell is made a hole large enough to drain off the water, and to leave the wonderful town quite dry. Standing on the dyke the hunters watch, club in hand, and their dogs behind them: they see the habitations become exposed as the water sinks. Alarmed at this rapid fall, the amphibious tribe, ignorant of the cause, but judging that a breach has been made in the dyke, instantly set about repairing it. Away they swim: some advance to examine the nature of the damage; others proceed to the shore in quest of materials for repairs; while others again set off for the country-houses to apprize the citizens of the circumstance. The unfortunate creatures are surrounded on all sides: at the dyke, the club strikes dead the workman who was endeavouring to repair the breach; the other who has sought refuge in his country habitation is no longer safe there: the hunter throws a powder which blinds, and the dogs strangle him. The shouts of the conquerors make the woods ring again, the water is entirely drained off, and the hunters proceed to the assault of the city. VOL. I T

The beavers are caught in the frozen ponds in a different manner: holes are made in the ice; imprisoned beneath their roofs of crystal, the beavers hasten to these holes for air. The hunters take care to cover them with flags, for without this precaution the beavers would discover the ambuscade, which is concealed from them by the reeds thrown upon the water. They therefore approach the air-hole; the eddy which they make in swimming betrays them: the hunter plunges his arm into the water, seizes the animal by one paw, and throws him on the ice, where he is surrounded by a circle of murderers, dogs and men. Hanging him up to a tree, a savage flays him half alive, that his skin may go beyond sea to make a covering for the head of an inhabitant of London or Paris.

The expedition against the beavers being over, the party return to the hunting hut, singing hymns to the Great Beaver, accompanied by the sound of the drum and the chichikoué.

The operation of flaying is performed in common. Posts are planted in the ground; two beavers are suspended by the hinder legs to each post, beside which two hunters take their places. At the command of the chief, the bellies of the slaughtered animals are ripped open, and their skins are 0281 275 stripped off. Great is the consternation if there happens to be a female among the victims: not only is it a crime against religion to kill female beavers, but it is also a political offence, a cause of war between tribes. Nevertheless, the love of gain, the fondness for strong liquors, and the desire to possess fire-arms, have got the better of the power of superstition and the established law; great numbers of females have been caught, and this will tend sooner or later to the extinction of their race.

The expedition concludes with a feast upon the flesh of the beavers. An orator pronounces a panegyric on the deceased, as if he had not contributed to their death: he recapitulates all that I have related concerning their manners; he praises their intelligence and sagacity. “No longer,” says he, “will ye hear the voices of the chiefs who commanded you, and whom you had chosen from among all the beaver-warriors to give you laws. Your language, which the sorcerers perfectly understand, will no longer be spoken in the recesses of the lake; ye will fight no more battles with your cruel enemies, the badgers. No, beavers! but your skins will serve to purchase arms; we will carry your smoked hams to our children; we will prevent our dogs from breaking your bones which are so hard.” T 2

All the discourse, all the songs of the Indians, prove that they associate themselves with the brutes; that they ascribe to them a character and a language; that they regard them as instructors, as beings endowed with an intelligent soul. The Scripture frequently holds forth the instinct of brutes as an example to man.

The hunting of the bear is the kind of hunt that is held in the highest estimation among the savages. It commences with long fasts, sacred purgations, and feasts: it takes place in winter. The hunters pursue frightful routes, along lakes, and between mountains, the precipices of which are hidden beneath the snow. In dangerous defiles they offer up the sacrifice reputed to have most effect upon the Spirit of the Desert: they hang a live dog to the boughs of a tree, and leave him there to expire mad. Huts hastily erected every evening afford a wretched shelter: they freeze in them on one sidé, and scorch on the other; and to defend themselves from the smoke, they have no other resource than to lie down on their bellies with their faces buried in skins. The famished dogs howl, and run to and fro over the bodies of their masters; and when the latter prepare to take a miserable repast, the dog, more alert, seizes and devours it.

After excessive fatigue they arrive at plains covered with forests of pines, the haunts of the bears. Hardships and dangers are forgotten; the action begins.

