of meum and tuum, is rather Spartan, successful theft being considered rather creditable that otherwise, especially if the white man be the sufferer." The abduction of the hatchet is intelligible enough, but what the deuce could the rascal want

to do with the comb?

Lest, however, it should be thought that the Chippeways are worse than other tribes-they are certainly no better-we shall take leave to introduce the reader to a solemn banquet among the Sioux. We never yet were reduced to the necessity of dining in a pig-stye, but we are not convinced that such a locality would be more sickening than an Indian lodge. The scene is at the Echo Lake, or, as it is there called, the Lac-qui-Parle.

One

"It appeared that, after our departure on our first trip, some chiefs, of a different band of Sioux, who were not there when we made our presents before, had gone to M'Leod and complained that we were gone to hunt their buffalo, and very likely drive them out of their country, and had not made them any presents; and threatened to send and prevent our hunting, if M'Leod did not make them some present: he promised that on our return we should do so. morning, therefore, about twelve old chiefs assembled in the hut, and we gave them some forty yards of calico, and some very bad tobacco, with which they were enchanted, and said we might kill all the buffalo in the country, if we could; after that, they invited us to a dog-feast-but in the absence of dog, they gave us duck, a change we did not regret. The feast is worth describing. When we arrived at the chief's lodge, The Beaver's Tail'-which we entered by a hole like the entrance to a bee-hive we found an atmosphere of smoke, and smell not of the pleasantest. About ten old warriors were squatting in tailor fashion round the fire, over which was hanging the pot, containing some twenty or thirty canvass-back ducks, each of them nearly the size of three of our domestic ones, and presided over by Dohumnêh, or the Prolific Pumpkin,' a rather pretty squaw, and the youngest and favourite wife of the 'Beaver's Tail.' Directly we were seated, great wooden platters were placed before us, loaded with duck enough to have dined ten people in England. warriors dispensed with plates, dipping nature's knife and fork into the caldron.

The

Such appetites I never saw before, and never wish to see again: great, fat, halfboiled ducks disappeared like so many snipes, and handfuls of grease, of the consistency of thick arrow-root, were baled in, and daubed over the face and person personal appearance. After eating about with a most magnanimous disregard to half-an-hour, during which they 'swelled visibly,' the old Beaver Tail gave in, and with a grunt of repletion fell back in a reclining position; the others, evidently feeling very uneasy, soon followed his example, and the miserable remains of the feast were removed to be disposed of by the squaws, children, and dogs, in turn. After we had sat some time, the old chief produced a medicine pipe, which, with the accompanying kinnikinnik bag, he handed to the youngest chief present, who loaded and lighted it, and, after turning the bowl and blowing a cloud to each of the four quarters of the heavens, handed it to the old Beaver. The Indians, on any great occasion, make a point of propitiating the Great Spirit by turning the bowl of the pipe to the four quarters of the heavens. After the old Beaver had taken six or seven puffs, he passed it to us, and we, doing likewise, passed it to the others, by whom it was inhaled with a grunt of pleasure. When an Indian lights a pipe, it is always handed round to the company present, taking the same direction as the wine does with us-viz., with the sun.

"After we had smoked a short time in silence, the old Beaver rose, and, in the unmusical language of his tribe, made more so by his disgusting state of repletion, began a complimentary speech, saying what pleasure it gave him to see his white brethren, (this was rather a double entendre, for the old villain was supposed to have been one of those who killed the Americans in the spring, and most probably had some of their hair hanging from his leggings at that moment!) and wishing to know what we had come for, and whether we had brought anything for him. When he had done speaking, a grunt of acquiescence went round, when we, through the interpreter, told him that our Great White Mother, having heard of the fame of the warriors of the great Dahcotah nation, had said, 'Go and see whether their warriors equal mine;' and that we had crossed the Big Salt Lake, and come from the rising sun; and that our Big Mother, knowing that her Red Brothers liked tobacco and powder, had sent them some. On this we produced a small quantity of tobacco, and some powder, and paint, and beads, which latter were

hung the fresh scalp of a Mohawk warrior, whom her deceased lover had lately slain in battle; and, finally, she was anointed from head to foot with bear's grease, which sent forth a most agreeable odour."

We should have been more chary of these quotations, did we believe that there exists the remotest chance of the Redskins improving towards civilisation, or abandoning, at the least, the more abominable practices of their forefathers. But we cannot say that we have any such faith in their future destiny. As there are some animals which cannot be tamed, so there are some races of men that seem proof against all civilisation. We are aware that this view is unpopular, nay, abhorred by a certain class of philanthropists, who, we verily believe, would, without hesitation, undertake to tame a Kaffir, or to educate an Australian nomad in the higher branches of mathematics. Such gentlemen had better go to the prairies, and exercise their persuasiveness in person. Right glad may they be if they are allowed to return with their hair, though without a single convert; for we fancy that even the "Old Racoon" would decline to entertain them permanently in his lodge. That any man in his senses should hanker after the Indian life, would appear to be almost incredible. And yet there have been instances of men who, in spite of delicate nurture, have rushed off to the wilderness, and of their own accord embraced the loathsomeness of barbarism. It is to be hoped that ignorance more than inclination has led to such lamentable and disgraceful cases of backsliding; for not even the temptation of perfect freedom can be pled in excuse for such an abnegation of the higher duties of humanity. On this point Mr Sullivan makes the following most just observations :

