book one has read and done with, or, at least, if one looked at the

book, one just recollected that there was a supplement promised, to contain a chapter on Montreal, the starving and surrender of it; but here we are on a sudden reading our book backward. An account came two days ago that the French, on their march to besiege Quebec, had been attacked by General Murray, who got into a mistake and a morass, attacked two bodies that were joined when he hoped to come up with one of them before he was inclosed, embogged, and defeated. By the list of officers killed and wounded, I believe there has been a rueful slaughter, and the place, I suppose, will be retaken."--Walpole's _Letters to Sir H. Mann_, June 20th, 1760.]

[Footnote 197: "The Pomona, one of the French frigates, was driven on shore above Cape Diamond; the other frigate, the Atalanta, ran ashore, and was burned at Point aux Trembles."--_Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. xxx., p. 297.]

[Footnote 198: "Pour comble de malheur, on accusait des plus horribles brigandages presque tous ceux qui etaient employes au nom du roi dans cette malheureuse colonie. Ils ont ete juges au Chatelet de Paris, tandis que le Parlement informait contre Lalli, 1764. Celui-ci, apres avoir cent fois expose sa vie, l'a perdue par la main d'un bourreau, tandis que les concussionnaires du Canada n'ont ete condamnes qu'a des restitutions et des amendes: tant il est de difference entre les affaires qui semblent les memes."--Voltaire's _Precis du Siecle de Louis XV._, p. 291.]

APPENDIX.

No. I.

"GENEVA, NOV. 6.--Two days after the news arrived here of the taking of Quebec, Monsieur de Voltaire gave a grand entertainment at his house in the country. In the evening the company retired into a noble gallery, at the end of which was erected an elegant theater, and a new piece, called Le Patriot Insulaire, was performed, in which all the genius and fire of that celebrated poet were exhausted in the cause of liberty. M. de Voltaire himself appeared in the principal character, and drew tears from the whole audience. The scenes were decorated with emblems of liberty, and over the stage was this inscription in Latin and English:

'Libertati quieti Musis Sacrum S P of the F.'

The English line means 'Spite of the French.'

"After the play the windows of the gallery flew open, and presented a spacious court finely illuminated and adorned with savage trophies. In the middle of the court a magnificent fire-work was played off, accompanied with martial music; the star of St. George shedding forth innumerable rockets, and underneath a lively representation, by girandoles, of the cataract of Niagara."--_Public Advertiser_, Nov. 23, 1759.

No. II.

"One of the most singular geographical illusions on record is that which for a long while haunted the imaginations of the inhabitants of the Canaries. They fancied they beheld a mountainous island, of about ninety leagues in length, lying far to the westward. It was only seen at intervals, though in perfectly clear and serene weather. To some it seemed one hundred leagues distant, to others forty, to others only fifteen or eighteen.[199]

"On attempting to reach it, however, it somehow or other eluded the search, and was nowhere to be found. Still, there were so many persons of credibility who concurred in testifying to their having seen it, and the testimony of the inhabitants of different islands agreed so well as to its form and position, that its existence was generally believed; and geographers inserted it in their maps. It is laid down on the globe of Martin Behrm, projected in 1492, as delineated by M. de Murr, and it will be found in most of the maps of the time of Columbus, placed commonly about 200 leagues west of the Canaries. During the time that Columbus was making his proposition to the court of Portugal, an inhabitant of the Canaries applied to King John II. for a vessel to go in search of this island. In the archives of the Torre di Tombo,[200] also, there is a record of a contract made by the crown of Portugal with Fernando de Ulmo, cavalier of the royal household, and captain of the Island of Terceira, wherein he undertakes to go, at his own expense, in quest of an island, or islands, or terra firma, supposed to be the Island of the Seven Cities, on condition of having jurisdiction over the same for himself and his heirs, allowing one tenth of the revenues to the king. This Ulmo, finding the expedition above his capacity, associated one Juan Alphonso del Estreito in the enterprise. They were bound to be ready to sail with two caravels in the month of March, 1487.[201] The fate of their enterprise is unknown.

"The name of St. Brandan, or Borondan, given to this imaginary island from time immemorial, is said to be derived from a Scotch abbot, who flourished in the sixth century, and who is called sometimes by the foregoing appellations, sometimes St. Blandano or St. Blandanus. In the Martyrology of the order of St. Augustine, he is said to have been the patriarch of 3000 monks. About the middle of the sixth century, he accompanied his disciple, St. Maclovio or St. Malo, in search of certain islands, possessing the delights of paradise, which they were told existed in the midst of the ocean, and were inhabited by infidels. After these most adventurous saints-errant had wandered for a long time upon the ocean, they at length landed upon an island called Ima. Here St. Malo found the body of a giant lying in a sepulcher. He resuscitated him, and had much interesting conversation with him, the giant informing him that the inhabitants of that island had some notions of the Trinity, and, moreover, giving him an account of the torments which Jews and pagans suffered in the infernal regions. Finding the giant so docile and reasonable, St. Malo expounded to him the doctrines of the Christian religion, converted him, and baptized him by the name of Mildum. The giant, however, either through weariness of life, or eagerness to enjoy the benefits of his conversion, begged permission, at the end of fifteen days, to die again, which was granted him.

"According to another account, the giant told them he knew of an island in the ocean, defended by walls of burnished gold, so resplendent that they shone like crystal, but to which there was no entrance. At their request he undertook to guide them to it, and, taking the cable of their ship, threw himself into the sea. He had not proceeded far, however, when a tempest arose and obliged them all to return, and shortly after the giant died.[202] A third legend makes the saint pray to Heaven, on Easter day, that they may be permitted to find land where they may celebrate the offices of religion with becoming state: an island immediately appears, on which they land, perform a solemn mass, and the sacrament of the Eucharist; after which, reembarking and making sail, they behold to their astonishment the supposed island suddenly plunge to the bottom of the sea, being nothing else than a monstrous _whale_.[203] When the rumor circulated of an island seen from the Canaries, which always eluded the search, the legends of St. Brandan were revived, and applied to this unapproachable land. We are told, also, that there was an ancient Latin manuscript in the archives of the cathedral church of the Grand Canary in which the adventures of these saints were recorded. Through carelessness, however, this manuscript disappeared.[204] Some have maintained that this island was known to the ancients, and was the same mentioned by Ptolemy among the Fortunate or Canary Islands by the name of Aprositus,[205] a Greek word signifying 'inaccessible,' and which, according to Friar Diego Philipo, in his book on the Incarnation of Christ, shows that it possessed the same quality in ancient times of deluding the eye, and being unattainable to the feet of mortals.[206] But, whatever belief the ancients may have had on the subject, it is certain that it took a strong hold on the faith of the moderns during the prevalent rage for discovery; nor did it lack abundant testimonials. Don Joseph de Viera y Clavijo says there never was a more difficult paradox or problem in the science of geography, since to affirm the existence of this island is to trample upon sound criticism, judgment, and reason, and to deny it, one must abandon tradition and experience, and suppose that many persons of credit had not the proper use of their senses.[207]

"The belief in this island has continued long since the time of Columbus. It was repeatedly seen, and by various persons at a time, always in the same place and the same form. In 1626, an expedition set off for the Canaries in quest of it, commanded by Fernando de Troya and Fernando Alvarez. They cruised in the wonted direction, but in vain; and their failure ought to have undeceived the public. 'The phantasm of the island, however,' says Viera, 'had such a secret enchantment for all who beheld it, that the public preferred doubting the good conduct of the explorers than their own senses.' In 1570 the appearances were so repeated and clear, that there was a universal fever of curiosity awakened among the people of the Canaries, and it was determined to send forth another expedition. That they might not appear to act upon light grounds, an exact investigation was previously made of all the persons of talent and credibility who had seen these apparitions of land, or who had other proofs of its existence.

"Alonzode Espinosa, governor of the island of Ferro, accordingly made a report, in which more than one hundred witnesses, several of them persons of the highest respectability, deposed that they had beheld the unknown island about forty leagues to the northwest of Ferro; that they had contemplated it with calmness and certainty, and had seen the sun set behind one of its points.

"Testimonials of still greater force came from the islands of Palma and Teneriffe. There were certain Portuguese who affirmed that, being driven about by a tempest, they had come upon the island of St. Borondon. Pedro Vello, who was the pilot of the vessel, asserted that, having anchored in a bay, he landed with several of the crew. They drank fresh water in a brook, and beheld in the sand the print of footsteps, double the size of those of an ordinary man, and the distance between them was in proportion. They found a cross nailed to a neighboring tree, near to which were three stones placed in form of a triangle, with signs of fire having been made among them, probably to cook shell-fish. Having seen much cattle and sheep grazing in the neighborhood, two of their party, armed with lances, went into the woods in pursuit of them. The night was approaching, the heavens began to lower, and a harsh wind arose. The people on board the ship cried out that she was dragging her anchor, whereupon Vello entered the boat and hurried on board. In an instant they lost sight of land, being, as it were, swept away in the hurricane. When the storm had passed away, and sea and sky were again serene, they searched in vain for the island; not a trace of it was to be seen, and they had to pursue their voyage, lamenting the loss of their two companions who had been abandoned in the wood.[208]

"A learned licentiate, Pedro Ortez de Funez, inquisitor of the Grand Canary, while on a visit at Teneriffe, summoned several persons before him who testified having seen the island. Among them was one Marcos Verde, a man well known in those parts. He stated that, in returning from Barbary, and arriving in the neighborhood of the Canaries, he beheld land, which, according to his maps and calculations, could not be any of the known islands. He concluded it to be the far-famed St. Borondon. Overjoyed at having discovered this land of mystery, he coasted along its spell-bound shores until he anchored in a beautiful harbor, formed by the mouth of a mountain ravine. Here he landed with several of his crew. 'It was now,' he said, 'the hour of Ave Maria, or of vespers. The sun being set, the shadows began to spread over the land. The navigators, having separated, wandered about in different directions, until out of hearing of each other's shouts. Those on board, seeing the night approaching, made signals to summon back the wanderers to the ship. They re-embarked, intending to resume their investigations on the following day. Scarcely were they on board, however, when a whirlwind came rushing down the ravine with such violence as to drag the vessel from her anchor and hurry her out to sea, and they never saw any thing more of this hidden and inhospitable island.'

"Another testimony remains on record in a manuscript of one Abreu Galindo, but whether taken at this time does not appear. It was that of a French adventurer, who, many years before, making a voyage among the Canaries, was overtaken by a violent storm, which carried away his masts. At length the furious winds drove him to the shores of an unknown island covered with stately trees. Here he landed with part of his crew, and, choosing a tree proper for a mast, cut it down, and began to shape it for his purpose. The guardian power of the island, however, resented, as usual, this invasion of his forbidden shores. The heavens assumed a dark and threatening aspect; the night was approaching; and the mariners, fearing some impending evil, abandoned their labor, and returned on board. They were borne away, as usual, from the coast, and the next day arrived at the island of Palma.[209]

"The mass of testimony collected by official authority in 1570 seemed so satisfactory that another expedition was fitted out in the same year in the island of Palma. It was commanded by Fernando de Villalobos, regidor of the island, but was equally fruitless with the preceding. St. Borondon seemed disposed only to tantalize the world with distant and serene glimpses of his ideal paradise, or to reveal it amid storms to tempest-tossed mariners, but to hide it completely from the view of all who diligently sought it. Still, the people of Palma adhered to their favorite chimera. Thirty-four years afterward, in 1605, they sent another ship on the quest, commanded by Gaspar Perez de Acosta, an accomplished pilot, accompanied by the Padre Lorenzo Pinedo, a holy Franciscan friar, skilled in natural science. San Borondon, however, refused to reveal his island to either monk or mariner. After cruising about in every direction, sounding, observing the skies, the clouds, the winds, every thing that could furnish indications, they returned without having seen any thing to authorize a hope.

"Upward of a century now elapsed without any new attempt to seek this fairy island. Every now and then, it is true, the public mind was agitated by fresh reports of its having been seen. Lemons and other fruits, and the green branches of trees, which floated to the shores of Gomara and Ferro, were pronounced to be from the enchanted groves of San Borondon. At length, in 1721, the public infatuation again rose to such a height that a fourth expedition was sent, commanded by Don Gaspar Dominguez, a man of probity and talent. As this was an expedition of solemn and mysterious import, he had two holy friars as apostolical chaplains. They made sail from the island of Teneriffe toward the end of October, leaving the populace in an indescribable state of anxious curiosity. The ship, however, returned from its cruise as unsuccessful as all its predecessors.

"We have no account of any expedition being since undertaken, though the island still continued to be a subject of speculation, and occasionally to reveal its shadowy mountains to the eyes of favored individuals. In a letter written from the island of Gomara, 1759, by a Franciscan monk to one of his friends, he relates having seen it from the village of Alaxera, at six in the morning of the third of May. It appeared to consist of two lofty mountains, with a deep valley between, and on contemplating it with a telescope, the valley or ravine appeared to be filled with trees. He summoned the curate, Antonio Joseph Manrique, and upward of forty other persons, all of whom beheld it plainly.[210]

"Nor is this island delineated merely in ancient maps of the time of Columbus. It is laid down as one of the Canary Islands in a French map published in 1704; and Mons. Gautier, in a geographical chart annexed to his Observations on Natural History, published in 1759, places it five degrees to the west of the Island of Ferro, in the 29th degree of north latitude.[211]

"Such are the principal facts existing relative to the island of St. Brandan. Its reality was for a long time a matter of firm belief. It was in vain that repeated voyages and investigations proved its non-existence: the public, after trying all kinds of sophistry, took refuge in the supernatural to defend their favorite chimera. They maintained that it was rendered inaccessible to mortals by divine providence or by diabolical magic. Most inclined to the former. All kinds of extravagant fancies were indulged concerning it:[212] some confounded it with the fabled island of the Seven Cities, situated somewhere in the bosom of the ocean, where, in old times, seven bishops and their followers had taken refuge from the Moors. Some of the Portuguese imagined it to be the abode of their last king, Sebastian. The Spaniards pretended that Roderic, the last of their Gothic kings, had fled thither from the Moors after the disastrous battle of the Guadalete. Others suggested that it might be the seat of the terrestrial paradise--the place where Enoch and Eliiah remained in a slate of blessedness until the final day; and that it was made at times apparent to the eyes, but invisible to the search of mortals. Poetry, it is said, has owed to this popular belief one of its beautiful fictions; and the garden of Armida, where Rinaldo was detained enchanted, and which Tasso places in one of the Canary Islands, has been identified with the imaginary San Borondon.[213]

"The learned father Feyjoo[214] has given a philosophical solution to this geographical problem. He attributes all these appearances, which have been so numerous and so well authenticated as not to admit of doubt, to certain atmospherical deceptions, like that of the Fata Morgana, seen at times in the Straits of Messina, where the city of Reggio and its surrounding country is reflected in the air above the neighboring sea; a phenomenon which has likewise been witnessed in front of the city of Marseilles. As to the tales of the mariners who had landed on these forbidden shores, and been hurried from thence in whirlwinds and tempests, he considers them as mere fabrications.

"As the populace, however, reluctantly give up any thing that partakes of the marvelous and mysterious, and as the same atmospherical phenomena which first gave birth to the illusion may still continue, it is not improbable that a belief in the island of St. Brandan may still exist among the ignorant and credulous of the Canaries, and that they at times behold its fairy mountains rising above the distant horizon of the Atlantic."--Washington Irving, _Life of Columbus_.

[Footnote 199: Feyjoo, _Theatro Critico_, tom. iv., ch. x., s. xx.]

[Footnote 200: Lib. iv. de la Chancelaria del Rey Don Juan II., fol. 101.]

[Footnote 201: Torre di Tombo, _Lib. das Yihas_, fol. 119.]

[Footnote 202: Fr. Gregorio Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. i., cap. ix.]

[Footnote 203: Sigeberto, _Epist. ad Fritmar Abbat._]

[Footnote 204: Nunez de la Pena, _Conquist. de la Gran Canaria_.]

[Footnote 205: Ptolemy, tom. iv., lib. iv.]

[Footnote 206: Fr. D. Philipo, lib. viii., fol. 25.]

[Footnote 207: _Hist. Isl. Can._, lib. i., cap. xxviii.]

[Footnote 208: Nunez de la Pena, lib. i., cap. i.; Viera, _Hist. Isl. Can._, tom. i., cap. xxviii.]

[Footnote 209: Nunez, _Conquist. de la Gran Canaria_; Viera, _Hist. Isl. Can._]

[Footnote 210: Viera, _Hist. Isl. Can._, lib. i., cap. xxvi.]

[Footnote 211: Id. ib., tom. i., cap. xxviii.]

[Footnote 212: Id. ib.]

[Footnote 213: Viera, _Hist. Isl. Can._]

[Footnote 214: _Theatro Critico_, tom. lv., d. x.]

No. III.

The following lines in Pulci's "Morgante Maggiore" afford probably the most circumstantial prediction that is to be found of the existence of a Western World. The devil, alluding to the vulgar superstition respecting the Pillars of Hercules, thus addresses Rinaldo:

"Know that this theory is false; his bark The daring mariner shall urge far o'er The western wave, a smooth and level plain, Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel. Man was in ancient days of grosser mold, And Hercules might blush to learn how far Beyond the limits he had vainly set, The dullest sea-bird soon shall wing her way. Men shall descry another hemisphere, Since to one common center all things tend. So earth, by curious mystery divine, Well-balanced hangs amid the starry spheres. At our antipodes are cities, states, And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore. But see, the sun speeds on his western path, To glad the nations with expected light."

_Canto_ xxv., st. 229, 230.

Dante, two centuries before, had indicated more vaguely his belief in an undiscovered quarter of the globe:

"De' vostri sensi, ch'e del rimanente Non vogliate negar l'esperienza Diretro al sol, del mondo senza gente."

_Inferno, Canto_ xxvi., st. 115.

The prophetic lines of Seneca are well known:

"Nil, qua fuerat sede, reliquit Pervius orbis. Indus gelidum potat Araxem, Albim Persae, Rhenumque bibunt Venient annis saecula seris Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tethysque novos detegat orbes, Nec sit terris ultima Thule."

_Medea_, Act II., v. 371, _et seq._ _Chorus in Fine._ Ed. Bip.

On which the learned Acosta remarks:

"Sed utrum divinarit Seneca, an fortuito ac temere cecinerit, quaeri potest. Mihi vero divinasse videtur, sed eo genere divinationis, quod prudentes viri familiare habent."