The hunters divide, and placing themselves at some distance from each other, they enclose a large circular space. Posted at different points of the circle, they proceed at a fixed hour along a radius tending to the centre, examining with care if any of the hollow trees upon this line harbours a bear. The animal betrays himself by the mark left by his breath in the snow.

As soon as the Indian has discovered the tree which he is in quest of, he calls his comrades, climbs the pine, and at the height of ten or twelve feet from the ground finds the hole by which the hermit has retired to his cell. If the bear is asleep, he cleaves his skull; two other hunters climb up after the first, and assist him to drag the dead beast out of his den, and to throw him down.

The warrior who found and conquered his foe then hastens to descend: he lights his pipe, puts the bowl into the bear's mouth, and, blowing down the tube, fills the throat of the animal with smoke. He then apostrophizes the spirit of the deceased; he implores him to forgive him for his death, and 0284 278 not to thwart him in any hunting expeditions which he may hereafter undertake. After this harangue he cuts out the string of the bear's tongue, for the purpose of burning it at the village, in order to discover by the manner in which it crackles in the flames if the spirit of the bear is appeased or not.

The bear is not always housed in the hollow trunk of a pine: he frequently dwells in a den, the entrance of which he has closed. This hermit is sometimes so fat that he can scarcely walk, though he has lived part of the winter without food.

The warriors, who have set out from different points of the circle and proceeded toward the centre, meet there at last, carrying, dragging, or driving their prize before them: sometimes young savages are seen urging on with a stick an unwieldy bear, heavily trotting before them over the snow. When tired of this sport, they plunge a knife into the heart of the poor animal.

The hunting of the bear, like that of all other animals, finishes with a sacred repast. The custom is, to roast a bear whole, and to serve it out to the company, seated in a circle upon the snow, under the shelter of pines, the staged branches of which are likewise laden with snow. The head of the victim, painted red and blue, is exposed on the top 0285 279 of a pole. Orators address themselves to it: they lavish praises on the deceased, while they are devouring his members. “How thou climbedst to the tops of trees! what force in thy hug! what perseverance in thy enterprizes! what temperance in thy fasts! Warrior with the thick fur, in spring the young she-bears burned for love of thee. Now thou art no more: but thy spoils still constitute the delight of those who possess them!”

At these feasts dogs, bears, and tame badgers, are often seen seated pell-mell with the Savages.

During these hunting expeditions the Indians make vows which it is very difficult for them to keep. They swear, for instance, not to eat till they have carried a paw of the first bear which they shall kill to their wives or mothers, though these wives and mothers are sometimes three or four hundred miles from the forest where the animal is slain. In these cases they consult the sorcerer, who, in consideration of a present, adjusts the business. The imprudent vow-makers get off with burning, in honour of the Great Hare, that part of the animal which they had destined for their relatives.

The season for hunting the bear is over about the end of February, at which time elk-hunting commences. Large herds of elks are found in the 0286 280 young pine-woods. To catch them the Savages enclose a considerable space with two triangles of unequal dimensions, formed of tall stakes placed pretty close. These two triangles communicate by one of their angles, and snares are laid at this point. The base of the largest triangle is left open, and there the warriors range themselves in a single line. They presently advance, setting up loud shouts and beating a kind of drum. The elks run into the inclosure formed by the stakes. In vain they seek an outlet, and on reaching the fatal pass they are entangled in the nets. Such as clear these rush into the smaller triangle, where they are easily dispatched with arrows.

The hunting of the bison takes place in summer, in the savannahs bordering the Missouri and its branches. The Indians, beating the plain, drive the herds towards the river. When they will not run away, the hunters set fire to the grass, and the bisons find themselves cooped up between the fire and the water. Some thousands of these unwieldy animals bellowing together, forcing their way through the flames or the river, falling pierced by balls or sharp stakes, exhibit an extraordinary spectacle.