"The cant about the trammels of civilisation, and the perfect liberty and independence of the savage in his native state, roaming where he listeth, is all humbug; nobody, in reality, has less liberty than the savage Indian. He cannot say, This country and manner of life does not suit me; I will go and live elsewhere. The instant he sets his foot out of his own country, he knows he will be

scalped. His position realises to the letter- In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread.' His every movement is taken up by his exertion to procure food. The laws even of the society he exists in render him anything but a free agent. Witness the young warrior whose lodge was slit up on a cold winter's night, and his gun broken, because he had hunted without leave, (game laws, with a vengeance) The more civilised and enlightened a country becomes, the greater liberty of thought and action its inhabitants enjoy. The honest labourer or sweeper of crossings in London has more real freedom than the proudest chief that ever hunted buffalo on the prairie."

Of buffalo hunting, the descendant of O'Sullivan More speaks rather contemptuously. Of our own knowledge, having never been adopted by the Old Racoon, Big Skunk, Waddling Tortoise, or any other Indian chief, we can neither corroborate nor refute his statement; but we have a strong impression that his view is essentially correct.

"The next morning, on awakening, we found seven large bulls close to camp. Weran' them and killed them all, our guides, I believe, doing the greater part of the execution; they were better mounted, and more up to the sport. Running buffalo for the first time, and the sensation of galloping alongside a brute that appears as large as a haystack, is novel and exciting; but after running them a few times the sport loses its excitement; and, for my part, I would rather have ten minutes with a pack of hounds across the worst county in England, than kill all the buffalo on the prairie. The bulls generally allow you to approach within 500 yards before they start off à la course. A good horse will catch them in half a mile; and once up and alongside, the pleasure is over, as you keep on loading and firing as fast as you can at a distance of five or six yards, till the animal drops or stops, when you dismount and finish him at your leisure. The death-struggles of such an enormous brute (and they die very hard) are most painful to witness. The sport is just dangerous enough to keep up a wholesome excitement, and to originate tales of hair-breadth escapes without number. There is the chance of your horse putting his foot into a fox or badger earth; there is the chance of the bull stopping suddenly and turning round, in which case, most probably, he receives the horse on his horns, and you make a voyage of dis

covery over his head; and there is the chance, if you are fortunate, of his running at you when he is wounded. I only speak of these dangers from hearsay, as all the bulls I saw were in far too great a hurry to get away, to have any idea of turning upon their pursuers."

As, therefore, neither the people nor the sport on the prairies appear to be very inviting, we advise none of our friends who may be meditating a distant expedition, to penetrate so far. It is always safe to keep, at least, upon the skirts of civilisation. When you pass beyond, and get into the howling wilderness, you are likely to be in a sad quandary. Hunger and cold must be your daily concomitants; and although we can very well believe that buffalo-hump tastes divinely after a long ride, you cannot calculate upon such a luxury every day, but must make up your mind, on a pinch, to dine off wolf or skunk. Mr Sullivan did not like wolf, at which we are not surprised; and we fancy it would require some determination to make a hearty meal on weasels. But let us suppose that you have somehow or other contrived to procure the wherewithal to satisfy an appetite never so ravenous as on the prairie-that you are even enabled to solace yourself with a modicum of rum, and to blow a cloud before turning into roost-that a large cotton tree is blazing in the midst of the bivouac, and that you are free from any apprehension that in the course of the night either Crow or Sioux will make a larcenous attempt on your horses,-granting you this favourable combination of circumstances, which is by no means of frequent occurrence, what will be the nature of your slumbers?

"We humped it for four days, snowing and sleeting continually, with the snow several inches deep, and a wind that went through you and came out the other side without stopping. You felt the breath out of your body was quite as cold as the air you took in. We had no fire but from buffalo-dung, which took a long time to collect, and then lasted but a very short time, giving scarcely any heat. Lying down in snow, with nothing to eat, and awakening next morning half frozen, and the snow nearly a foot deep over you, was by no means cheerful. A buffalo robe is the

warmest thing possible, so long as you can exclude the air; but during those cold drifting winds on the prairies, if a crevice of half-an-inch got open, you were half frozen; the wind came direct from the Pole, with hardly a stick or a hill to break its keenness. All our flour, pork, tea, and coffee had been exhausted for nearly a fortnight, and we had nothing but meat, meat, meat, harder and harder, half cooked, and more indigestible every day, washed down with either snow water, which is very unwholesome, or stagnant pool water, got with much difficulty by chopping a hole in the ice. One day, when the repetition of buffalo meat had become ex

tremely nauseons, we boiled a few tit-bits killed, and ate them par préférence; but of some of the large wolves we had I cannot say it was an improvement."