Acosta further on writes thus:

"Scribit Hieronymus in epistolam ad Ephesios--'Quaerirmus quoque quid sit. In quibus aliquando ambulastis secundum saeculum sit mundi hujus utrumnam et aliud quod non pertineat ad mundum istum, sed ad mundos alios, de quibus et Clemens in epistola sua scribit, oceanus et mundi qui transipsum sunt.'"--J. Acosta, Societatis Jesu, _De Natura Novi Orbis_, lib. i., cap. xi.

"Lorsq' Alfonso V. permit en 1461 a Dom Henry de peupler les iles Acores, on trouva en celle de Cuervo une statue representant un cavalier qui, de la main gauche, tenoit la bride de son cheval, et de la droite montroit l'occident, precisement du cote d'Amerique--on voyoit sur le roc une inscription en caracteres inconnus, dont il seroit a souhaiter qu'on eut pris soin d'aporter l'empreinte en Europe; mais ces premiers navigateurs cherchoient des tresors et non des nouvelles lumieres."--_Histoire de France_, par M. de Villaret, vol. xvi., p. 376.

No. IV.

The fable of Welsh Indians is of very old date. In the time of Sir Walter Raleigh, a confused report was spread over England that on the coast of Virginia the Welsh salutation had been heard; has, honi, iach. Owen Chapelain relates that in 1669, by pronouncing some Celtic words, he saved himself from the hands of the Indians of Tuscarora, by whom he was on the point of being scalped. The same thing, it is pretended, happened to Benjamin Beatty, in going from Virginia to Carolina. This Beatty asserts that he found a whole Welsh tribe, who preserved the tradition of the voyage of Madoc ap Owen, which took place in 1170. John Filson, in his "History of Kentucky," has revived these tales of the first travelers. According to him, Captain Abraham Chaplain saw Indians arrive at the post of Kaskasky, and converse in the Welsh language with some soldiers, who were natives of Wales. Captain Isaac Stewart asserts that on the Red River of Natchitoches, at the distance of 700 miles above its mouth, in the Mississippi, he discovered Indians with a fair skin and red hair, who conversed in Welsh, and possessed the titles of their origin. "They produced, in proof of what they said of their arrival on the eastern coast, rolls of parchment, carefully wrapped up in otter skins, and on which great characters were written in blue, which neither Stewart, nor his fellow-traveler, Davey, a native of Wales, could decipher." We may observe, first, that all these testimonies are extremely vague for the indication of places. The last letter of Mr. Owen, repeated in the journals of Europe (of the 11th February, 1819), places the posts of the Welsh Indians on the Madwaga, and divides them into two tribes, the Brydones and the Chadogians. "They speak Welsh with greater purity than it is spoken in the principality of Wales(!), since it is exempt from Anglicisms; they profess Christianity, strongly mixed with Druidism." We can not read such assertions without recollecting that all those fabulous stories which flatter the imagination are renewed periodically under new forms. The learned and judicious geographer of the United States, Mr. Warden, inquires justly, why all the traces of Welsh colonies and the Celtic tongue have disappeared, since less credulous travelers, and who, in some sort, control one another, have visited the country situated between the Ohio and the Rocky Mountains. Mackenzie, Barton, Clarke, Lewis, Pike, Drake, Mitchill, and the editors of the "New Archaeologia Americana," have found nothing, absolutely nothing, which denotes the remains of European colonies of the 12th century.--Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_, vol. vi., p. 326. See Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 1; Powell's _History of Wales_, p. 196, &c.

Lord Lyttleton, in his notes to the 5th book of his "History of Henry II.," p. 371, has invalidated the story of Madoc's discoveries by arguments of great weight; and Mr. Pennant, in "Philosophical Transactions," vol. lviii., p. 91, has overthrown many of the arguments upon which the existence of a Welsh settlement among the Indians was founded. General Bowles, the Cherokee, was questioned when in England as to the locality of the supposed descendants of Madoc: he laid his finger on one of the branches of the Missouri. Pike's "Travels" had lessened the probability of finding such a tribe; and Lewis and Clarke's "Travels to the Source of the Missouri" have entirely destroyed it, as acknowledged by Mr. Southey in his "Madoc."--See note to the Preface of _Madoc_.

"It is much to be wished, that in our days, when a healthy tone of criticism is very much in use, without assuming a scornful character, the ancient inquiries of Powell ('Powell's History of Wales,' p. 196) and Richard Hakluyt ('Voyages and Navigations,' vol. iii., p. 4) might again be taken up in England. I do not participate in the notion of rejecting inquiries, by which the traditions of nations are frequently observed; I prefer much to hold the firm conviction that, with more diligence and perseverance, many of the historical problems which have hitherto remained unknown to us will one day be cleared up by actual discoveries."--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 456.

By some antiquarians traces have been supposed to have been found of the discovery of America by the Irish before the year 1000. The Esquimaux related to the Normans who were settled in Winland, that further southward, on the other side of Chesapeake Bay, there dwelt "white men, who walked about in long white clothes, before them sticks to which white cloths were attached, and crying with a loud voice." This account was interpreted by the Christian Normans to signify processions, in which they carried flags and sang hymns. In the oldest traditions, and in the historical narrative of Thorfinn Karlsefue, and the Iceland Landnama Book, these southern coasts, between Virginia and Florida, are indicated by the name of "Whiteman's Land." They were, in the country itself, certainly called "Great Ireland" (Irland it Mikla), and it was supposed that they were peopled by the Irish. According to testimony extending as far back as the year 1064, before Leif discovered Winland, Ari Marsson, of the powerful Iceland race of Ulf, on a voyage southward from Iceland, was driven by a storm upon the coasts of "Great Ireland," and there baptized as a Christian, and not being allowed to go away, was subsequently recognized there by people from the Orkneys and Iceland. It is the present opinion of some northern antiquarians that Iceland was not peopled immediately from Europe, but from Virginia and Carolina (that is, from Great Ireland), by the Irish, who had early migrated to America.... The assiduous attempt to diffuse religious doctrines paved the way, at one time, for warlike undertakings, at another for the spread of peaceful ideas and commercial intercourse. The zeal which is so peculiar to the religions systems of India, Palestine, and Arabia, and which is altogether free from the indifference of Grecian and Roman polytheism, kept alive the study of geography in the first half of the Middle Ages. Letronne, the commentator of the Irish monk Dicuil, has proved, in an acute way, that after the Irish missionaries were driven out of the Faeroee Islands by the Normans, they began to visit Iceland about the year 795. The Normans, when they came to Iceland, found there Irish books, bells for ringing for mass, and other objects, which former strangers, who were called Papar, had left behind. These Papae (fathers) were the Clerici of Dicuil. Now if, as we must suppose from his testimony, those objects belonged to the Irish monks, who came from the Faeroee Islands, the question is, why are the monks (Papar) called in their native traditions "Westmen"--men who have come from the west over the sea? Respecting the connection of Prince Madoc's voyage to a great western country in 1170, with the "Great Ireland" of the Iceland traditions, all accounts are enveloped in deep obscurity. Compare the inquiries in _Rafn Antiq. Amer._, p. 203, 206, 446, 451; and Wilhelmi upon Iceland, _Hvitramannaland_, the Land of White Men, p. 75, 81; Letronne, _Recherches Geog. et Crit. sur le Livre de Mensura Orbis Terrae, compose en Irelande par Dicuil_, 1814, p. 129, 146.

The celebrated stone of Taunton River may date its hieroglyphics from the time that Norwegian navigators visited the shores of "Great Ireland." "Anglo-American antiquaries have made known an inscription, supposed to be Phoenician, and which is engraved on the rocks of Dighton, near the banks of Taunton River, twelve leagues south of Boston.... The natives who inhabited these countries at the time of the first European settlements preserved an ancient tradition, according to which strangers in wooden houses had sailed up Taunton River, formerly called Assoonet. These strangers, having conquered the red men, had engraved marks on the rock, which is now covered by the waters of the river. Count de Gebelin does not hesitate, with the learned Dr. Stiles, to regard these marks as a Carthaginian inscription. He says, with that enthusiasm which is natural to him, but which is highly injurious in discussions of this kind, that this inscription comes happily at the moment from the New World to confirm his ideas on the origin of nations, and that it is clearly demonstrated to be a Phoenician monument, a picture which in the foreground represents an alliance between the American people and the foreign nation, coming by the winds of the north from a rich and industrious country. I have carefully examined the four drawings of the celebrated stone of Taunton River, which M. Loot published in England in the Memoirs of the Antiquarian Society." (_Archaeologia_, vol. viii., p. 296.) "Far from recognizing a symmetrical arrangement of simple letters and syllabic characters, I discover a drawing scarcely traced, like those that have been found on the rocks of Norway, and in almost all the countries inhabited by the Scandinavian nations." (Suhm, _Samlinger til ten Danske Historic_, b. ii., p. 215.) "In the sketch we distinguish, from the form of the heads, five human figures surrounding an animal with horns, much higher in the fore than in the hind part of the body."--Humboldt's _Researches in America_, vol. i., p. 153.

No. V.

"The great and splendid work of Marco Polo (Il Milione di Messer Marco Polo), as we see in the corrected edition of Count Baldelli, is wrongly called a book of travels: it is chiefly a descriptive, and, we may add, a statistical work, in which it is difficult to distinguish what the traveler himself saw and what he derived from others, or gathered from the topographical descriptions which are so plenty in Chinese literature, and which he had an opportunity of attaining through his Persian interpreter. The striking similarity of the report of the travels of Hinan-tschang, the Buddhist pilgrim of the seventh century, with that of Marco Polo, of the Pamir Highlands, in 1277, early attracted my attention.... However much the more recent travelers have been inclined to enter into an account of their own personal adventures, Marco Polo, on the other hand, endeavors to mix up his own observations with the official accounts communicated to him, which were probably numerous, as he held the post of governor of the town of Zangui. The plan of compiling adopted by the famous traveler renders it intelligible how he was able to dictate his book to his fellow-prisoner and friend, Messer Rustigielo, of Pisa, from the documents before him, while in prison in Genoa in 1295."--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 400.

Humboldt elsewhere says, that "it has frequently been supposed, and declared with remarkable decision, that the truthful Marco Polo had a great influence upon Columbus, and even that he was in possession of a copy of Marco Polo's work upon his first voyage of discovery."--Navarrete, _Collecion de los Viajos y Descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Espanoles_, vol. i., p. 261.

Marco Polo is called by Malte Brun "the creator of modern Oriental geography--the Humboldt of the thirteenth century."

"The work of Marco Polo is stated by some to have been originally written in Latin, though the most probable opinion is that it was written in Italian. Copies of it in manuscript were multiplied, and rapidly circulated; translations were made into various languages, until the invention of printing enabled it to be widely diffused throughout Europe. In the course of these translations and successive editions, the original text, according to Purchas, has been much vitiated, and it is probable many extravagances in numbers and measurements with which Marco Polo is charged may be the errors of translators and printers. Francis Pepin, author of the Brandenburgh version, styles Polo a man commendable for his devoutness, prudence, and fidelity. Athanasius Kircher, in his account of China, says that none of the ancients have described the kingdoms of the remote parts of the East with more exactness. Various other learned men have borne testimony to his character, and most of the substantial points of his work have been authenticated by subsequent travelers. It is manifest, however, that he dealt much in exaggeration. The historical part of his work is full of errors and fables. He confuses the names of places, is very inexact as to distances, and gives no latitude of the places he visited."--Washington Irving's _Columbus_, vol. iv., p. 294.

Marco Polo returned from Tartary to his native city, Venice, in 1295, having pursued his mercantile peregrinations in Asia upward of twenty-six years.

No. VI.

"Sir John Mandeville was born in the town of St. Alban's. He was devoted to study from his earliest childhood, and, after finishing his general education, applied himself to medicine. He left England in 1332, and, according to his own account, visited Turkey, Armenia, Egypt, Upper and Lower Libya, Syria, Persia, Chaldea, Ethiopia, Tartary, Amazonia, and the Indies, residing in their principal cities. He wrote a history of his travels in three languages, English, French, and Latin. The descriptions given by Mandeville of the Grand Khan, of the province of Cathay, and the city of Camhalee, are scarcely less extravagant than those of Marco Polo. The royal palace was more than two leagues in circumference; the grand hall had twenty-four columns of copper and gold; there were more than 300,000 men occupied, and living in and about the palace, of which more than 100,000 were employed in taking care of the elephants, of which there were 10,000, &c., &c.

"Mandeville has become proverbial for indulging in a traveler's exaggerations; yet his accounts of the countries which he visited have been found far more veracious than had been imagined. His descriptions of Cathay and the wealthy province of Mangi, agreeing with those of Marco Polo, had great authority with Columbus."--Washington Irving's _Columbus_, vol. iv., p. 308.

No. VII.

"The Western nations, the Greeks, and the Romans, knew that magnetism could be communicated for a length of time to iron ('sola haec materia ferri vires a magneti lapide accipit, retinetque longo tempore.'--Plin., xxxiv., 14). The great discovery of the terrestrial directive force, therefore, depended alone on this, that no one in the West happened to observe that a longish piece of magnetic iron ore, or a magnetized iron rod, floated at liberty upon water by means of a piece of wood, or balanced and suspended freely in the air by means of a thread. But a thousand years and more before the commencement of our era, in the dark epoch of Codru, and the return of the Heraclidae to the Peloponnesus, the Chinese had already magnetic cars, upon which the movable arm of a human figure pointed invariably to the south, as a means of finding the way through the boundless grassy plains of Tartary. In the third century, indeed, of the Christian era, at least 700 years, therefore, before the introduction of the ship's compass upon European seas, Chinese craft were sailing the Indian Ocean under the guidance of magnetic southern indication. This early knowledge and application of the magnetic needle gave the Chinese geographers great advantages over those of early Greece and Rome, to whom, for example, the true course of the Apennines and Pyrenees was never known.

"Magnetism is one of the numerous forms in which electricity manifests itself. The ancient suspicion of the identity of electrical and magnetical attraction has been demonstrated in the present age. 'If electrum (amber),' says Pliny, in the sense of the Ionic natural philosophy of Thales, 'becomes inspired by friction and warmth, it attracts bark and dried leaves, exactly like the magnetic iron stone.'[215] The same words occur in the discourse laudatory of the magnet of the Chinese natural philosopher Kuopho, who lived in the fourth century. It was not without surprise that I myself observed, among the children at play on the woody banks of the Orinoco, the offspring of native tribes in the lowest grade of civilization, that the excitement of electricity by friction was known. The boys rubbed the dry, flat, and shining seeds of a creeping leguminous plant (probably a negretia) until they attracted fibers of cotton wool and chips of the bamboo. This amusement of these coppery children is calculated to leave a deep and solemn impression behind it. What a chasm lies between the electrical play of these savages and the discovery of the lightning conductor, of the chemically decompounding pile, of the light-evoking mechanical apparatus! In such gulfs, millenniums in the history of the intellectual progress of mankind lie buried."--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. i., p. 180; Klaproth, _Lettre a M.A. de Humboldt, sur l'Invention de la Boussole_, p. 125. 1834.

"The application of the magnetic needle's direction toward the north and south, that is, the use of the mariner's compass in Europe, is probably due to the Arabs, who have to thank the Chinese for their knowledge of it. The Arabic words 'Zohron' and 'Aphron,' meaning north and south, like the numerous Arabic names of the stars in use at the present day, testify the route through which the West became acquainted with it. In European Christendom, the use of the magnetic needle is spoken of as something well known, first in a political and satirical poem, entitled 'La Bible,' written by Guyot of Provence in 1190, and in the description of Palestine, by Jacob of Vitry, bishop of Ptolemais, between the years 1204 and 1215. Also Dante (_Paradiso_, xii., 29) mentions in a simile the needle (ajo) 'which points southward.' The discovery of the mariner's compass was for a long time attributed to Flavius Gioja: he probably made some improvements in the apparatus for managing it in 1302. A much earlier employment of the compass in the European seas is seen in a naval work by Raymundus Lullus of Majorca, a wonderfully talented and scientific man. In his book, entitled 'Fenix de las Maravillas del Orbe,' published in 1286, Lullus says that the mariners of his times made use of the magnetic needle. Navarrete, in his 'Discurso Historico sobre los Progressos del Arte de Navegar en Espana,' p. 28, 1802, records a remarkable passage in the Leyes de las Partidas of the middle of the thirteenth century: 'The needle which guides the mariner in the dark night, and shows him in good and bad weather the direction which he must take, is the mediatrix (medianera) between the magnetic stone (la piedra) and the north star."--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 291, 462.

[Footnote 215: Plin., lib. xxxvii., p. 3; Plato, in _Timao_, p. 80; Martin, _Etudes sur le Timee_, tom. II., p. 343-346; Strabo, lib. xv., p. 703, Casaub.; Clemens Alex., _Strom._, li., p. 370. When Thales, in Aristot., _De Anima_, lib. i., p. 2, and Hippias, in _Diag. Laertio_, lib. i., p. 24, attribute a soul to the magnet and to amber, this animation only refers to a moving principle.]

No. VIII.

"In the fifteenth century almost all the mercantile nations sought for slaves at the Canary Islands, as we seek them at present on the Coast of Guinea. Every individual made prisoner before he received the rite of baptism was a slave. At this period no attempt had yet been made to prove that the blacks were an intermediary race between men and animals. The swarthy Guanche and the African negro were sold simultaneously in the market of Seville, without a question whether slavery ought to weigh only on men with a black skin and frizzled hair. The archipelago of the Canaries was divided into several small states hostile to each other. The trading nations kept up intestine warfare; one Guanche then became the property of another, who sold him to the Europeans; several, who preferred death to slavery, killed themselves and their children. What remained of the Guanches perished mostly in 1494, in the terrible pestilence called the _modorra_, which was attributed to the quantity of dead bodies left exposed to the air by the Spaniards after the battle of La Laguna. The nation of the Guanches was therefore extinct at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is very certain that no native of pure race exists in the whole island; and some travelers, who may otherwise be relied upon, are mistaken when they assert that their guides to the Peak were some of those slender and nimble-footed Guanches. (It is asserted that they could seize the rabbit or wild goat in its course.) It is true that a few Canarian families boast of their relationship to the last shepherd king of Guimar; but these pretensions do not rest on very solid foundations, and are renewed from time to time, when some Canarian of a more dusky hue than his countrymen is prompted to solicit a commission in the service of the King of Spain.