The Savages employ other means of attack 0287 281 against the bisons: sometimes they disguise themselves as wolves, in order to get near them; at others they attract the females by imitating the lowing of the bull. In the last days of autumn, when the rivers are scarcely frozen, two or three tribes join to drive the herds towards these rivers. A Sioux, covered with a bison's skin, crosses the river on the weak ice; the animals, deceived by his appearance, follow; the frail bridge breaks under the clumsy beasts, which are slaughtered while floundering among the floating fragments. On these occasions the hunters use the arrow: the silent wound inflicted by that weapon does not affright the game, and the archer recovers the shaft when the animal is dispatched. The musket has not this advantage: both loss and noise attend the use of powder and ball.

Care is taken to approach the bisons to leeward, because they scent man at a great distance. The male, when wounded, returns to the charge; he defends the female, and frequently sacrifices his life for her.

The Sioux; roving in the savannahs on the right bank of the Mississipi, from the sources of that river to the fall of St. Anthony, keep horses of the Spanish breed, with which they hunt the bisons.

In this chace they have sometimes singular companions; these are the wolves. The latter follow in the train of the Indians to pick up what they leave behind, and seize the calves which straggle during the affray.

It is frequently the case too that these wolves go a-hunting by themselves. Three of them amuse a cow by their antics; while the simple creature is attentively watching the gambols of these traitors, another wolf, squatted in the grass, seizes her by the udder; she turns her head to rid herself of the assailant, and his three accomplices catch her by the throat.

On the theatre where these scenes occur, a sport not less cruel but less sanguinary, takes place a few months afterwards. It is directed against the pigeons, which are caught at night by torch-light, on the detached trees where they rest themselves during their migration from the north to the south.

The return of the warriors in spring, when the expedition has proved successful, is a great festival. They repair to their canoes, which they caulk with bear's grease and rosin: the furs, smoked meat, and baggage, are put on board, and the navigators abandon themselves to the currents of the rivers, which are swollen to such a degree that both rapids and cataracts have then disappeared.

On approaching the villages, an Indian, set on shore for the purpose, hastens to apprize the nation. The women, the children, the old men, and such of the warriors as have staid at home, hasten to the river. They hail the fleet with a shout, which is answered in like manner by the hunters. The canoes break their line, range themselves abreast, and present their prows. The hunters leap ashore, and repair to the villages in the order observed at their departure. Each Indian sings his own praise: “It requires a man to attack the bears as I have done; it requires a man to bring home such furs and such provisions in such abundance.” The tribes applaud. The women follow, carrying the produce of the expedition.

The skins and the provisions are divided in the public place. The fire of return is kindled, and the strings of the bears' tongues are cast into it: if they are fleshy and crackle much, it is a most favourable omen; if they are dry and burn without noise, the nation is threatened with some calamity.

After the dance of the calumet the last hunting feast is held. It is furnished by a bear brought alive from the forest; the beast is boiled whole, skin, entrails, and all, in an enormous cauldron. No part of the animal must be left, nor must any 0290 284 of its bones be broken—a Jewish custom—and every drop of the water in which it has been boiled must be drunk. The Savage whose stomach rejects this mess, calls his companions to his assistance. This feast lasts eight or ten hours: the partakers leave it in a deplorable state, and some of them pay with their lives for the horrid pleasure imposed by superstition. The ceremony closes with a speech from a Sachem to the following effect:

“Warriors, the Great Hare has regarded our arrows: ye have shown the intelligence of the beaver, the prudence of the bear, the strength of the bison, the swiftness of the elk. Depart, and spend the moon of fire in fishing and in diversions.” This speech finishes with an Oah! a religious cry which is thrice repeated.

The animals which furnish the Savages with furs are: the badger, the gray, yellow, and red fox, the pecan, the gopher, the racoon, the gray and white hare, the beaver, the ermine, the marten, the muskrat, the carcajou or tiger-cat, the otter, the lynx, the polecat, the black, gray, and striped squirrel, the bear, and several species of the wolf.

The skins for tanning are obtained from the elk, the mountain-sheep, the roebuck, the fallow-deer, the stag, and the bison.