Commend us by all means to a four-poster! Unpleasant as may be the interior of a lodge, we would rather remain there, even if deprived of the fascinating society of the Prolific Pumpkin, than run the risk of being frozen to death on those bleak and abominable wastes. We hope we are not much more effeminate than our fathers; and, although we dislike at all times lying out of doors, we think we could make shift beside a hay-cock. But the mere thought of these nights on the prairie chills us to the very marrow.

Many men will cheerfully undergo great hardships in the cause of science; and we have even known one or two nincompoops, who nearly fell martyrs to their exorbitant appetite for scenery. A keen sportsman, as a matter of course, will face anything; and so will a pedlar for the sake of a virgin market. But what can tempt people, who neither care for scenery, science, sport, nor profit, to the prairies? Nay, what temptation is there even for enthusiasts? Far better scenery, we are assured on every hand, can be had, combined with comfort. Science is at sea on the prairies; and the philosopher, yielding to the savage, confesses himself to be little better than an indifferent-in fact, a day's deerass. Sport, as we have seen, is but stalking in the Athole forest is worth the whole buffalo season. As for trade, we imagine that it is difficult to effect even a tolerable stroke of

business, now that beaver skins have declined in value; for unless the traders were to accept scalps in exchange for calico and powder, there is little else to be obtained from

the cabin of an Indian brave. And, as yet, though "hair" is commonly quoted, we have seen no entry in the Liverpool mercantile lists under the specific denomination of "scalps." Our feeling, with regard to Mr Sullivan, is that of extreme gratitude for his candid account of the hardships which beset his way. His book may serve, like a sign-post at a dangerous ford, to warn others against rash and unprofitable attempts; and we really wish that such candour were more common. Why persuade some poor devil, by glowing descriptions of scenery which does not exist, to peril a life which, though not generally valuable, may be priceless in the eyes of some old mother or infatuated sister? Why lead, in short, an unhappy idiot astray, when all that he can acquire for his pains may be an ague to torment him for life? Here is a specimen of savage scenery, which we recommend to the attention of those who are anxious to survey nature in her primitive and undisturbed retreats :—

"The forests between Lake Superior and the Mississippi, where the country is very flat and wet, are composed almost entirely of black cypress: they grow so thick that the tops get intermixed and interlaced, and form almost a matting overhead, through which the sun scarcely ever penetrates. The trees are covered with unwholesome-looking mosses, which exhale a damp earthy smell, like a cellar. The ground is so covered with a rank growth of elder and other shrubsmany of them with thorns of an inch long- and with fallen and decayed trunks of trees, that it is impossible to take a step without breaking one's shins; not a bird or animal of any kind is to be seen, and a death-like silence reigns through the forest, which is only now and then interrupted by the rattle of the rattlesnake, (like a clock going down,) and the chirrup of the chitnunck or squirrel. The sombre colour of the foliage, the absence of all sun even at mid-day, and the vault-like chilliness one feels when entering a cypress swamp, is far from cheering; and I don't know any position so likely to give one the

horrors as being lost in one, or where one could so well realise what a desolate The wasps, whose nests loneliness is. like great gourds hang from the trees

about the level of one's face-the mos

quitos in millions-the little black flies

and venomous snakes-all add their 'little possible' to render a tramp through a cypress swamp agreeable."

a

And what kind of tramp is it? Mr Murray has not yet, so far as we know, vouchsafed to put out a handbook for that part of the world; and even had he done so, we apprehend that there would be no minute directions for the threading of a cypress swamp. Now, we have no wish to make things appear worse than they really are. We do not think it necessary to depict one of these " swamps" and we are glad that Mr Sullivan has taken the same line-as morass, in order to cross which the unfortunate traveller has to leap from the back of one slumbering crocodile to the other, at the peril, if he misses his footing, of falling amidst knots of snakes whose bite is instantaneous death. The fact is, that no crocodile could exist in such a slough, and even the snakes are seriously to be pitied. Bad enough it is, in all conscience, without any attempt at exaggeration; and we can conceive nothing

more horrible than the

thought of a Cockney, yet fresh from the atmosphere of Ludgate Hill, being placed in such a position as the following:

"When a stranger, uninitiated in the mysteries of woodcraft, and unprovided with a compass, loses his way in a forest, he invariably continues describing circles of greater or less diameter round the spot where he was first puzzled. And this is easily accounted for; for having nothing to guide him as to the points of the compass, and dreading lest he should be advancing too steadily in what may possibly be the wrong direction, he unconsciously continues walking in a circle, and very likely finds himself, at the end of several hours' toil, in the identical spot where he first commenced. assistance from the sun is rendered impossible by the crowded growth of the timber. I have frequently, when wishing to form some idea of the time of day, tried to get a glimpse of the sun, and even climbed trees for that purpose, but without success."

All