"The Guanches, famed for their tall stature, were the Patagonians of the Old World. I never saw Guanche mummies but in the cabinets of Europe. A considerable number, however, might be found, if miners were employed to open the sepulchral caverns which are cut in the rock on the eastern slope of the Peak. These mummies are in a state of desiccation so singular, that whole bodies with their integuments, frequently do not weigh above six or seven pounds, or a third less than the skeleton of an individual of the same size recently stripped of the muscular flesh. The conformation of the skull has some slight resemblance to that of the white race of the ancient Egyptians.... The only monument that can throw some light on the origin of the Guanches is their language; but, unhappily, there are not above 150 words remaining. It has long been imagined that the language of the Guanches had no analogy with the living tongues; but since the travels of Hornemann, and the ingenious researches of Marsden and Venturi, have drawn the attention of the learned to the Berbers, who, like the Sarmatic tribes, occupy an immense extent of country in the north of Africa, we find that several Guanche words have common roots with words of the Chilha and Gebali dialects. This is at least an indication of the ancient connection between the Guanches and Berbers, a tribe of mountaineers, in which the Numidians, the Getuli, and the Garamanti are confounded, and who extend themselves from the eastern extremity of Atlas by Harutsch and Fezzan, as far as the Oasis of Siwah and Angela. The description which Scylax gives in his 'Periplus' of the inhabitants of Cerne, a shepherd people of a tall stature and long hair, reminds us of the features which characterize the Canary Guanches.... The people who succeeded the Guanches descended from the Spaniards, and in a less degree from the Normans. Though these two races have been exposed during three centuries past to the same climate, the latter is distinguished by a whiter skin. The descendants of the Normans inhabit the Valley of the Teganana. The names of Grandville and Dampierre are still pretty common in this district. The whole archipelago does not contain 160,000 inhabitants, and the Islennos are perhaps more numerous in the Spanish settlements of America than in their own country."--Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_, vol. i., p. 280.

No. IX.

"Pomponius Mela, qui vivoit a une epoque assez rapprochee du temps de Cornelius Nepos, raconte, et Pline repete que Metellus Celer, tandis qu'il etoit proconsul dans les Gaules, avoit recu en cadeau, d'un roi des Boii (Pline le nomme roi des Sueves) quelques Indiens qui, chasses des mers de l'Inde par des tempetes, avoient aborde sur les cotes de la Germanie...... Il ne peut rester aucun doute que Pomponius Mela n'ait cru que les Indiens etoient arrives sur les cotes nord-est de l'Allemagne par la circumnavigation de l'Asie orientale et boreale. Il dit, 'Vi tempestatum ex Indieis aequoribus abrepti.'..... Comme il est reconnu que malgre le grand perfectionnement de la navigation moderne, l'accumulation des glaces s'oppose a toute navigation par le detroit de Behring le long des iles de la Nouvelle Zemble on a souleve la question de savoir de quelle race peuvent avoir ete les hommes de couleur que le proconsul Metellus Celer a pris pour des Indiens. Gomara dit que, 'Les Indiens de Quintus Metellus Celer etoient peut-etre de la Terre du Laboureur, et l'on se trompe (sur leur vraie origine) a cause de leur couleur.'...... Il paraissoit peu probable que des Eskimaux fussent venus aux cotes d'Allemagne; et tandis que Vossius, le savant commentateur de Mela, ne voyait dans les Indiens de Cornelius Nepos que des Bretons, dont le corps etoit farde de pastel, d'autres commentateurs adoptant l'explication de Gomara et de Wytfleet, substituoient au Suevorum Rex, un prince Scandinave qui avoit recueille des naufrages sur les cotes de Norwege. L'analogie du fait non conteste de l'arrivee d'Eskimaux aux iles Orcades, semble jeter une vive lumiere sur le fait que nous examinons ici; et quand on considere les nombreux exemples d'individus tombes entre les mains des barbares et traines comme captifs de nation a nation loin du lieu du naufrage, on trouve moins surprenant que des etrangers aient ete conduits dans les Gaules, en passant des iles Britanniques en Batavie et on Germanie: mais ce qui est bien etrange, c'est que dans des evenemens semblables et egalement enigmatiques, du moyen-age, il ne soit toujours questions que de cotes Germaniques. Ces evenemens sont rapportes aux regnes des Othons et de Frederic Barberousse; ils sont, par consequent, du dixieme et du douzieme siecle. 'Nos apud Othonem legimus,' dit le pape AEneas Sylvius, 'sub imperatoribus teutonicis indicam navem et negotiatores Indos in _Germanico littore_ fuisse deprehensos.' Et dans Gomara, on lit, 'On assure aussi que, du temps de l'empereur Frederic Barberousse on amena a Lubec certains Indiens dans un canot.' Sir Humphrey Gilbert apres avoir discuti prolixement en trois chapitres le passage de Cornelius Nepos, ajoute 'L'an 1160, quelques Indiens arriverent, sous le regne de Frederic Barberousse, _upon the coast of Germanie_.' J'ai perdu beaucoup de temps dans de vaines recherches sur la premiere source de ces faits curieux. D'ou Gomara, historien generalement tres exact, a-t-il su que, 'Les Indiens ont ete amenes a Lubec?' Comment les continuateurs des Annales d'Othon de Freising, et le Franciscain Ditmar, auteur de l'excellente Chronique de Lubec, n'ont ils rien sur de ces pretendus Indiens?... a la maison ou se reunit la corporation des marins de Lubec on conserve un canot groenlandois dans lequel se trouve une figure d'Eskimau en bois. Le canot a ete repare plusieurs fois; la premiere inscription ne porte que l'annee 1607; mais d'apres une tradition tres vague, un navire de Lubec doit avoir capture ce pecheur Eskimau, il y a trois cent ans, dans les mers de l'ouest. On agrandit la pensee, en renaissant, sous un pointe de vue general, les preuves de ces communications lointaines, favorisees par le hazard; on voit comment les mouvemens de l'ocean et de l'atmosphere ont pu, des les epoques les plus reculees, contribuer a repandre les differentes races d'hommes sur la surface du globe; on comprend avec Colomb (sida del Almirante, cap. viii.) comme un continent a pu ses reveler a l'autre."--Humboldt's _Examen Critique du Geographie du Nouveau Continent_, vol. ii., p. 278.

No. X.

Herodotus relates that a Phoenician fleet, fitted out by Necho, king of Egypt, took its departure about six hundred and four years before the Christian era, from a port in the Red Sea, doubled the southern promontory of Africa, and, after a voyage of three years, returned by the Straits of Gades to the mouth of the Nile. Eudoxus of Cyzicus is said to have held the same course, and to have accomplished the same arduous undertaking.--Herod., lib. iv., cap. xlii.; Plin., _Nat. Hist._, lib. ii., cap. lxvii.

These voyages, if performed in the manner narrated, may justly be reckoned the greatest efforts of navigation in the ancient world; and if we attend to the imperfect state of the art at that time, it is difficult to determine whether we should most admire the courage and sagacity with which the design was formed, or the conduct and good fortune with which it was executed. But, unfortunately, all the original and authentic accounts of the Phoenician and Carthaginian voyages, whether undertaken by public authority or in prosecution of their private, have perished. Whatever acquaintance with the remote regions of the earth the Carthaginians or Phoenicians may have acquired, was concealed from the rest of mankind with a mercantile jealousy. Every thing relating to the course of their navigation was not only a mystery of trade, but a secret of state. Extraordinary facts are recorded concerning their solicitude to prevent other nations from penetrating into what they wished should remain undivulged (_Strab., Geogr._, lib. iii., p. 265; lib. xviii., p. 1154). Many of their discoveries seem accordingly to have been scarcely known beyond the precincts of their own states. The navigation round Africa, in particular, is recorded by the Greek and Roman writers rather as a strange, amusing tale, which they either did not comprehend or did not believe, than as a real transaction which enlarged their knowledge and influenced their opinion. As neither the progress of the Phoenician and Carthaginian discoveries, nor the extent of their navigation, were communicated to the rest of mankind, all memorials of their extraordinary skill in naval affairs seem, in a great measure, to have perished when the maritime power of the former was annihilated by Alexander's conquest of Tyre, and the empire of the latter was overturned by the Roman arms. The Periplus Hannonis is the only authentic monument of the Carthaginian skill in naval affairs, and one of the most curious fragments transmitted to us by antiquity. Montesquieu and De Bougainville have established its authenticity by arguments that appear to me unanswerable. Hanno sailed from Gades to the island of Cerne in twelve days. This is probably what is known to the moderns by the name of the island of Arguim. His furthest advance was to a promontory, which he named the South Horn, manifestly Cape de Tres Puntas, about five degrees north of the line.--Robertson's _America_, vol. i., p. 9-250.

No. XI.

The importance of this discovery, and of the European settlements consequent upon it, is chiefly interesting with regard to the intellectual and moral effects produced by the sudden increase in the stock of ideas upon the improvement and the social condition of mankind. Since that grand era, a new and active state of the intellect and feelings, bold wishes and hopes scarcely to be restrained, have gradually penetrated into the whole of civil society; the scanty population of a hemisphere, especially the coasts opposite Europe, favored the settlement of colonies, which, in rendering themselves extensive and independent in position, have overturned unlimited states by their choice of a free form of government; and, lastly, the Reformation, a forerunner of vast political revolutions, had to pass through different phases of its development in one country which had become the place of refuge for all religious opinions, and for the most varied ideas of divinity. The boldness of the Genoese mariner is the first link in the immeasurable chain of these pregnant events.... We might be induced to suppose that the value of these great discoveries, and of the double victory in the physical and intellectual world, was first acknowledged in our times, since the history of the civilization of the human race has been treated in a philosophical way. Such a supposition is refuted by Columbus's cotemporaries. The most talented of them anticipated the influence which the events of the latter years of the fifteenth century would exercise upon mankind. "Each day," says Peter Martyr, in his letters of the years 1493 and 1494, "bring us new wonders from a new world, from the Western antipodes, which a certain Genoese traveler has discovered.... Our friend Pomponius Laetus could scarcely restrain his tears of joy when I communicated to him the first accounts of so unexpected an event.... What aliment more delicious than such tidings can be set before an ingenious mind.... It is like an accession of wealth to a miser. Our minds, soiled with vices, become meliorated by contemplating such glorious events."

"Sebastian Cabot mentioned that he was in London when news was brought there of the discovery, and that it caused great talk and admiration in the court of Henry VII., being affirmed to be a thing more divine than human."--Hakluyt, p. 7.

"The mind of men became sharpened in order to comprehend the boundless store of new phenomena, to work them out, and by comparison to employ them for the attainment of general and higher views of the creation. If we carefully examine the original works of the earliest historians of the _Conquista_, we are astonished at finding, in a Spanish author of the sixteenth century, the germs of so many important physical truths. Upon the occasion of the discovery of a continent, which appeared to be separated from all the other regions of the creation, in the distant solitude of the ocean, a great number of the same questions with which we are employed at the present day occurred to the excited curiosity of the travelers, and to those who were collected together by their narratives; these questions were, Of the unity of the human race, and the derivation of its varieties from a common original form; of the migration of nations, and the affinities of language; of the possibility of varieties in the species of plants and animals; of the causes of the trade winds, and of the constant currents in the ocean; of the regular decrease of temperature at the declivities of the Cordilleras, and in the various strata of water at different depths of the ocean; and of the respective effects of chains of volcanic mountains, and their influence upon the frequency of earthquakes, and the extension of the range of the volcanic forces. The foundation of what is at the present day called physical geography is, exclusive of mathematical considerations, found in the works of the Jesuit, Joseph Acosta, and in the work of Oviedo, which appeared scarcely twenty years after the death of Columbus. In no other period of time since the existence of man in a social condition has the range of ideas in respect to the external world, and the relations of different places, been so suddenly and so wonderfully extended, or the necessity of observing natural phenomena in different latitudes and at different elevations above the level of the sea, or of multiplying the means of examining them, so deeply felt."--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 295-337.

No. XII.

More than ten places have disputed the glory of having given birth to Columbus: Genoa, Cogoleto (Cucchereto, Cugureo, Cogoreo, Cucurco d'Herrera, et Cugurco de Puffendorf), Bugiasco, Finale, Quinto et Nervi, dans la Riviera di Genova, Savone, Palestrella, et Arbizoli, Cosseria, la vallee d'Oneglia, Castello di Cuccaro, la ville de Plaisance, et Pradello. "Le nombre de ces lieux s'est accru progressivement avec l'illustration du heros, car ses contemporains, Pierre Martyr, le cura de los Palacios, Geraldine, Pietro Coppo da Isola, l'eveque Giustiniani, le chancelier Antonio Gallo et Senerega l'ont unanimement appelle Genois.... Un voyageur moderne, dit en parlant de Cogoleto: Ce lieu n'a pas renonce a l'honneur d'avoir vu naitre Colomb, malgre la multitude de recherches et de dissertations d'apres lesquelles le grand homme paroit tout simplement Genois. On pretend meme a Cogoleto indiquer sa maison, espece de cabanne, sur le bord de la mer, que je trouvai assex convenablement occupee par un gardecote, et sur laquelle on lit, a la suite d'autres inscriptions pitoyables, ce beau vers _improvise_ par M. Gagliuffi.

"Unus erat Mundus; Duo sint, nit iste: fuere."

_Voyages Hist. et Litter. en Italie de M. Valery_, tom. v., p. 73.

No. XIII.

"Christophe Colomb, Cortez et Raleigh ont eprouve que le genie ne regne que sur l'avenir et que son pouvoir est tardive. Ils ont pendant quelques tems, excite au plus haut degre l'admiration de leurs contemporains; mais la bienveillance publique a abandonne leur viellesse, on ne s'est souvenu d'eux que pour les affliger dans leur isolement.[216] Le siecle qui les a vus naitre n'a pas compris ce que leur action successive a produit et prepare de changements dans l'etat des peuples de l'occident. L'influence que ces peuples exercent sur tous les points du globe ou leur presence se fait sentir simultanement, la preponderance universelle qui en est la suite, ne datent que de la decouverte de l'Amerique et du voyage de Gama. Les evenemens qui appartiennent a un petit group de six annees (1492-1498) ont determine pour ainsi dire le partage du pouvoir sur la terre. Des-lors le pouvoir de l'intelligence, geographiquement limite, restreint dans des bornes etroites a pu prendre un libre essor; il a trouve un moyen rapide d'etendre, d'entretenir, de perpetuer son action. Les migrations des peuples, les expeditions guerrieres dans l'interieur d'un continent, les communications par caravanes sur des routes invariablement suivies depuis des siecles, n'ont produit que des effets partiels et generalement moins durables. Les expeditions les plus lontaines ont ete devastatrice, et l'impulsion a ete donnee par ceux qui n'avoient rien a ajouter aux tresors de l'intelligence deja accumules. Au contraire, les evenemens de la fin du quinzieme siecle, qui ne sont separes que par un intervalle de six ans, ont ete longuement prepares dans le moyen-age, qui a son tour avoit ete feconde par les idees des siecles anterieures, excite par les dogmes et les reveries de la geographie systematique des Hellenes. C'est seulement depuis l'epoque que nous venons de signaler que l'unite homerique de l'ocean s'est fait sentir tous son heureuse influence sur la civilisation du genre humain. L'element mobile qui baigne toutes les cotes en est devenu le lien moral et politique, et les peuples de l'occident, dont l'intelligence active a cree ce lien et qui ont compris son importance, se sont eleves a une universalite d'action qui determine la preponderance du pouvoir sur le globe."--Humboldt's _Geographie du Nouveau Continent_, vol. iv., p. 23.

[Footnote 216: _Ces Nouvelles Indes_ que Colomb nomma sa propriete (cosa que era suya) etoient inabordables pour celui qui les avoient refusees a la France, a l'Angleterre et au Portugal. Les lettres que l'amiral adresse a sa famille et ses amis depuis l'annee 1502, ne respirent que la douleur.

The following is an extract from one of Columbus's mournful appeals to Ferdinand and Isabella:

"Such is my fate, that the twenty years of service through which I have passed with so much toil and danger have profited me nothing, and at this very day I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own: if I wish to eat or sleep, I have nowhere to go but to the inn or tavern, and most times lack wherewith to pay the bill.... I was twenty-eight years old when I came into your highnesses' service, and now I have not a hair upon me that is not gray; my body is infirm, and all that was left to me, as well as to my brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great dishonor.... The honest devotedness I have always shown to your majesties' service, and the so unmerited outrage with which it has been repaid, will not allow my soul to keep silence, however much I may wish it. I implore your highnesses to forgive my complaints. I am, indeed, in as ruined a condition as I have related. Hitherto I have wept over others: may Heaven now have mercy upon me, and may the earth weep for me. Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth, and justice!"--_Select Letters of Columbus_, published by the Hakluyt Society.]

No. XIV.

"Per necessita d'acque mandammo il battello a terra con venticinque huomini: dove per le grandissime e frequente onde che gettava il mare al lito per esser la spiaggia aperta, non fu possibile che alcuno potesse smontare in terra senza pericolo di perder il battello: vedemmo quivi molte genti che venivano al lito, facendo varij segni d'amicizia e dimostrando contentezza che andassimo a terra, e per pruova li conoscemmo molto umani e cortesi come per il successo caso V.M. intendera. Per mandarli delle cose nostre, e da Indiani communimente molto desiderate, e apprezzate come sono fogli di charta, specchi, sonagli e altri simile cose, mandammo a terra un giovane de nostri marinari, quale ponendosi a nuoto, nell' approssimarsi (ritrovandosi in acqua da tre, o quattro braccia di terra lontano) di lor non confidandosi gliele getto nel lito, poi nel voler ritornar a dietro, dall onde con tanta furea fu traportato alla riva, che vi si trovo di modo straccho, e sbattuto, che vi resto quasi morto. Il che veduto da gli Indiani corsero a pigliarlo, e tiratolo fuora lo portarono alquanto dal mare lontano. Risentito il giovane e vedendosi da lor portato, alla disgrazia prima vi s'aggiunse il spavento, per il quale metteva grandissimi gridi, e il simile facevano gl' Indiani che l'accompagnavano, nel volerlo assicurare e li davano cuore di non temere: di poi avendolo posto in terra al pie d'un picciolo colle in faccia del sole, con atti d'admirazione lo riguardavano, maravigliandosi della bianchezza della sua carne, e ignudo spogliatolo lo fecero ad un grandissimo fuoco restaurare, non senza timore di noi altri, che eramo nel battello restati, che a quel fuoco arrostendolo, lo volessero divorare. Riavute le forze il giovane, e con loro avendo alquanto dimorato, con segni li dimostro voler alla nave far ritorno: da quali con grandissimo amore, tenendolo sempre stretto, con varij abbracciamenti, fu accompagnato sino al mare, e per piu assicurarlo, allargandosi andarono sopra un colle eminente, e quivi fermatislo stellero a riguardare sino che nel battello fu entrato."--_Verazzano in Ramusio_, tom, iii., p. 420.

