ened to the consistence of the finest chamois leather, and embroidered with beads of wampum, formed like bugles; these, with great art and industry, they formed out of shells, which had the appearance of fine white porcelain, veined with purple. This embroidery showed both skill and taste, and was among themselves highly valued. They had belts, large embroidered garters, and many other ornaments, formed, first of sinews, divided to the size of coarse thread, and afterwards, when they obtained worsted thread from us, of that material, formed in a manner which I could never comprehend. It was neither knitted nor wrought in the manner of net, nor yet woven ; but the texture was formed more like an officer's

sash than anything I can compare it to. While the women and children were thus employed, the men sometimes assisted them in the more laborious part of their business, but oftener occupied themselves in fishing on the rivers, and drying or preserving, by means of smoke, in sheds erected for the purpose, sturgeon and large eels, which they caught in great quantities, and of an extraordinary size, for winter provision.

Boys on the verge of manhood, and ambitious to be admitted into the hunting parties of the ensuing winter, exercised themselves in trying to improve their skill in archery, by shooting birds, squirrels, and racoons. These petty huntings helped to support the little colony in the neigh

borhood, which however derived its principal subsistence from an exchange of their manufactures with the neighboring family for milk, bread, and other articles of food.

The summer residence of these ingenious artisans promoted a great intimacy between the females of the vicinity and the Indian women, whose sagacity and comprehension of mind were beyond belief.

It is a singular circumstance, that though they saw the negroes in every respectable family not only treated with humanity, but cherished with parental kindness, they always regarded them with contempt and dislike, as an inferior race, and would have no communication with them. It was necessary then that all conversations should be held, and all business transacted with these females, by the mistress of the family. In the infancy of the settlement the Indian language was familiar to the more intelligent inhabitants, who found it very useful, and were, no doubt, pleased with its nervous and emphatic idiom, and its lofty and sonorous cadence. It was indeed a noble and copious language, when one considers that it served as the vehicle of thought to a people whose ideas and sphere of action we should consider as so very confined.

Chapter XIII

PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE

INDIAN MANNERS

CONVERSING with those interesting and

deeply reflecting natives, was to thinking minds no mean source of entertainment. Communication soon grew easier; for the Indians had a singular facility in acquiring other languages; the children I well remember, from experimental knowledge, for I delighted to hover about the wigwam, and converse with those of the Indians, and we very frequently mingled languages. But to return: whatever comfort or advantage a good and benevolent mind possesses, it is willing to extend to others. The mother of my friend, and other matrons, who like her experienced the consolations, the hopes, and the joys of Christianity, wished those inestimable natives to share in their pure enjoyments.

Of all others these mild and practical Christians were the best fitted for making proselytes. Unlike professed missionaries, whose zeal is not always seconded by judgment, they did not begin by alarming the jealousy with which all manner of people watch over their hereditary prejudices. Engaged in active life, they had daily opportunities

of demonstrating the truth of their religion by its influence upon their conduct. Equally unable and unwilling to enter into deep disquisitions or polemical arguments, their calm and unstudied explanations of the essential doctrines of Christianity, were the natural results which arose out of their ordinary conversation. To make this better understood, I must endeavor to explain what I have observed in the unpolished society, that occupies the wild and remote regions of different countries. Their conversation is not only more original, but, however odd the expression may appear, more philosophical than that of persons equally destitute of mental culture in more populous districts. They derive their subjects of reflection and conversation more from natural objects, which lead minds, possessing a certain degree of intelligence, more forward to trace effects to their causes. Nature there, too, is seen arrayed in virgin beauty and simple majesty. Its various aspects are more grand and impressive. Its voice is more distinctly heard, and sinks deeper into the heart. These people, more dependent on the simples of the fields and the wild fruits of the woods; better acquainted with the forms and instincts of the birds and beasts, their fellow denizens in the wild; and more observant of every constellation and every change in the sky, from living so much in the open air, have a wider range of ideas than we are aware of. With us, art every where combats nature, opposes her plainest dictates, and too often

conquers her. The poor are so confined to the spot where their occupations lie, so engrossed by their struggles for daily bread, and so surrounded by the works of man, that those of their Creator are almost excluded from their view, at least form a very small part of the subjects that engross their thoughts. What knowledge they have is often merely the husks and orts that fall from the table of their superiors, which they swallow without chewing.

Many of those who are one degree above the lowest class, see nature in poetry, novels, and other books, and never think of looking for her any where else; like a person amused by seeing the reflection of the starry heavens or shifting clouds in a calm lake, never lifting his eyes to those objects of which he sees the imperfect though resembling pictures.

Those who live in the undisguised bosom of tranquil nature, and whose chief employment it is, by disencumbering her of waste luxuriance, to discover and improve her latent beauties, need no borrowed enthusiasm to relish the sublime and graceful feat

ures.

The venerable simplicity of the sacred scriptures, has something extremely attractive for a mind in this state. The soul, which is the most familiar with its Creator, in his works, will be always the most ready to recognize him in his word. Conversations which had for their subject the nature and virtues of plants, the extent and boundaries of woods