No. XV.

"Commission de Francois I. a Jacques Quartier, pour l'etablissement du Canada, du 17e Octobre, 1540.[217]

"Francois, par la grace de Dieu, Roi de France: a tous ceux que ces presentes lettres verront, salut. Comme pour le desir d'entendre et avoir connoissance de plusieurs pays qu'on dit inhabites, et autres etre possedes par gens sauvages, vivant sans connoissance de Dieu et sans usage de raison, eussions des pie-ca, a grands frais et mises envoye decouvrir les dits pays par plusieurs bons pilotes, et autres nos sujets de bons entendement, savoir et experience, qui d'iceux pays nous avoient amene divers hommes que nous avons par long-tems tenus en notre royaume, les faisant instruire en l'amour et crainte de Dieu et de sa sainte loix et doctrine Chretienne en intention de les faire ramener es dits pays en compagnie de bon nombre de nos sujets de bonne volonte, afin de plus facilement induire les autres peuples d'iceux pays a croire en notre sainte foi; et entr'autres y eussions envoye notre cher et bien aime Jacques Quartier, lequel auroit decouvert grands pays des terres de Canada et Hochelaga faissant un bout de l'Asie du cote de l'Occident; lesquels pays il trouve (comme il nous a rapporte), garnis de plusieurs bonnes commodites, et les peuples d'iceux bien fournis de corps et de membres; et bien dispose d'esprit et d'entendement; desquels il nous a semblablement amene aucun nombre, que nous avons par long-tems fait voir et instruire en notre dite sainte foi avec nos dits sujets: en consideration de quoi, et de leur bonne inclination, nous avons avise et delibere de renvoyer le dit Quartier es dits pays de Canada et Hochelaga, et jusques en la terre de Saguenai (s'il peut y aborder) avec bonne nombre de navires, et de toutes qualites, arts et industrie pour plus avant entrer es dits pays, converser avec les peuples d'iceux, et avec eux habiter (si besoin est) afin de mieux parvenir a notre dite intention et a faire chose agreable a Dieu notre Createur et Redempteur, et que soit a l'augmentation de son saint et sacre nom, et de Notre Mere Sainte Eglise Catholique, de laquelle nous sommes dits et nommes premier fils; par quoi soit besoin pour meilleur ordre et expedition de la dite entreprise, deputer et etablir un Capitaine General et Maitre pilote des dits navires, qui ait regard a la conduite d'iceux, et sur les gens, officiers et soldats y ordonnes et etablis; savoir faisons, que nous a plein confians de la personne du dit Jacques Quartier et de ses sens, suffisance, loyaute, prud'hommie hardiesse, grande diligence et bonne experience, icelui pour ces causes et autres a ce nous, mouvans, avons faits constitue et ordonne, faisons, constituons, ordonnons et etablissons par ces presentes, Capitaine Generale et Maitre pilote de tous les navires et autres vaisseaux de mer, par nous ordonnes etre menes pour la dite entreprise et expedition, pour le dit etat et charge de Capitaine Generale et Maitre Pilote d'iceux navires et vaisseaux, avoir tenir, et exercer par le dit Jacques Quartier aux honneurs, prerogatives, pre-eminences, franchises, libertes, gages et bienfaits tels que par nous lui seront pour ce ordonnes, tant qu'il nous plaira. Et lui avons donne, et donnons puissance et autorite de mettre, etablir, et instituer aux dits navires tels lieutenants, patrons, pilotes et autres ministres necessaires pour le fait et conduite d'iceux, en tel nombre qu'il verra et connoitra etre besoin et necessaire pour le bien de la dite expedition. Si donnons en mandement par ces dites presentes, a notre Admiral au Vice Admiral que prins et recue du dit Jacques Quartier le serment pour ce on est accoutume, icelui mettent et instituent on fassent mettre et instituer de par nous en possession et saisine du dit etat de Capitaine Generale et Maitre Pilote; et d'icelui, ensemble des honneurs, prerogatives, pre-eminences, franchises, libertes, gages et bienfaits, tels que par nous lui seront pour ce ordonnes, le fassent, souffrent et laissent, jour et user pleinement et paisiblement et a lui obeir et entendre de tous ceux, et ainsi qu'il appartiendra es choses touchant et concernant le dit etat et charge: et outre lui fasse, souffre et permette prendre le petit galion, appelle l'Emerillon que de present il a de nous, lequel est ja vieil et caduc, pour servir a l'adoub de ceux des navires qui en auront besoin, et lequel nous voulons etre prins et applique par le dit Quartier pour l'effet dessus dit, sans qu'il soit tenus en rendre aucun autre compte et reliquat; et duquel compte et reliquat nous l'avons decharge et dechargeons par icelles presentes: par lesquels nous mandons aussi a nos Prevots de Paris; Bailliffs de Rouen, de Caen, d'Orleans, de Blois, et de Tours; Senechaux du Maine, d'Anjou, et Guienne, et a tous nos autres Bailliffs, Senechaux, Prevots, Alloues, et autres nos Justiciers et officiers, tant de notre royaume que de notre pays de Bretagne uni a icelui pardevers lesquels sont aucuns prisonniers, accuses, ou prevenus d'aucuns crimes quels qu'ils soient, fors de crimes de leze-Majeste divine et humaine envers nous, et de faux monnoyeurs qu'ils aient incontinent a delivrer, rendre et bailler es mains du dit Quartier, ou ces commis ou deputes partans ces presentes, on le duplicate d'icelles pour notre service en la dite entreprise et expedition, ceux des dits prisonniers qu'il connoitra etre propres, suffisans, et capables pour servir en icelle expedition jusqu'au nombre de cinquante personnes, et selon le choix que le dit Quartier en fera, iceux premierement juges et condamnes selon leur demerites et la gravite de leurs mefaits, si juges et condamnes ne sont; et satisfaction aussi prealablement ordonnee aux parties civiles et interesses, si fait n'avoit ete: Pour laquelle toutefois nous ne voulons la deliverance de leur personne es dites mains du dit Quartier (s'il les trouve de service) etre retardee ne retenue; mais se prendra la dite satisfaction sur leurs biens seulement: et laquelle delivrance des dits prisonniers accuses ou prevenus, nous voulons etre faite es dites mains du dit Quartier pour l'effet dessus dits par nos dits justiciers et officiers respectivement, et par chacun d'eux en leur regard, pouvoir et jurisdiction, nonobstant oppositions ou appellations quelconque faites ou a faire, relevees, ou a relever, et sans que par le moyen d'icelles, icelle delivrance en la maniere dessus dite, soit aucunement differee; et afin que le plus grand nombre n'en soit tire, outre les dits cinquante, nous voulons que la delivrance que chacun de nos dits officiers en fera au dit Quartier soit ecrite et certifiee en la marge de ses presentes, et que neanmoins registre en soit par eux fait et envoyee incontinent pardevers notre ame et fial Chancellier, pour connoitre le nombre et la qualite de ceux qui auront ete baille et delivres: Car tel est notre plaisir. En temoin de ce, nous avons fait mettre notre scel a ces dites presentes. Donne a Saint Pris le dix septieme jour d'Octobre, l'an de grace, mil cinq cent quarante, et de notre regne le vingt-septieme.

"Ainsi signe sur le repli, par le Roi, vous Monseigneur le Chancellier et autres persons.

"DE LA CHESNAIE.

"Et scelle sur le repli a simple queue de cire jaune."

[Footnote 217: _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, par L'Escarbot, p. 397; et _Memoires sur les l'ossessions en Amerique_, tom. iii., p. 280.]

No. XVI.

The following account of the romantic expedition of De Gourgues is extracted from the "Picture of Quebec:"

"The French and Spaniards had been long at bitter enmity, and the wars between them were carried on with all the exasperation of ancient rivalry and mutual hatred. The encroachments of the former upon the territories claimed by the Spaniards in Florida raised the liveliest indignation in the minds of a people not less martial and chivalrous than the French; and when we add that these encroachments had been chiefly made by the Huguenots, a race held in sovereign detestation by the Catholic Spaniard, and persecuted to a degree of intensity by Philip II., the height of animosity to which they were excited can easily be conceived. Nor were the French less susceptible of angry and vindictive feelings, to which may be added the poignant stings of offended national pride. They had never forgiven the captivity of their popular and gallant prince, Francis I.; the memory of this supposed disgrace still rankled in the population; nor was it even wholly eradicated until adequate reparation was made to the national honor by the accession of a French prince to the throne of Spain many years afterward. Notwithstanding a short cessation of the warfare between these two great powers, the passions we have attempted to describe remained in full force.

"Laudonniere passed the winter of 1564 in the fort which he had built near the mouth of St. Mary's River, and which he called _La Caroline_. In August, 1565, having experienced the mutinous disposition of part of his force, superadded to the horrors of famine, he was preparing to abandon the enterprise and to return to France, when he was joined by Ribaut with seasonable supplies. On the 4th of September, they were surprised by the appearance in the road of six large vessels, which proved to be a Spanish fleet, under the command of Don Pedro Menendez. Hostilities were immediately commenced; and the French, having an inferior force of four vessels, were obliged to put to sea, chased by the Spaniard. The former, however, being the better sailors, after distancing their opponents, returned to the coast, and relanded their troops about eight leagues from the fort of La Caroline. Three of the Spanish vessels kept the open sea, while the others lay in the road watching an opportunity to attack the French fort. Ribaut, who was a brave but obstinate man, persisted in his resolution to put to sea again, for the purpose of meeting and fighting with the Spanish vessels. The season was extremely tempestuous, and Laudonniere, having first vainly endeavored to dissuade his colleague from the rash attempt, fortified himself, and made every preparation to resist the attack which he anticipated. At length, notwithstanding the very heavy and long-continued rains, the Spaniards were descried by the French sentinels advancing to the assault on the 29th of September. The ramparts, maintained with spirit by a small force, were soon surmounted and carried--the gallant defenders slain in the breaches. Laudonniere, fighting his way bravely, was the last to leave the fort, and succeeded in escaping to the woods, where he rallied a few of his straggling countrymen, and whence he ultimately returned to France. The remainder, with the fort, fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Nor did the disasters of the French end here. The vessels commanded by Ribaut were driven on shore by the storms then prevalent--many of the people lost--the survivors and their commander became prisoners to the Spaniards. The French were cruelly, and with bitter taunts, put to death. Several were hung from neighboring trees with this insulting legend: '_Ceux-ci n'ont pas ete traite de la sorte en qualite de Francois, mais comme heretiques et ennemis de Dieu._'

"Ample chastisement was, however, about to be inflicted. Champlain, who writes of this transaction with the blunt and honest indignation of a soldier, in his own familiar and quaint style, observes, 'Ceux-ci furent payes de la meme monnaye, qu'ils avoient payes les Francois' ('they were repaid in the same coin with which they had paid the French').

"So Shakspeare truly says,

'In these cases, We still have judgment here: that we but track Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice To our own lips.'

"This outrage excited the deepest indignation in France, but the avowed hatred of the court toward Coligny and the Huguenots prevented public satisfaction being demanded from Philip II. The instrument of a just retribution was not wanting to the emergency, but it was reserved for a private individual to redeem the honor of the French name. 'En l'an 1567,' says Champlain, 'se presenta le brave Chevalier de Gourgues, qui plein de valeur et de courage, pour venger cet affront fait a la nation Francois, et recognoissant qu'aucun d'entre la noblesse, dont la France foisonne, ne l'offroit pour tirer raison d'une telle injure, entreprint de le faire.' ('In the year 1567, there presented himself the brave Chevalier de Gourgues, who, full of valor and courage, to avenge the insult on the French nation, and observing that none among the nobility, with whom France abounded, offered to obtain satisfaction for such an injury, undertook himself to do so.') He was a gentleman of Gascony, and there were at that period few inferior officers in France, or perhaps in all Europe, who had acquired a more brilliant reputation in war, or had undergone greater vicissitudes. When very young he had served in Italy with honor; and on one occasion, having the command of a small band of thirty men, near Sienna in Tuscany, he was able for a considerable time to withstand and repulse the assault of a part of the Spanish army, until, all his men being slain, he yielded himself prisoner. Contrary to the usage of war among generous foes, he was sent to the galleys in chains as a robber-slave. The galley to which the indignant De Gourgues was condemned was afterward captured by the Turks on the Sicilian coast, and sent into Rhodes. Again putting to sea with a Turkish crew, it was encountered and taken by the galleys of the Knights of Malta, and De Gourgues recovered his liberty and his sword. He afterward made several passages to Brazil and the coast of Africa, still treasuring up vengeance on the Spaniards; and he had just returned to France from one of his voyages, with the reputation of the bravest and most able among her navigators, when he heard of the disastrous tale of La Caroline, and the disgraceful manner in which his countrymen had been put to death by the Spaniards. Like a patriot, he felt keenly for the honor of his country; and as a man, he burned for an opportunity of satiating his long-dormant revenge on the perfidious Spaniards for their unworthy treatment of himself. At this time, too, there was circulated in France a narrative, entitled the 'Supplication of the Widows and Children of those who had been massacred in Florida,' calculated to rouse the national feeling to the highest pitch. These united motives urged De Gourgues to a chivalrous undertaking--no less than to chase the murderous invaders from the coasts of Florida, at the sword's point, or to die in the attempt. He accordingly proceeded to make his preparations, which, however, were concealed with great skill and address. He raised a considerable sum by selling his property, and by loans obtained from his friends; and, disguising his real purpose, gave out that he was bound, as before, to the African coast. The squadron consisted of three vessels, with crews amounting to 250 souls, amply provided for twelve months. Thus equipped, he sailed, on the 23d of August, 1567, from Bordeaux, and after some time began to unfold his real design, expatiating in glowing language on the glory of the attempt and the righteousness of the quarrel.

"_Speech of De Gourgues, from Champlain_: 'Mes compagnons et fideles amis de ma fortune, vous n'estes pas ignorans combien je cheris les braves courages comme vous, et l'avez assez tesmoigne par la belle resolution que vous avez prise de me suivre et assister en tous les perils et hazards honorables que nous aurons a souffrir et essuyer, lorsqu'ils se presenteront devant nos yeux, et l'estat que je fais de la conservation de vos vies; ne desirant point vous embarquer au risque d'un _enterprise_ que je ne scaurois reussir, a une ruine sans honneur: ce seroit a moy une trop grand et blamable temerite, de hazarder vos personnes a un dessein d'un accez si difficile; ce que je ne croy pas estre, bien que j'aye employe une bonne partie de mon bien et de mes amis, pour equipper ces vaisseaux et les mettre en mer, estant le seul entrepreneur de tout le voyage. Mais tout cela ne me donne pas tant de sujet de m'affliger, comme j'en ay de me resjouir, de vous voir tous resolus a une autre entreprise, que retournera a votre gloire, scavoir d'aller venger l'injure que nostre nation a receuee des Espagnols, qui ont fait une telle playe a la France, qu'elle saignera a jamais, par les supplices et traictemens infames qu'ils ont fait souffrir a nos Francois, et excerce des cruautez barbares et inouis en leur endroit. Les ressentimens que j'en ay quelquefois, m'en font jetter des larmes de compassion, et me relevent le courage de telle sort, que je suis resolu avec l'assistance de Dieu, et la vostre, de prendre une juste vengeance d'une telle felonnie et cruaute Espagnolle, de ces coeurs laches et poltrons, qui ont surpris mal-heureusement nos compatriots, qu'ils n'eussent ose regarder sur la defense de leurs armes. Ils sont assez mal logez, et les surprendrons aisement. J'ay des hommes en mes vaisseaux qui cognaissent tres-bien le pais, et pouvous y allez en seurete. Voicy, chers compagnons, un _subject_ de relever nos courages, faites paroietre que vous avez autant de bonne volonte a executer ce bon dessein, que vous avez d'affection a me suivre: ne serez vous pas contents de remporter les lauriers triomphans de la despouille de vos ennemis?'

"'Companions, and faithful friends of my fortunes, you are not ignorant how highly I value brave men like yourselves. Your courage you have sufficiently proved by your noble resolution to accompany me in all the dangers which we shall have to encounter, as they successively present themselves: my regard for you I have shown by the care I have taken for the safety of your lives. I desire not to embark you in any enterprise which may result in dishonorable failure: it would be in me a far too great and blamable temerity to hazard your safety in any design so difficult of accomplishment, which, however, I do not consider this one to be, seeing that I have employed in it a good part of my own fortune, and that of my friends, in equipping these vessels, and putting to sea, myself being the sole undertaker of the voyage. But all this does not give me so much cause for regret, as I have reason to rejoice, seeing you all resolved upon another enterprise, which will redound to your glory, namely, to avenge the insult suffered by our nation from the Spaniards, who have inflicted an incurable wound upon France by their infamous treatment, and the barbarous and unheard-of cruelties they have exercised upon our countrymen. The description of these wrongs has caused me to shed tears of pity, and inspires me now with such determination, that I am resolved, with the assistance of God and your aid, to take a just revenge for this felonious outrage on the part of the Spaniards--those base and cowardly men, who unhappily destroyed our friends by surprise, whom, with arms in their hands, they dared not to have looked in the face. The enemy is poorly lodged, and may be easily surprised. I have on board persons who know the country well, and we can reach it in safety. Here, my dear companions, here is a subject to rouse our courage! Let me see that you have as good will to perform this noble design, as you had affection to follow my person! Will you not rejoice to bear away triumphant laurels, bought by the spoil and ruin of our enemies?'

"This enthusiastic speech produced its full effect. Each soldier shouted assent to the generous proposal, and was ready to reply with Euryalus,

'Est hic, est animus lucis contemptor, et istum Qui vita bene credat emi, quo tendes, honorem!'

'Like thine, this bosom glows with martial flame, Burns with a scorn of life, and love of fame; And thinks, if endless glory can be sought On such low terms, the prize is cheaply bought.'

"Having thus obtained the full co-operation of his gallant band, De Gourgues steered for the coast of Florida, and passed some time in reconnoitering the position of the Spaniards, and in acquiring from the Indians full particulars of their strength and resources. These were, indeed, sufficiently formidable, amounting to 400 fighting men, provided with every munition of war. No way discouraged by this superiority of numbers and of position, De Gourgues made a furious attack upon the two forts, on the day before the Sunday called the Quasimodo, in April, 1658, intending to capture them by escalade. The Spaniards offered a very gallant resistance; but the fury and impetuosity of the French, stimulated by national antipathy, by the particular nature of the revenge which they contemplated, and fired by the valor and personal example of their heroic chief, soon surmounted all opposition. 'Nostre genereux Chevalier De Gourgues,' says Champlain, exultingly, 'le coutelas a la main, leur enflamme le courage, et comme un lion a la teste des siens, gaigne le dessus du rampart, repousse les Espagnols, se fait voye parmi eux.' 'Our brave Chevalier De Gourgues, sword in hand, inflames their courage, and, like a lion at the head of his troop, mounts the rampart, overthrows the Spaniards, and cuts his way through them.' The fate of the Spaniards was sealed; many were killed in the forts, the rest taken, or put to death by the Indians. De Gourgues, thus crowned with victory, and having fully succeeded in an enterprise which to him seemed so truly glorious, brought all the prisoners to the spot where the French had been massacred, and where the inscription of Menendez yet remained. Alter reproaching his fallen enemies with their cruelty and perfidy, he caused them to be hung from the same trees, affixing this writing in the place of the former: 'Je n'ay pas fait pendre ceux-ci comme Espagnols, mais comme traitres, voleurs, et meurtriers.' 'I hang these persons, not as being Spaniards, but as traitors, robbers, and murderers.'

"De Gourgues, on developing his real design and destination to Florida, which he did in the first instance to his chosen friends, had pathetically complained that ever since he had heard of the Spanish outrage at La Caroline, he had been unable, however wearied with toil, to obtain his usual rest by night; that his imagination was ever occupied by the semblance of his countrymen hanging from the trees of Florida; that his ears were startled with piercing cries for vengeance; and that sleep, 'Nature's soft nurse,' would never visit him again--

'No more would weigh his eyelids down, And steep his senses in forgetfulness'--

until he had won her offices by a full and exquisite revenge on the Spaniards. The accomplishment of his cherished purpose must have been a high and vivifying relief to an ardent spirit like De Gourgues. He now declared with exulting delight, that sleep, that 'balm of hurt minds,' had once more deigned to visit his couch, and that his rest was now sweet, like that of a man delivered from a burden of misery too great to bear!

"Having accomplished this remarkable expedition, and inflicted, in a spirit accordant with that of the times, a terrible retribution on the Spaniards, De Gourgues sailed from the coast of Florida on the 3d of May, and arrived in France on the 6th of June, where he was received by the people with every token of joy and approbation. In consequence, however, of the demand of the King of Spain for redress, he was compelled to absent himself for some time, until the anger of the court permitted him to reappear. The narrative of this expedition was long preserved in the family of De Gourgues.

"Champlain, in whose _Voyages_ this romantic story is to be found, seems to have been a passionate admirer of the conduct of De Gourgues, and thus enthusiastically concludes his account of the expedition:

"'Ainsi ce genereux chevalier repara l'honneur de la nation Francoise, que les Espagnols avoient offensee; ce q'autrement eust ete un regret a jamais pour la France, s'il n'eust venge l'affront receu de la nation Espagnolle. Entreprise genereuse d'un gentilhomme qui l'executa a ses propres cousts et despens, seulement pour l'honneur, sans autre esperance: ce qui lui a reussi glorieusement, et ceste gloire est plus a priser que tous les tresors du monde.' 'Thus did this brave knight repair the honor of the French nation, insulted by the Spaniards, which otherwise had been an everlasting subject of regret to France, if he had not avenged the affront received from the Spanish people. A generous enterprise, undertaken by a gentleman, and executed at his own cost, for honor's sake alone, without any other expectation, and one which resulted in obtaining for him a glory far more valuable than all the treasures of the world.'"

No. XVII.

"Un ancien missionnaire, le Pere Paul le Jeune, a fait une description de la maniere de vie des missionnaires parmi les sauvages du Canada. Il parle ici des Montagnais qu'il a suivi dans une chasse pendant l'hiver, je vais transcrire sa relation presque mot pour mot:

"'Ces sauvages habitent un pays extremement rude et inculte, mais il ne l'est pas encore autant que celui, qu'ils choisissent pour leurs chasses. Il faut marcher long-tems pour y arriver, et porter sur son dos tout ce dont ou peut avoir besoin pendant cinq ou six mois, par des chemins quelquefois si affreux, que l'on ne comprend pas comment les Betes Fauves peuvent y passer; si on n'avoit pas la precaution de se fournir d'ecorces d'Arbres, ou ne trouveroit pas de quoi se mettre a couvert de la pluye et de la neige pendant le chemin. Des qu'on est parvenu au terme on s'accommode un peu mieux, mais ce mieux ne consiste, qu'en ce qu'on n'y est pas sans cesse expose a toutes les injures de l'air.

"'Tout le monde y travaille, et les missionnaires, qui dans ces commencemens n'avoient personne pour les servir, et pour qui les sauvages n'avoient aucune consideration, n'etoient pas plus epargnes que les autres, on ne leur donnait pas meme de cabanne separee, et il falloit qu'ils se logeassent dans la premiere, ou l'on vouloit bien les recevoir. Ces cabannes, parmi la plupart des Nations Algonquines, sont a peu pres de la figure de nos Glacieres, rondes, et terminees en cone; elles n'ont point d'autres soutiens, que de perches plantes dans la neige, attachees ensemble par les extremites, et couvertes d'ecorces assez mal jointes, et mal attachees aussi le vent y entre-t-il de toutes parts.

"'Leur fabrique est l'ouvrage d'une demie heure au plus, des branches de Sapin y tiennent lieu de nattes, et on n'y a point d'autres lits. Ce qu'il y a de commode, c'est qu'on peut les changer tous les jours; les neiges ramassees tout autour forment une espece de parapet, qui a son utilite, les vents n'y penetrent point. C'est le long et a l'abri de ce parapet qu'on dort aussi tranquillement sur ces branchages, couverts d'une mechante peau que dans le meilleur lit; il en coute a la verite au missionnaires pour s'y accoetumer, mais la fatigue et la necessite les y reduisent bientot. Il n'en est pas tout-a-fait de meme de la fumee, que presque toujours remplit tellement le haut de la cabanne, qu'on ne peut y etre de bout, sans avoir la tete dans une espece de tourbillon. Cela ne fait aucune peine aux sauvages, habitues des l'enfance a etre assis a terre, ou couches tout le tems, qu'ils sont dans leurs cabannes, mais c'est un grand supplice pour les Francois, a qui cette inaction ne convient pas.

"'D'ailleurs le vent, qui entre comme je l'ai remarque, par tous les cotes, y souffle un froid, qui transit d'une part, tandis qu'on etouffe, et qu'on est grille de l'autre. Souvent on ne se voit point a deux ou trois pieds, on perd les yeux a force de pleurer, et il y a des tems, ou, pour respirer un peu, il faut se tenir couche sur le ventre, et avoir la bouche presque collee contre la terre; le plus court seroit de sortir dehors, mais la plupart du tems on ne le peut pas; tantot a cause d'une neige si epaisse, qu'elle obscurcit le jour, et tantot par ce qu'il souffle un vent sec, qui coupe le visage, et fait eclater les arbres dans les forets. Cependant un missionnaire est oblige de dire son office, de celebrer la messe, et de s'acquitter de toutes les autres fonctions de son ministere.

"'A toutes ces incommodites il en faut ajouter une autre, qui d'abord vous paroitra peu de chose, mais qui est reellement tres-considerable; c'est la persecution des chiens. Les sauvages en ont toujours un fort grand nombre, qui les suivent par tout, et leur sont tres-attaches; peu caressans, par ce qu'on ne les caresse jamais, mais hardis et habiles chasseurs: j'ai deja dit qu'on les dresse de bonne heure pour les differentes chasses, ausquelles on veut les appliquer; j'ajoute qu'il faut en avoir beaucoup pour chacune, parce-qu'il en perit un grand nombre par les dents et par les cornes des Betes fauves, qu'ils attaquent avec un courage, que rien ne rebute. Le soin de les nourrir occupe tres-peu leurs maitres, ils vivent de ce qu'ils peuvent attraper, et cela ne va pas bien loin, aussi sont ils toujours fort maigres; d'ailleurs ils ont peu de poil, ce qui les rend fort sensibles au froid.'

"Pour s'en garantir, s'ils ne peuvent approcher du feu, ou il est difficile qu'ils puissent tenir tous, quand meme il n'y auroit personne dans la cabanne, ils vont se coucher sur les premiers, qu'ils rencontrent, et souvent on se reveille la nuit en sursaut, presque etouffe par deux ou trois chiens. S'ils etoient un peu plus discrets, et se placoient mieux, leur compagnie ne seroit pas trop facheuse, on s'en accommoderoit meme assez, mais ils se placent ou ils peuvent; on a beau les chasser, ils reviennent d'abord. C'est bien pis encore le jour; des qu'il paroit quelque chose a manger, il faut voir les mouvemens qu'ils se donnent pour en avoir leur part. Un pauvre missionnaire est a demi couche aupres du feu pour dire son breviaire, ou pour lire un livre, en luttant de son mieux contre la fumee, et il faut qu'il essuye encore l'importunite d'une douzaine de chiens, qui ne font que passer et repasser sur lui, en courant apres un morceau de viande, qu'ils ont appercu. S'il a besoin d'un peu de repos, a peine trouvera-t'il un petit recoin, ou il soit a l'abri de cette vexation. Si on lui apporte a manger, les chiens ont plutot mis le museau dans son plat, qu'il n'y a porte la main; et souvent tandis qu'il est occupe a defendre sa portion contre ceux, qui l'attaquent de front, il en vieut un par derriere, qui lui enleve la moitie, ou qui en le heurtant, lui fait tomber le plat des mains, et repandre sa sagamite dans les cendres.

"Assez souvent les maux, dont je viens de parler, sont effaces par un plus grand, et au prix duquel tous les autres ne sont rien; c'est la faim. Les provisions, qu'on a apportees, ne durent pas lontems, on a compte sur la chasse, et elle ne donne pas toujours. Il est vrai que les sauvages scavent endurer la faim avec autant de patience, qu'ils apportent peu de precautions pour s'en garantir; mais ils se trouvent quelquefois reduits a une si grande extremite, qu'ils y succombent. Le missionnaire, de qui j'ai tire ce detail, fut oblige dans son premier hyvernement, de manger les peaux d'aguilles et d'elans, dont il avoit rapetasse sa soutanne; apres quoi il lui fallut se nourrir des jeunes branches, et des plus tendres ecorces des arbres. Il soutint neanmoins cette epreuve, sans que sa sante en fut alteree, mais tous n'en ont pas eu la force.

"La seule malproprete des cabannes, et l'infection, qui en est une suite necessaire, sont pour tout autre qu'un sauvage, un vrai supplice; il est aise de juger jusqu'ou l'une et l'autre doivent aller parmi des gens, qui ne changent de hardes, que quand les leurs tombent par lambeaux, et qui n'ont nul soin de les nettoyer. L'ete ils se baignent tous les jours, mais ils se frottent aussitot d'huile ou de graisse d'une odeur forte. L'hyver ils demeurent dans leur crasse, et dans tous les tems on ne peut entrer dans leurs cabannes, qu'on ne soit empeste.

"Non seulement tout ce qu'ils mangent est sans appret, et ordinairement fort insipide, mais il regne dans leurs repas une malproprete, qui passe tout ce qu'on en peut dire: ce que j'en ai vu, et ce qu'on m'en raconte vous feroit horreur. Il y a bien peu d'animaux, qui ne mangent plus proprement.

"Comme les villages sont toujours situes, ou aupres des bois, ou sur le bord des eaux, des que l'air commence a s'echauffer, les Maringonins et une quantite prodigieuse d'autres moucherons, excitent une persecution bien plus vive encore que celle de la fumee, qu'on est meme souvent oblige d'appeller a son secours car il n'y a presque point d'autre remede contre la piques de ces petites insectes, qui vous mettent tout le corps en feu, et ne vous permettent point de dormir en repos. Ajoutez a cela les marches souvent forcees, et toujours tres rudes, qu'il faut faire a la suite de ces barbares, tantot dans l'eau jusqu'a la ceinture, tantot dans la fange jusqu'aux genoux; dans les bois aux travers des ronces et des epines, avec danger d'en etre aveugle; dans les campagnes, ou rien ne garantit d'un soleil aussi ardent en ete que le vent est piquant pendant l'hiver. Si l'on voyage en canot, la posture genante, ou il faut s'y tenir, l'inaction ou l'on y est, le peu de societe qu'on peut avoir avec des gens qui ne scavent rien, qui ne parlent jamais quand ils sont occupes, qui vous infectant par leur mauvaise odeur, et qui vous remplissent de saletes et de vermine, les caprices et les manieres brusques qu'il en faut essuyer, les avarices, aux quelles on est expose de la part d'un ivrogne, ou d'un homme que quelque accident inopine, un songe, un souvenir facheux, font entrer en mauvaise humeur, la cupidite qui nait aisement dans le coeur de ces barbares, et qui a coute la vie a plus d'un missionnaire, et si la guerre est declaree entre les nations parmi lesquelles on se trouve, le danger qu'on court sans cesse, ou de se voir tout a coup reduit a la plus dure servitude, ou de perir dans les plus affreux tourmens. Voila la vie qu'ont mene surtout les premiers missionnaires."--Charlevoix, vol. vi., p. 59.

The lives of hardship here described were in many cases terminated by horrible deaths. The following is one relation, out of many of the same nature:

"Ils avoient avec eux les PP. Jean de Breboeuf et Gabriel Lallemant, neveu des PP. Charles et Jerome Lallemant, dont nous avons parle; et ils n'avoient pu engager ni l'un ni l'autre a se mettre en lieu de surete. Il eut pourtant ete mieux qu'ils se fussent partages et que le P. de Breboeuf eut use de son autorite pour obliger son compagnon de suiver ceux, qui avoient pris la fuite; mais l'exemple tout recent du P. Daniel, et le danger, ou etoient un grand nombre de catechumenes de mourir sans Bapteme, leur firent croire a tous les deux qu'ils ne devoient pas desemparer. Ils prirent donc leur poste chacun a une des extremites de l'attaque, et ils furent toujours aux endroits les plus exposes, uniquement occupes a baptiser des mourans, et a encourager les combattans a n'avoir que Dieu en vue.

"Enfin tous les Hurons furent tues ou pris, et les deux missionnaires furent du nombre des derniers. Les vainqueurs mirent ensuite le feu aux cabannes, et reprirent avec les prisonniers et tout le butin, le chemin de S. Ignace.

"De St. Ignace, ou j'ai dit qu'on les avoit conduits d'abord, ils avoient ete ramenes a St. Louis, et ils y furent recus, comme on a coutume de recevoir les prisonniers de guerre; on les epargna meme d'autant moins, que leur proces etoit fait, et qu'on avoit resolu de ne les pas mener plus loin. Le P. de Breboeuf, que vingt annees de travaux les plus capables de faire mourir tous les sentimens naturels, un caractere d'esprit d'une fermete a l'epreuve de tout; une vertu nourrie dans la vue toujours prochaine d'une mort cruelle, et portee jusqu'a en faire l'objet de ses voeux les plus ardens; prevenu d'ailleurs par plus d'un avertissement celeste que ses voeux seroient exauces, se rioit egalement et des menaces et des tortures memes; mais la vue de ses chers neophytes cruellement traites a ses yeux, repandoit une grande amertume sur la joye, qu'il ressentoit de voir ses esperances accomplies.

"Son compagnon, Gabriel Lallemant, qui ne faisoit que d'entrer dans la carriere apostolique, ou il avoit apporte plus de courage que de force, et qui etoit d'une complexion sensible et delicate, fut surtout pour lui jusqu'au dernier soupir un grand sujet de douleur et d'inquietude. Les Iroquois connurent bien d'abord qu'ils auroient a faire a un homme, a qu'ils n'auroient pas le plaisir de voir echaper la moindre foiblesse, et comme s'ils eussent apprehende qu'il ne communiquat aux autres son intrepidite, ils le separerent apres quelque tems de la troupe des prisonniers, le firent monter seul sur un echafant, et s'acharnerent de telle sorte sur lui, qu'ils paroissoient hors d'eux-memes de rage et de desespoir.

"Tout cela n'empechoit point le serviteur de Dieu de parler d'une voix forte, tantot aux Hurons, qui ne le voyoient plus, mais qui pouvoient encore l'entendre; tantot a ses bourreaux, qu'il exhortait a craindre la colere du ciel, s'ils continuoient a persecuter les adorateurs du vrai Dieu. Cette liberte etonna les barbares, et ils en furent choques, quoiqu' accoutumes a essuyer les bravades de leurs prisonniers en semblables occasions. Ils voulurent lui imposer silence, et n'en pouvant venir a bout, ils lui couperent la levre inferieure, et l'extremite du nez, lui appliquerent par tout le corps des torches allumees, lui brulerent les gencives, et enfin lui enforcerent dans le gosier un fer rougi dans le feu.

"L'invincible missionnaire se voyant par ce dernier coup la parole interdite, parut avec un visage assure, et un regard si ferme qu'il sembloit donner encore la loy a ses ennemis. Un moment apres on lui amena son compagnon dans un equipage bien capable de toucher un coeur comme le sien, aussi tendre et aussi compatissant sur les maux d'autrui, qu'il etoit insensible aux siens propres. On avoit mis d'abord le jeune religieux tout nud et apres l'avoir tourmente quelque tems, on l'avoit enveloppe depuis les pieds jusqu'a la tete d'ecorce de sapin, et on se preparoit a y mettre le feu.

"Des qu'il appercut le P. de Breboeuf dans l'affreux etat, ou on l'avoit mis, il fremit d'abord, ensuite lui dit ces paroles de l'Apotre, _Nous avons ete mis spectacle au monde, aux anges, et aux hommes_.[218] Le pere lui repondit par une douce inclination de tete, et dans ce moment le P. Lallemant se trouvant libre, courut se jetter a ses pieds, baisa respectueusement ses playes, et le conjura de redoubler aupres du seigneur ses prieres, pour lui obtenir la patience, et la foy, qu'il voyoit, ajouta-t-il avec beaucoup de confusion, sur le point de lui echapper a tout moment. On le reprit aussitot, et on mit le feu aux ecorces, dont il etoit couvert.

"Les bourreaux s'arreterent quelque tems pour gouter le plaisir de le voir bruler lentement, et d'entendre ses soupirs et les gemissemens, qu'il ne pouvoit s'empecher de pousser. Ils le laisserent ensuite quelque tems, pour faire rougir des haches de fer, dont ils firent un collier, qu'ils mirent au cou du P. de Breboeuf; mais ce nouveau supplice n'ebranla pas plus le saint martyr, qui n'avoient fait les autres, et comme les barbares cherchoient quelque nouveau tourment, pour tacher de vaincre un courage qui les irritoit, un Huron apostat se mit a crier qu'il falloit jetter aux deux missionnaires de l'eau boueillante sur la tete, en punition de ce qu'ils en avoient jette tant de froide sur celle des autres, et cause par-la tous les malheurs de sa nation, et on la repandit lentement sur la tete des deux confesseurs de Jesus Christ.

"Cependant la fumee epaisse qui sortoit des ecorces, dont le P. Lallemant etoit revetu lui remplissoit la bouche, et il fut assez lontems sans pouvoir articuler une seule parole. Ses liens etant brules, il leva les mains au ciel, pour implorer le secours de celui qui est la force des foibles, mais on les lui fit baisser, en le frappant a grands coups de cordes. Enfin les deux corps n'etant plus qu'une playe, ce spectacle bien loin de faire horreur aux Iroquois, les mit de bonne humeur; ils se disoient les uns aux autres que la chair des Francois devoit etre bonne, et ils en couperent sur l'un et sur l'autre de grands lambeaux, qu'ils mangerent. Puis ajoutant la raillerie a la cruaute, ils dirent au P. de Breboeuf, 'Tu nous assurois tout a l'heure que plus on souffre sur la terre, plus on est heureux dans le ciel; c'est par amitie pour toi que nous nous etudions a augmenter tes souffrances, et tu nous en auras obligation.'

"Quelques momens apres ils lui enleverent toute la peau de la tete, et comme il respiroit encore, un chef lui ouvrit le cote, d'ou le sang sortant en abondance, tous les barbares accoururent pour en boire; apres quoi le meme, qui avoit fait la playe, decouvrit le coeur, l'arracha, et le devora. Le P. de Breboeuf etoit du diocese de Bayeux, et oncle du traducteur du Pharsale. Il etoit d'une taille avantageuse, et mangre son abstinence extreme, et vingt annees du plus penible apostolat, il avoit assez d'embonpoint. Sa vie fut un heroisme continuel, et sa mort fut l'etonnement des bourreaux memes.

"Des qu'il eut expire, le P. Lallemant fut reconduit dans la cabanne, ou son martyre avoit commence; il n'est pas meme certain qu'il soit demeure aupres du Pere de Breboeuf jusqu'a ce que celui-ci eut rendu les derniers soupirs; on ne l'avoit amene la, que pour attendrir son compagnon, et amollir, s'il etoit possible, le courage de ce heros. Il est au moins constant par le temoignage de plusieurs Iroquois, qui furent acteurs dans ce tragedie, que ce dernier mourut le seize, et qu'il ne fut que trois heures dans le feu, au lieu que le supplice du P. Lallemant dura dix-sept heures, et qu'il ne mourut que le dix-sept.

"Quoiqu'il en soit, sitot qu'il fut rentre dans sa cabanne il recut au-dessus de l'oreille gauche, un coup de hache, qui lui ouvrit le crane, et lui en fit sortir de la cervelle. On lui arracha ensuite un oeil, a la place duquel on mit un charbon ardent; c'est tout ce qu'on a pu scavoir de ce qui se passa alors jusqu'a ce qu'il eut expire; tous ceux, qui assisterent a sa mort s'etant contentes de dire que les bourreaux s'etoient surpasses en cruaute. Ils ajouterent que de tems en tems il jettoit des cris capables de percer les coeurs les plus durs, et qu'il paroissoit quelquefois hors de lui-meme; mais qu'aussitot on le voyoit s'elever au-dessus de la douleur, et offrir a Dieu ses souffrances avec une ferveur admirable. Ainsi la chair etoit souvent foible, et prete a succomber; mais l'esprit fut toujours prompt a la relever, et la soutint jusqu'au bout. Le P. Lallemant etoit de Paris, fils et petit fils de lieutenans-criminels. Il etoit extremement maigre, et il n'y avoit guere que six mois, qu'il etoit arrive dans la Nouvelle France. Il mourut dans sa trente-neuvieme annee."--Charlevoix, vol. ii., p. 12.

[Footnote 218: 1 Corinth., iv., 9.]

No. XVIII.

"The Jesuits are commonly very learned, studious, and are very civil and agreeable in company. In their whole deportment there is something pleasing; it is no wonder, therefore, that they captivate the minds of the people. They seldom speak of religious matters, and if it happens, they generally avoid disputes. They are very ready to do any one a service, and when they see that their assistance is wanted, they hardly give one time to speak of it, falling to work immediately to bring about what is required of them. Their conversation is very entertaining and learned, so that one can not be tired of their company. Among all the Jesuits I have conversed with in Canada, I have not found one who was not possessed of these qualities in a very eminent degree. They do not care to become preachers to a congregation in the town or country, but leave these places, together with the emoluments arising from them, to the priests. All their business here is to convert the heathen; and with that view their missionaries are scattered over every part of the country. Near every town and village peopled by converted Indians are one or two Jesuits, who take great care that they may not return to paganism, but live as Christians ought to do. Thus there are Jesuits with the converted Indians in Tadoussac, Lorette, Becancourt, St. Francois, Sault St. Louis, and all over Canada. There are likewise Jesuit missionaries with those who are not converted, so that there is commonly a Jesuit in every village belonging to the Indians, whom he endeavors on all occasions to convert. In winter he goes on their great hunts, where he is frequently obliged to suffer all imaginable inconveniences, such as walking in the snow all day, lying in the open air all winter, lying out both in good and bad weather, lying in the Indian huts, which swarm with fleas and other vermin, &c. The Jesuits undergo all these hardships for the sake of converting the Indians, and likewise for political reasons. The Jesuits are of great use to their king; for they are frequently able to persuade the Indians to break their treaty with the English, to make war upon them, to bring their furs to the French, and not to permit the English to come among them. There is much danger attending these exertions; for, when the Indians are in liquor, they sometimes kill the missionaries who live with them, calling them spies, or excusing themselves by saying that the brandy had killed them. These are the chief occupations of the Jesuits in Canada. They do not go to visit the sick in the town; they do not hear the confessions, and attend to no funerals. I have never seen them go in procession in honor of the Virgin Mary or other saints. Every body sees that they are, as it were, selected from other people on account of their superior genius and abilities. They are here reckoned a most cunning set of people, who generally succeed in their undertakings, and surpass all others in acuteness of understanding. I have therefore several times observed that they have enemies in Canada. They never receive any others into their society but persons of very promising parts, so that there are no blockheads among them. The Jesuits who live here are all come from France, and many of them return thither again after a stay of a few years here. Some who were born in Canada went over to France, and were received among the Jesuits there, but none of them ever came back to Canada. I know not what political reason hindered them. During my stay in Quebec, one of the priests, with the bishop's leave, gave up his priesthood and became a Jesuit. The other priests were very ill pleased with this, because it seemed as if he looked upon their condition as too mean for himself."--Kalm, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii., p. 648.

"The Recollets are a third class of clergymen in Canada. They have a fine large dwelling-house here, and a fine church, where they officiate. Near it is a large and fine garden, which they cultivate with great application.

"In Montreal and Trois Rivieres they are lodged in almost the same manner as here. They do not endeavor to choose cunning fellows among them, but take all they can get. They do not torment their brains with much learning; and I have been assured that, after they have put on their monastic habit, they do not study to increase their knowledge, but forget even what little they knew before. At night they generally lie on mats, or some other hard mattresses. However, I have sometimes seen good beds in the cells of some of them. They have no possessions here, having made vows of poverty, and live chiefly on the alms which people give them. To this purpose the young monks, or brothers, go into the houses with a bag, and beg what they want. They have no congregations in the country, but sometimes they go among the Indians as missionaries.

"In each fort, which contains forty men, the king keeps one of these monks instead of a priest, who officiates there. The king gives him lodging, provisions, servants, and all he wants, besides two hundred livres a year. Half of it he sends to the community he belongs to; the other half he reserves for his own use. On board the king's ships are generally no other priests than these friars, who are therefore looked upon as people belonging to the king. When one of the chief priests[219] in the country dies, and his place can not immediately be filled up, they send one of these friars there, to officiate while the place is vacant. Part of these monks come over from France, and part are natives of Canada.

"There are no other monks in Canada besides these, except, now and then, one of the order of St. Austin, or some other who comes with one of the king's ships, but goes off with it again.

"The priests are the second and most numerous class of the clergy in this country; for most of the churches, both in towns and villages (the Indian converts excepted), are served by priests. A few of them are likewise missionaries. In Canada are two seminaries: one in Quebec, the other in Montreal. The priests of the seminary of Montreal are of the order of St. Sulpitius, and supply only the congregation on the isle of Montreal, and the town of the same name. At all the other churches in Canada the priests belonging to the Quebec seminary officiate. The former, or those of the order of St. Sulpitius, all come from France; and I was assured that they never suffer a native of Canada to come among them.

"In the seminary at Quebec, the natives of Canada make the greater part.

"In order to fit the children of this country for orders, there are schools at Quebec and St. Joachim, where the youths are taught Latin, and instructed in the knowledge of those things and sciences which have a more immediate connection with the business they are intended for.

"However, they are not very nice in their choice, and people of a middling capacity are often received among them.

"They do not seem to have made great progress in Latin; for, notwithstanding the service is read in that language, and they read their Latin breviary and other books every day, yet most of them find it very difficult to speak it.

"All the priests in the Quebec seminary are consecrated by the bishop. Both the seminaries have got great revenues from the king; that in Quebec has above thirty thousand livres. All the country on the west side of the River St. Lawrence, from the town of Quebec to Bay St. Paul, belongs to this seminary, besides their other possessions in the country. They lease the land to the settlers for a certain rent, which, if it be annually paid, according to their agreement, the children or heirs of the settlers may remain in an undisturbed possession of the lands.

"A piece of land three arpents[220] broad, and thirty, forty, or fifty arpents long, pays annually an ecu,[221] and a couple of chickens, or some other additional trifle. In such places as have convenient water-falls, they have built water-mills or saw-mills, from which they annually get considerable sums. The seminary of Montreal possesses the whole ground on which that town stands, together with the whole isle of Montreal. I have been assured that the ground rent of the town and isle is computed at seventy thousand livres, besides what they get for saying masses, baptizing, holding confessions, attending at marriages and funerals, &c. All the revenues of ground rent belong to the seminaries alone, and the priests in the country have no share in them. But the seminary in Montreal, consisting only of sixteen priests, has greater revenues than it can expend; a large sum of money is annually sent over to France, to the chief seminary there. The land rents belonging to the Quebec seminary are employed for the use of the priests in it, and for the maintenance of a number of young people, who are brought up to take orders. The priests who live in the country parishes get the tithe from their congregation, together with the perquisites on visiting the sick, &c. In small congregations the king gives the priests an additional sum. When a priest in the country grows old, and has done good service, he is sometimes allowed to come into the seminary in town. The seminaries are allowed to place the priests on their own estates, but the other places are in the gift of the bishop."--_Ibid._

"After the conquest of Quebec, the British government prohibited the religious male orders from augmenting their numbers, excepting the priests. The orders were allowed to enjoy the whole of their revenues as long as a single individual of the body existed; then they reverted to the crown. The revenue of the Jesuit Society was upward of L12,000 per annum when it fell into the possession of the government. It had been for several years enjoyed solely by an old father, who had survived all the rest. He was a native of Switzerland; his name, Jean Joseph Casot. In his youth he was no more than porter to the convent, but, having considerable merit, he was promoted, and in course of time received into the order. He died at a very advanced age, in 1800, with a high character for kindness and generosity: his large income was entirely employed in charitable purposes. The lands belonging to the Jesuits, as well as to the other religious orders, are by far the best in the country, and produce the greatest revenues."--Lambert's _Travels in Canada_, vol. i., p. 59.

"The Jesuits, who in the early settlement of the country were merely missionaries, obtained a patent (_Petits Droits des Colonies Francaises_, vol. ii., p. 441), by which they acquired a license to purchase lands, and hold property as in France. The property the Jesuits possessed in this country in after times was acquired by grants from the kings of France; by grants from the Company of New France; by gifts from individuals, and by purchase."--Smith's _History of Canada_, vol. i., p. 27; Weld, p. 249. Smith estimates the revenues of the society, when, after P. Casot's death, they reverted to the crown, at only L1600 per annum. Weld comes nearer to the statement of Lambert. He visited Quebec in 1796, four years before P. Casot's death, and states that the great possessions of the Jesuits had centered in him, and amounted to L10,000 per annum. It is to be remembered that in 1764 the order of Jesuits was abolished by the King of France, and the members of the society became private individuals.

"The college of the Jesuits at Quebec was long considered as the first institution on the continent of North America for the instruction of young men. The advantages derived from it were not limited to the better class of Canadians, but were extended to all whose inclination it was to participate in them, and many students came thither from the West Indies. From the period of the expulsion of the Jesuits from the states of Europe, and the consequent abolition of their order on that continent, this establishment, although protected by the British government, began rapidly to decline.

"When, by the death of the last Canadian Jesuit, the landed property devolved to the crown, it was designed by the sovereign as a recompense for the services of the late Lord Amherst, who commanded the troops in North America at the time of the conquest of Canada, and Who completed the reduction of that province under the British government. The claim of these estates has been relinquished by his successor for a pension. The revenue arising from them has been appropriated by the Legislature of Lower Canada for the purpose of establishing in the different parishes schools for the education of children. The Jesuits' college is now converted into a commodious barrack for the troops."--Heriot's _Canada_, p. 30.

[Footnote 219: Pasteur.]

[Footnote 220: A French acre.]

[Footnote 221: French coin, value about a crown English.]

No. XIX.

The Mississippi is the only river in North America, which, for grandeur and commodiousness of navigation, comes in competition with the St. Lawrence, or with that river which runs from Lake Ontario to the ocean. If, however, we consider that immense body of water that flows from Lake Winnipeg through the Lake of the Woods, Lake Superior, &c., down to the sea, as one entire stream, and, of course, as a continuation of the St. Lawrence, it must be allowed to be a very superior river to the Mississippi in every point of view; and we may certainly consider it as one stream with as much reason as we look upon that as one river which flows from Lake Ontario to the sea; for, before it meets the ocean, it passes through four large lakes, not, indeed, to be compared with those of Erie or Superior in size, but they are independent lakes, notwithstanding, as much as any of the others. The Mississippi is principally to be admired for the evenness of its current, and the prodigious length of way it is navigable without any interruption for bateaux of a very large burden, but in many respects it is a very inferior river to the St. Lawrence, properly so called. The Mississippi, at its mouth, is not twenty miles broad, and the navigation is there so obstructed by banks or bars that a vessel drawing more than twelve feet water can not ascend it without very imminent danger. Fresh bars are formed or the old bars are enlarged every year, and it is said that unless some steps are taken to prevent the lodgments of the trees annually brought down at the time of the inundation, the navigation may in a few years be still more obstructed than it is at present. The River St. Lawrence, however, on the contrary, is no less than ninety miles wide at its mouth, and it is navigable for ships of the line as far as Quebec, a distance of 400 miles from the sea. The channel, also, instead of having been impaired by time, is found to be considerably better now than when the river was first discovered, and there is reason to imagine that it will improve still more in process of time, as the clear water that flows from Lake Ontario comes down with such impetuosity during the floods in the spring of the year as frequently to remove banks of gravel and loose stones in the river, and thus to deepen its bed. The channel on the north side of the island of Orleans, immediately below Quebec, which, according to the account of Charlevoix, was not sufficiently deep in the year 1720 to admit a shallop of a small size, except at the time of high tides, is at present found to be deep enough for the largest vessels, and is the channel most generally used.--Weld, p. 336.

No. XX.

"Upper Canada, down to the period when it was conquered by England, was in a very wild and unreclaimed condition. With the exception of the small location on the banks of the Detroit, it contained only detached posts at great distances, formed for military defense and the prosecution of the fur trade. The real settlement of Upper Canada took place in 1783, at the close of the first American war; at that time, not only a large body of troops were disbanded, but many inhabitants of the United States, who had adhered to Britain during this unfortunate contest, sought refuge within her colonies; and as these last were generally in a state of great destitution, the government felt disposed to treat them liberally, and afford the utmost possible compensation for their losses and sufferings. With this view, the whole land along the St. Lawrence above the French settlements, and also on Lake Ontario, to and around the Bay of Quiete, for the space of 150 miles, was formed into townships, originally entitled First, Second, Third, but to which regular names were afterward attached. These settlements were termed the United Empire Loyalists, and not only received an ample supply of land, but farming utensils, building materials, and subsistence for two years. A further engagement was made that every member of their families, on attaining the age of twenty-one, should have a fresh donation of 200 acres, which engagement has been strictly fulfilled. Military grants were at the same time bestowed at rates varying from 5000 for a field officer, to 200 for a private soldier.

"In 1791, Upper Canada had attained to such importance, that when Mr. Pitt determined to bestow a constitution on the colony, he formed this part into a separate government, giving to it the name of Upper, and to the early-settled districts that of Lower Canada. The former was not supposed, after all, to contain at that time above 10,000 inhabitants. General Simcoe, however, in 1794, founded the town of York,[222] which was fixed on as the seat of government, and made the most strenuous efforts to encourage colonists to settle in the neighborhood. They came in considerable numbers, though chiefly from the United States. It was not till 1803 that, through the exertions of Colonel Talbot, emigration from Britain was commenced on any large scale. The result of these measures was, that in 1811 the country was found to contain about 9623 persons paying taxes.

"Lower Canada is comprised within the parallels of 45 deg. and 52 deg. north latitude, and the meridians of 59.50 deg. to 80.6 deg. west of Greenwich; the entire province, as far as its boundaries will admit of estimation, contains about a quarter of a million square miles, or 160,000,000 of acres. Upper Canada is comprised within the parallels of 41 deg. to 49 deg. north, and the meridians of 74 deg. to 117 deg. west of Greenwich, embracing an area of about 100,000 square miles, or 64,000,000 acres. The following are the words of the order in council by which Canada was in 1791 divided into two provinces. "To commence at a stone boundary on the north bank of the Lake St. Francis, at the cove west of Point au Baudet, in the limit between the township of Lancaster and the seigniory of New Longueuil, running along the said limit in the direction of N. 34 W. to the westernmost angle of the said seigniory of New Longueuil; then along the N.W. boundary of the seigniory of Vaudreuil, running N. 25 E. until it strikes the Ottawa River; to ascend the said river into the Lake Temiscaming, and from the head of the said lake by a line drawn due N. until it strikes the boundary of Hudson's Bay, including all the territory to the westward and southward of the said line to the utmost extent of the country commonly called or known by the name of Canada." The want of clearness in the above delineation, added to the imperfections of the map on which it was drawn, particularly as regarded the westwardly angle of the seigniory of New Longueuil, and the S.W. angle of Vaudreuil, which are represented as coincident, when, according to Colonel Bouchette, they are nine miles distant from each other, has naturally caused disputes as to the boundaries between Upper and Lower Canada."--Montgomery Martin's _Hist. of Canada_, p. 62; Murray's _British America_, vol. i., p. 287.

[Footnote 222: It has now assumed the Indian name of Toronto.]

No. XXI.

"On the 5th of February, 1663, about half past five o'clock in the evening, a great rushing noise was heard throughout the whole extent of Canada. This noise caused the people to run out of their houses into the streets, as if their habitations had been on fire; but, instead of flames or smoke, they were surprised to see the walls reeling backward and forward, and the stones moving as if they were detached from each other. The bells sounded by the repeated shocks. The roofs of the buildings bent down, first on one side, and then on the other. The timbers, rafters, and planks cracked. The earth trembled violently, and caused the stakes of the palisades and palings to dance, in a manner that would have been incredible had we not actually seen it in many places. It was at this moment every one ran out of doors. Then were to be seen animals flying in every direction; children crying and screaming in the streets; men and women, seized with affright, stood horror-struck with the dreadful scene before them, unable to move, and ignorant where to fly for refuge from the tottering walls and trembling earth, which threatened every instant to crush them to death, or sink them into a profound and immeasurable abyss. Some threw themselves on their knees in the snow, crossing their breasts, and calling on their saints to relieve them from the dangers with which they were surrounded. Others passed the rest of this dreadful night in prayer; for the earthquake ceased not, but continued at short intervals with a certain undulating impulse, resembling the waves of the ocean; and the same qualmish sensations, or sickness at the stomach, was felt during the shocks as is experienced in a vessel at sea.

"The violence of the earthquake was greatest in the forest, where it appeared as if there was a battle raging between the trees; for not only their branches were destroyed, but even their trunks are said to have been detached from their places, and dashed against each other with inconceivable violence and confusion--so much so, that the Indians, in their figurative manner of speaking, declared that all the forests were drunk. The war also seemed to be carried on between the mountains, some of which were torn from their beds and thrown upon others, leaving immense chasms in the places from whence they had issued, and the very trees with which they were covered sunk down, leaving only their tops above the surface of the earth; others were completely overturned, their branches buried in the earth, and the roots only remained above ground. During this general wreck of nature, the ice, upward of six feet thick, was rent and thrown up in large pieces, and from the openings in many parts there issued thick clouds of smoke, or fountains of dirt and sand, which spouted up to a very considerable height. The springs were either choked up, or impregnated with sulphur; many rivers were totally lost; others were diverted from their course, and their waters entirely corrupted. Some of them became yellow, others red, and the great river of the St. Lawrence appeared entirely white, as far down as Tadoussac. This extraordinary phenomenon must astonish those who know the size of the river, and the immense body of waters in various parts, which must have required such an abundance of matter to whiten it. They write from Montreal that, during the earthquake, they plainly saw the stakes of the picketing or palisades jump up as if they had been dancing; and that of two doors in the same room, one opened and the other shut of their own accord; that the chimneys and tops of the houses bent like branches of the trees agitated with the wind; that when they went to walk they felt the earth following them, and rising at every step they took, something sticking against the soles of their feet, and other things in a very forcible and surprising manner.

"From Three Rivers they write that the first shock was the most violent, and commenced with a noise resembling thunder. The houses were agitated in the same manner as the tops of trees during a tempest, with a noise as if fire was crackling in the garrets. The shock lasted half an hour, or rather better, though its greatest force was properly not more than a quarter of an hour, and we believe there was not a single shock which did not cause the earth to open either more or less.

"As for the rest, we have remarked that, though this earthquake continued almost without intermission, yet it was not always of an equal violence. Sometimes it was like the pitching of a large vessel which dragged heavily at her anchors, and it was this motion which occasioned many to have a giddiness in their heads and a qualmishness in their stomachs. At other times the motion was hurried and irregular, creating sudden jerks, some of which were extremely violent; but the most common was a slight tremulous motion, which occurred frequently with little noise. Many of the French inhabitants and Indians, who were eye-witnesses to the scene, state that, a great way up the river of Trois Rivieres, about eighteen miles below Quebec, the hills which bordered the river on either side, and which were of a prodigious height, were torn from their foundations, and plunged into the river, causing it to change its course, and spread itself over a large tract of land recently cleared; the broken earth mixed with the waters, and for several months changed the color of the great River St. Lawrence, into which that of Trois Rivieres disembogues itself. In the course of this violent convulsion of nature, lakes appeared where none ever existed before; mountains were overthrown, swallowed up by the gaping, or precipitated into adjacent rivers, leaving in their places frightful chasms or level plains; falls and rapids were changed into gentle streams, and gentle streams into falls and rapids. Rivers in many parts of the country sought other beds, or totally disappeared. The earth and the mountains were entirely split and rent in innumerable places, creating chasms and precipices, whose depths have never yet been ascertained. Such devastation was also occasioned in the woods, that more than a thousand acres in our neighborhood were completely overturned; and where, but a short time before, nothing met the eye but one immense forest of trees, now were to be seen extensive cleared lands, apparently cut up by the plow.

"At Tadoussac (about 150 miles below Quebec, on the north side) the effect of the earthquake was not less violent than in other places; and such a heavy shower of volcanic ashes fell in that neighborhood, particularly in the River St. Lawrence, that the waters were as violently agitated as during a tempest. The Indians say that a vast volcano exists in Labrador. Near St. Paul's Bay (about fifty miles below Quebec, on the north side), a mountain, about a quarter of a league in circumference, situated on the shore of the St. Lawrence, was precipitated into the river, but, as if it had only made a plunge, it rose from the bottom, and became a small island, forming with the shore a convenient harbor, well sheltered from all winds. Lower down the river, toward Point Alouettes, an entire forest of considerable extent was loosened from the main bank, and slid into the River St. Lawrence, where the trees took fresh root. There are three circumstances, however, which have rendered this extraordinary earthquake particularly remarkable: the first is its duration, it having continued from February to August, that is to say, more than six months almost without intermission! It is true, the shocks were not always equally violent. In several places, as toward the mountains behind Quebec, the thundering noise and trembling motion continued successively for a considerable time. In others, as toward Tadoussac, the shock continued generally for two or three days at a time with much violence.

"The second circumstance relates to the extent of this earthquake, which, we believe, was universal throughout the whole of New France, for we learn that it was felt from L'Isle Perce and Gaspe, which are situated at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, to beyond Montreal; as also in New England, Acadia, and other places more remote. As far as it has come to our knowledge, this earthquake extended more than 600 miles in length, and about 300 in breadth. Hence 180,000 square miles of land were convulsed in the same day and at the same moment.

"The third circumstance, which appears the most remarkable of all, regards the extraordinary protection of Divine Providence, which has been extended to us and our habitations; for we have seen near us the large openings and chasms which the earthquake occasioned, and the prodigious extent of country which has been either totally lost or hideously convulsed, without our losing either man, woman, or child, or even having a hair of their head touched."--_Jesuits' Journal_, Quebec, 1663.

No. XXII.

"The principle in both instances is alike: in the former, the caloric or vital heat of the body passes so rapidly from the hand into the cold iron as to destroy the continuous and organic structure of the part; in the latter, the caloric passes so rapidly from the hot iron into the hand as to produce the same effect: heat, in both cases, being the same; its passing into the body from the iron, or into the iron from the body, being equally injurious to vitality. From a similar cause, the incautious traveler in Canada is burned in the face by a very cold wind, with the same sensations as when he is exposed to the blast of an eastern sirocco. Milton thus alludes to the effects of cold in his description of the abode of Satan and his compeers. After adverting to Styx, he says,

'Beyond this flood, a frozen continent Lies, dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice; A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air Burns frore (frozen), and cold performs the effect of fire.'

_Paradise Lost_, B. 2.

"We also find in Virgil, Georg., i., 93,

'Borea penetrabile frigus adurat.'"--Gray's _Canada_, p. 290.

No. XXIII.

"This meteor is strongest and most frequent about the arctic circle, or between that and the parallel of 64 deg. It is now ascertained, we think, beyond all doubt, that the height of the Aurora, instead of being, as supposed by Mr. Dalton and others, above the region of the atmosphere, is, in fact, rarely above six or seven miles. This was satisfactorily proved by angles taken in the same moment at two distant places, always exceedingly small at one or both stations; by the extreme rapidity with which a beam darts from one side of the horizon to the opposite side, which could not happen if 100 miles high or upward; by its frequently darting its beams _beneath_ the clouds, and at very short distances from the earth's surface, and by its being acted upon by the wind. Mr. Hood was told by one of the partners of the Northwest Company that he once saw the coruscations of the Aurora Borealis so vivid and low that the Canadians fell on their faces, and began crying and praying, fearing lest they should be killed; that he threw away his gun and knife, that they might not attract the flashes, for they were within two feet from the earth, flitting along with incredible swiftness, and moving parallel to the surface; he added that they made a loud rustling noise, like the waving of a flag in a strong breeze. This rustling noise, which is universally asserted by the servants of the Northwest Company, was not heard by any of the officers of Captain Franklin's expedition, but he says that it would be an absurd degree of skepticism to doubt the fact any longer, for their observations had rather increased than diminished the probability of it. It has hitherto been supposed that the magnetic needle was not affected by the Aurora; but a vast number of experiments given in the tables prove that, in certain positions of the beams and arches, the needle was considerably drawn aside, and mostly so when the flashes were between the clouds and the earth, or when their actions were quick, their light vivid, and the atmosphere hazy."--Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea_, Nos. II. and III. of the Appendix.

The following is Charlevoix's description of the Aurora Borealis, never before witnessed by the French colonists:

"Un autre phenomene, qui paroit dans l'air, meriteroit bien qu'on s'etudiat a en decouvrir la cause. Dans le tems le plus serein, on appercoit tout a coup au milieu de la nuit de nuages d'une blancheur extraordinaire, et au travers de ces nuages une lumiere tres-eclatante. Lors meme qu'on ne sent pas un souffle de vent, ces nuages sont chasses avec une tres-grande vitesse, et prennent toutes sortes de figures. Plus la nuit est obscure, plus la lumiere est vive: elle l'est meme quelquefois a un point, qu'on peut lire a sa lueur beaucoup plus aisement, qu'a celle de la lune dans son plein.

"On dira peut-etre que ce n'est qu'une refraction des raions du soleil, qui par cette hauteur ne s'eloigne pas beaucoup de l'horison pendant les nuits de l'ete, et qu'encore qu'il n'y ait point de vent dans la basse region de l'air, il peut y en avoir dans la superieure, ce qui est vrai; mais ce qui me fait juger qu'il y a encore une autre de ce meteore, c'est que pendant l'hyver meme, la lune paroit souvent environnee d'arc-en-ciel de couleurs differentes, et toutes tres-vives. Pour moi je suis persuade que ces effets doivent etre attribues en partie a des exhalaisons nitreuses, qui pendant le jour ont ete attirees et enfluencees par le soleil."

No. XXIV.

"Very distant posterity will one day decide whether, as Mr. Leslie has endeavored to prove by ingenious hypothesis (_An Experimental Inquiry into the Nature and Propagation of Heat_, 1804), 2400 years are sufficient to augment the mean temperature of the atmosphere a single degree. However slow this increment may be, we must admit that an hypothesis, according to which organic life seems gradually to augment on the globe, occupies more agreeably our imagination than the old system of the cooling of our planet and the accumulation of the polar ice."--Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_, vol. ii., p. 83.

"A point of much interest is the comparison of the actual temperature of the globe with that of the same regions in former ages. The evidence which justifies the conclusion that no change has occurred but from local or superficial causes, is worth studying, were it only for its variety and singularity. We might begin with Laplace's conclusion, that the mean heat can not be altered by 1 deg. of Reaumur since the time of Hipparchus, inasmuch as the dimensions of the globe would be thereby changed in a small amount, its angular velocity be increased or diminished, and a sensible difference be made in the length of the day, which difference does not exist. We might then proceed to the argument urged by Biot and Champollion, from the identity of the time of inundation in the Nile, 5000 years ago, the periodical rains producing which depend upon and indicate the degree and distribution of heat over a vast equatorial region. Next we might turn to the method of Professor Schaw, in his work on the comparative temperature of ancient and modern times, founded on the northern and southern limits of production of different animals and plants in any given country, as they come recorded to us by ancient writers, compared with the observations of our own day. The result of general identity is obtained by this method also; and the same remark may be extended to the miscellaneous proofs derived from other passages in ancient writers, numerously collated, respecting the climate of particular regions and localities. There is no amount of diversity shown by this evidence which does not admit of explanation from local and accidental causes, many of them belonging to the agency of man himself, on the surface of the earth."--_Quarterly Review_, September, 1848.

"Several planters attribute the failure of the cotton crop this year (1842) to the unusual size and number of the icebergs, which floated southward last spring from Hudson's and Baffin's Bays, and may have cooled the sea and checked the early growth of the cotton plant, so numerous and remote are the disturbing causes of meteorology! Forty degrees of latitude intervene between the region where the ice-floes are generated and that where the crops are raised, whose death-warrant they are supposed to have carried with them."--Lyell's _America_, vol. i., p. 174.

No. XXV.

The theory by which Dr. Brewster seeks to account for the peculiarities of the American climate is the following: "He supposes that the poles of the globe and the isothermal poles are by no means coincident, and that, on the contrary, there exist two different points, within a few degrees of the poles, where the cold is greatest in both hemispheres. These points are believed by Dr. Brewster to be situated about the eightieth parallel of latitude, and in the meridians of 95 deg. east and 100 deg. west longitude. The meridians of these isothermal poles[223] he considers as lying nearly at right angles to the parallels of what might be called the meteorological latitudes, which, according to his theory, appear to have an obliquity of direction as regards the equator something like the zodiac. Thus the cold circle of latitude that passes through Siberia would be the same that traverses the frigid atmosphere of Canada. This theory would go some length toward explaining the causes of the gradual decrease of the severity of cold in the south of Europe, and lead us to the conclusion that eventually the cold meridian of Canada may work its way westward, and leave that part of America to an enjoyment of the same temperature as those European countries situated in corresponding latitudes. That the temperature of the air has been modified by agricultural operations can not be denied, but that these operations should of themselves be capable of producing the changes known to have taken place in the course of ages in Europe, where formerly the Tiber used to be often frozen, and snow was by no means uncommon at Rome;[224] when the Euxine Sea, the Rhone, and the Rhine, were almost every year covered with ice, of sufficient thickness to bear considerable burdens, it is scarcely possible rationally to admit; and, indeed, the meteorological observations, as far as they go in Canada, serve rather to disprove than to establish the fact."--Bouchette, vol. i., p. 335.

"The earliest record of the climate of Canada is that contained in the 'Fastes Chronologiques,' and refers to the period of Cartier's second voyage. On the 15th of November, 1535, Old Style, the vessels in the River St. Charles were surrounded by ice, and the Indians informed Cartier that the whole river was frozen over as far as Montreal. On the 22d of February, 1536, the River St. Lawrence became navigable for canoes opposite to Quebec, but the ice remained firm in the St. Croix harbor. On the 5th of April his vessels were disengaged from the ice. To obtain the modern dates, it will be necessary to add eleven days to each period.

"The later meteorological statistics do not prove that the progressive opening of the country has had so powerful an influence upon the temperature of the atmosphere as is generally supposed. Its chief tendency seems to be to lengthen the summer, and thus abridge the duration of winter. That the gradual removal of the forests to make room for open fields contributes to augment the summer temperature, is undoubtedly true, since it is well known that the atmosphere itself is not heated by the direct rays of the sun, but that its warmth springs from the earth, and that the degree of this warmth is entirely governed by the quantum of heat absorbed through the earth's surface. The progressive settlement of the country may then be expected to benefit the climate, by its throwing open to the direct action of the sun a more extended surface of territory; and this benefit will be more sensibly felt at night, from the earth's having imbibed a sufficient quantity of caloric to temper the coolness of the air between the setting and rising of the sun. In an agricultural point of view, such an improvement in the climate of Canada will be of great moment, as the coldness of the nights is generally the cause of blight in tender fruits and plants; and from its equalizing the temperature, probably render the climate capable of maturing fruits that are indigenous to warm countries.

"Notwithstanding the opposing testimony of meteorological data, we have the assertion of some of the oldest inhabitants of the country that the climate of Canada has become perceptibly milder within their recollection, and are thus left to conciliate this traditional record with contradictory facts, and the only mode of doing so appears to be the application of their remarks, more to the duration of the mild season than the degrees of cold that were indicated by the thermometer in the course of the year."--Bouchette, vol. i., p. 334, 340, 1831; Lambert's _Travels through Canada_ in 1808, vol. i., p. 119.

Kalm says in 1748, September 12th, "The weather about this time was like the beginning of our August, Old Style. Therefore it seems that autumn commences a whole month later in Canada than in the midst of Sweden."--P. 682.

[Footnote 223: On the theory of the isothermal lines, see the papers of Kupfer in Poggend., _Ann._, bd. xv., s., 184, and bd. xxxli., s. 270, in the _Voyage dans l'Oural_, p. 382-398, and in the _Edinb. Journal of Science_, new series, vol. iv., p. 355. See, also, Kamtz, _Lehrbuch der Meteor_, bd. ii., s. 217, and on the ascent of chthon-isothermal lines in mountainous countries, Bischoff, s. 174-197; Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. i., p. 347.]

[Footnote 224: Quebec lies nearly in the same latitude as Paris, and from the description which the Emperor Julian has given of the winters he quartered there during his command in Gaul, there seems to be little difference between the winters of France in this respect and the present winters of Canada.--Juliani Imper., _Opera_.

The author of _Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains_ supposes the difference in heat between the two continents to be equal to 12 degrees; that a place 30 degrees from the equator in the Old Continent is as warm as one situated 18 degrees from it in America, tom. i., p. 11. Dr. Mitchell, after observations carried on during thirty years, contends that the difference is equal to 14 or 15 degrees of latitude, p. 257.--Heriot's _Travels through the Canadas_, p. 117.]

No. XXVI.

The Vitis vinifera is found in America in its wild state; in James's "Expedition to the Rocky Mountains" it is thus described: "The small elms along this valley were bending under the weight of innumerable grape vines, now loaded with ripe fruit, the purple clusters crowded in such profusion as almost to give a coloring to the landscape. On the opposite side of the river was a range of low sand-hills, fringed with vines, rising not more than a foot or eighteen inches from the surface. On examination, we found these hillocks had been produced exclusively by the agency of the grape vines, arresting the sand as it was borne along by the wind until such quantities had been accumulated as to bury every part of the plant except the end of the branches. Many of these were so loaded with fruit as to present nothing to the eye but a series of clusters, so closely arranged as to conceal every part of the stem. The fruit of these vines is incomparably finer than that of any other native or exotic which we have met with in the United States. The burying of the greater part of the trunk with its larger branches produces the effect of pruning, inasmuch as it prevents the unfolding of leaves and flowers on the parts below the surface, while the protruded ends of the branches enjoy an increased degree of light and heat from the reflection of the sand. It is owing, undoubtedly, to these causes that the grapes in question are far superior to the fruit of the same vine under ordinary circumstances. The treatment here employed by nature to bring to perfection the fruit of the vine may be imitated, but, without the peculiarities of soil and exposure, can with difficulty be carried to the same magnificent extent. Here are hundreds of acres, covered with a movable surface of sand, and abounding in vines, which, left to the agency of the sun and of the winds, are, by their operation, placed in more favorable circumstances than it is in the power of man to so great an extent to afford."--Vol. ii., p. 315, 316.

No. XXVII.

"Fir-trees, Thuja, and Cypress-trees are a northern type, which is very rare in the tropical regions. The freshness of their evergreen leaves cheers the desert winter landscape; it proclaims to the inhabitants of these regions that although snow and ice cover the earth, the internal life of the plants, like the fire of Prometheus, is never extinguished."--_Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 90.

"There are upward of twenty species of Pinus, of which one half are natives of Canada, Nova Scotia, or Newfoundland.

"_Pinus Balsamea_ (Balm of Gilead Fir, or American Silver Fir) grows to the height of fifty feet, and is an elegant tree, resembling the silver fir of Europe. The resin of this species is the common Canada Balsam, which is often substituted for the Balm of Gilead. It is found in small blisters on the bark, extracted by incision, and received in a limpid state into a shell or cup. This tree has long been cultivated for curiosity in England, but in general, though it grows to a considerable size and height, scarcely survives above twenty years, which seems to be the natural period of its existence. Mr. Lambert mentions some older trees of this species at Woburn and Warwick Castle.

"_Pinus Canadensis_ (Hemlock Spruce) is a beautiful and very large tree, bearing some resemblance in its foliage to the common yew. Peter Collinson records his having introduced this tree to the English collections in 1736, and a fine specimen of it is, or was, in his garden at Mill Hill.

"_Pinus Nigra_ (Black or Double Spruce) is found from Canada to Nova Scotia, and terminates in latitude 65 deg. It was introduced into England about the year 1700, but not much cultivated there.

"_Pinus Alba_ (White Spruce) flourishes from latitude 43 deg. northward. Its growth is nearly equal to that of the European silver fir, 140 feet in height. It is one of the most ornamental of the _Abies_ tribe (those having single, not fasciculated leaves); the branches feather down to the ground, and the leaves have a beautiful and peculiar glaucous hue. From the young shoots of this tree (also from Pinus Nigra) is obtained the resinous extract from which spruce beer is made: good turpentine is obtained from the bark. This tree was cultivated in England by Bishop Compton before 1700.

"_Pinus Resinosa_ (Pitch Pine) grows in Canada in close forests, and is distinguished for its great height and smooth red bark, whence it is often called Red Pine by the French population. This tree is the glory of Canada. Its timber, in color, quality, and durability, appears to be in every respect equal to the best Riga, and in one particular superior, that of being quite free from knots. It was first raised in England by the Duke of Northumberland at Zion House, where many of this species are still to be seen flowering in May.

"_Pinus Banksiana_ (Labrador Scrub, or Gray Pine) inhabits cold, barren, and rocky situations. The finest trees of this species in England are at Pain's Hill and Kew.

"_Pinus Strobus_ (White, or Weymouth Pine) is the largest species on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, being sometimes 200 feet high, and the trunk five feet in diameter. The attention which Lord Weymouth, afterward Marquis of Bath, gave to the cultivation of this valuable tree has justly stamped it with his name. It is now generally diffused through every considerable plantation in England. When growing in open situations, it is feathered to the ground; but, as generally found in the Canadian forests, it is little more than an immense stick with a quantity of brush at its head, in about the same proportion as the hair on the tail of an elephant. It is of this tree that in general the forests of all British America are composed, and it is, in fact, peculiar to America. It is called in commerce White Pine, Yellow Pine, or American Pine. The timber is very valuable for masts. The age to which this tree arrives is not known: 1500 annular divisions have been counted.

"_Pinus Pendula_ (Black Larch, or Hackmatack) is a beautiful and large tree, generally resembling the larch of Europe. The buds are black, and yield a fine turpentine. This tree was first raised in England by the celebrated Peter Collinson, whose original tree, one of the treasures of the Mill Hill garden, was cut down about the year 1800 to make a rail! Few exotics are more worthy of general cultivation. The wood is at least equal to the European larch.

"_Pinus Microcarpa_ (Red Larch) resembles the preceding so much, that Michaux and Wildman confounded the two species together. The red larch, however, is now clearly distinguished as a distinct kind. It is named by the voyageurs L'Epinette Rouge, and by the Hudson's Bay men Juniper."--H. Murray's _British America_, vol. iii., p. 328; R. M. Martin, p. 254; Rees's _Cyclopaedia_, art. Pinus.

No. XXVIII.

"The canoes that navigate the Canadian lakes are among the most ingenious and useful of the Indian manufactures, and nothing that European ingenuity has devised is so well adapted to the habits and necessities of their mode of life. They are made of the bark of the birch-tree; and of all the various contrivances for transporting burdens by water, these vessels are the most extraordinary. From the slightness of their construction, they would appear to be totally inadequate to contend against the rapids they are continually exposed to. They are of various lengths, from twelve to thirty feet (the latter used only by the Hudson's Bay Company); their breadth from four to six feet, diminishing to a point at each end without distinction. The exterior is the bark of the birch-tree, scarcely the eighth part of an inch in thickness: it is kept distended by thin hoops and the bark; the gunwale is a narrow lath, to which the hoop and the bark are sewed with narrow strips of the roots of the white cedar-tree; and the joinings in the bark are rendered water-proof by a species of gum, said to be collected from the wild cherry-tree, which soon becomes perfectly hard. No iron work or nails are employed in their construction; and they are so light, that the common-sized ones are easily carried for several miles by a man of moderate strength. They are worked by paddles over the sides, and the dexterity of the Indians in working them is surprising. They, of course, push them forward, and not backward, as in the operation of rowing. The largest description will carry about five tons of merchandise, besides eight or ten men. The great objection that attends the use of bark canoes is the difficulty of keeping them water-tight. It requires the greatest attention to prevent them from touching a rock, or even the shore, as they would otherwise break; hence they are never brought near to the bank. Two men keep the canoe afloat at a distance, while the rest of the crew load or unload her. The canoe is unloaded every night, raised out of the water, and left on the beach bottom upward. This is also occasionally done when they stop during the day: it affords an opportunity of allowing the canoe to dry, otherwise the bark absorbs much water, and becomes very heavy. All motion on the part of those on board is to be avoided, as it causes the pitch to crack, and renders the canoe leaky."--Keating's _Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River_, vol. ii., p. 72, quoted in Sir George Simpson's _Overland Journey Round the World_, vol. i., p. 14.

La Hontan, in 1684, gives the same description of the bark canoes, and complains of "the inconvenience of their brittle and tender fabric. If they do but touch or grate upon stone or sand, the cracks of the bark fly open, upon which the water gets in, and spoils the provisions and merchandise. Every day there is some new chink or seam to be gummed over. At night they are always unloaded and carried on shore, where they are made fast with pegs, lest the wind should blow them away."

Charlevoix gives a nearly similar account in 1720, vol. v., p. 285. He adds: "Tous ces canots, jusqu'au plus petits, portent la voile et avec un bon vent peuvent faire vingt lieues par jour. Sans voiles il faut avoir de bons canoteurs pour en faire douze dans une eau morte."

No. XXIX.

"Many of the species of _Acer_ form large, ornamental, and valuable trees. The kinds in most esteem for making sugar are _Acer dasycarpum_ (white, or soft maple), _Acer nigrum_ (black sugar maple), and _Acer saccharinum_ (the sugar maple), the last two yielding the greatest quantity of sugar. The process by which the sap is obtained is extremely simple, nothing more being necessary than to bore a hole in the tree, and conduct the flowing liquid, by means of a hollowed piece of wood, into a vessel beneath. Whatever quantity of sap is collected, it must be boiled down the same evening, as it is liable to be spoiled by fermentation in the course of a few hours. The operation of boiling is generally performed in a very primitive way: it is thus described by the intelligent authoress of _Backwoods of Canada_: 'A pole was fixed across two forked stakes strong enough to bear the weight of the big kettle. The employment during the day was emptying the troughs and chopping wood to supply the fires. In the evening they lit the fires and began boiling down the sap. It was a pretty and picturesque sight to see the sugar boilers, with their bright log-fire among the trees, now stirring up the blazing pile, now throwing in the liquid, and stirring it down with a big ladle. When the fire grew fierce it boiled and foamed up in the kettle, and they had to throw in fresh sap to keep it from running over. When the sap begins to thicken into molasses, it is then brought to the sugar boiler to be finished. The process is simple: it only requires attention in skimming, and keeping the mass from boiling over, till it has arrived at the sugaring point, which is ascertained by dropping a little into cold water. When it is near the proper consistency, the kettle or pot becomes full of yellow froth, that dimples and rises in large bubbles from beneath. These throw out puffs of steam, and when the molasses is in this stage it is nearly converted into sugar. Those who pay great attention to keeping the liquid free from scum, and understand the precise sugaring point, will produce an article little, if at all, inferior to Muscovado.' It is, however, often adulterated with flour, which thickens and renders it heavy. It is very hard, and requires to be scraped with a knife when used for tea, otherwise the lumps would be a considerable time in dissolving. The Canadians say that it possesses medicinal qualities, for which they eat it in large lumps. It very possibly acts as a corrective to the vast quantity of fat pork which they consume, as it possesses a greater degree of acidity than the West India sugar. Before salt was in use, sugar was eaten with meat, as a corrective; hence, probably, the custom of eating sweet apple-sauce with pork and goose, and currant-jelly with hare and venison."--Lambert, vol. i., p. 84.

"The production of maple sugar amounted (in 1836) to about 25,000 cwt. annually. A plantation of maple is termed 'suegari,' and is considered very valuable: the sugar sells from 3_d._ to 6_d._ per pound. A moderate tree is said to yield from twenty to thirty gallons of the sap, from which may be extracted five or six pounds of sugar. Nor is sugar the only product to be obtained from this valuable tree: strong and excellent vinegar is made from it, as well as good wine; and, with the addition of hops, sound and pleasant beer may be had at a very trifling expense."--H. Murray's _Canada_, vol. iii., p. 315; Gray's _Canada_, p. 224.

"It is a very remarkable fact that these trees, after having been tapped for six or seven successive years, always yield more sap than they do on being first wounded. This sap, however, is not so rich as that which the trees distill for the first time; but, from its coming in an increased portion, as much sugar is generally produced from a single tree on the fifth or sixth year of its being tapped as on the first.

"The ingenious Mr. Nooth, of Quebec, who is at the head of the general hospital in Canada, has made a variety of experiments upon the manufacture of maple sugar. He has granulated, and also refined it, so as to render it equal to the best lump sugar that is made in England. To convince the Canadians also, who are as incredulous on some points as they are credulous on others, that it was really maple sugar that they saw thus refined, he has contrived to have large lumps, exhibiting the sugar in its different stages toward refinement, the lower part of the lumps being left hard, similar to the common cakes, the middle part granulated, and the upper part refined. Dr. Nooth has calculated that the sale of the molasses alone would be fully adequate to the expense of refining the maple sugar, if a manufactory for that purpose were established. Some attempts have been made to establish one of the kind at Quebec, but they have never succeeded, as the persons by whom they were made were adventurers that had not sufficient capital for such an undertaking."--Weld, 1800, p. 271.

Charlevoix says in his _Journal_, "On me regale ici d'eau d'erable--elle est delicieuse, d'un fraicheur admirable et fort saine. Pour qu'elle coule avec abondance, il faut qu'il y ait beaucoup de neiges sur la terre, qu'il ait gele pendant la nuit, que le ciel soit serein, et que le vent ne soit pas trop froid. Nos erables auroient peut-etre la meme vertu, si nous avions en France autant de neiges qu'en Canada, et si elles y duroient aussi lontems. J'en ai donne a foudre a un refineur d'Orleans qui n'y a trouve d'autre defaut que ce qu'il n'avoit pas ete suffisamment egoute. Il le croyoit meme de meilleure qualite de l'autre."--Vol. v., p. 181.

No. XXX.

"Quelques nations tirent leur subsistance, d'une sorte de grain que la Nature produit d'elle-meme; on le nomme le folle-avoine, dont les Francais ont transporte le nom a quelques-unes de ces nations. C'est une plante marecageuse qui approche assez de l'avoine, mais qui est mieux nourrie. Les sauvages vont la chercher dans leurs canots, au tems de sa maturite. Ils ne font que secouer les epis, les quels s'egraissent facilement, de sorte que leurs canots sont bientot remplis, et leurs provisions bientot faites, sans qu'ils soient obliges de labourer ni de semer."--Lafitau, tom. ii., 96.

This grain is the _Zizania aquatica_ of Linnaeus. Kalm calls it the water tare-grass, and says that "the Indians reckon it among their dainty dishes. It grows in plenty in their lakes, in stagnant waters, and sometimes in rivers which flow slowly. They gather its seeds in October, and prepare them in different ways, and chiefly as groats, which take almost as well as rice."--Kalm, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii., p. 696.

"Common in all the waters from Canada to Florida, and known by the name of Tuscarora,[225] or wild rice."--Pursh. Sir Joseph Banks introduced it into this country in 1790, and cultivated it abundantly in the ponds of his villa of Spring Grove. The seeds were obtained from Canada in jars of water. Mr. Lambert is of opinion that this grain might be cultivated in many shallow lakes of Ireland, and turned to considerable advantage.

[Footnote 225: The Tuscaroras, so called from the Wild Rice, were a race of the Iroquois. It is of them that the fable was narrated that Owen Chapelain (in 1619) saved himself from their hands, when they were about to scalp him, by speaking in his Gaelic mother tongue. Catlin is inclined to consider the fair and frequently blue-eyed nation of the Tuscaroras to be a mixed race, between the ancient Welsh and the American aboriginal tribes.]

No. XXXI.

"The soil and climate of Canada are admirably adapted to the growth of hemp. The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c., assert, in their preface to Vol. XXI., 'That they have ascertained, by actual experiments, that Canada can furnish hemp equal in quality for the uses of the navy to that from the Baltic.' Hemp is one of the most valuable and profitable productions of the earth. It enriches the cultivator, and furnishes shipping with the most useful and important part of its equipment. The several processes of hemp, also, benefit the state, by employing many hands that could not be so usefully and profitably engaged in other occupations. The advantage, therefore, which a country must derive from the culture and manufacture of hemp, throughout its several branches, can not be doubted, and is sufficiently proved by the importance which Russia has derived from her commerce in that article, by which she has, in a manner, rendered the greatest navy in the world dependent upon her will and caprice. The importation of hemp from Russia has annually amounted to no less than 30,000 tons for the general consumption of the country, and for the use of the royal navy. It must, therefore, in every point of view, be a great object to Great Britain to draw her supplies of hemp from her own colonies. The efforts of government to promote its general cultivation have hitherto proved very partially successful. The failure is attributed, in a great degree, to the attachment of the Canadians to old customs, and the opposition of the Romish clergy, hemp not being a tithable article. The wheat merchants and the seigniors, who depend for success in trade and for the constant employment of their mills, the chief source of their revenues, upon abundant crops of wheat, are strongly opposed to the introduction of the culture of hemp, which they conceive would partly, if not wholly, annihilate that of wheat."--Lambert, vol. i., p. 449.

M. de Talon, the able Intendant of Quebec (in 1665), strongly recommended the cultivation of hemp, having ascertained that the nature of the soil and climate promised every possible success.

No. XXXII.

"It is calculated that there is a greater proportion of wheat soil in the Canadas than in England, and that, if this valuable grain were cultivated in this latter country in the same defective manner as in these provinces, it could not be of much value. Climate, an equally important particular, seems, at first sight, less favorable than soil. A region which for several months, and, in some districts, for more than half the year, remains buried in frost and snow, may well be supposed unfriendly to vegetation. The strong, steady heat of summer, however, counteracts almost completely this chilling influence, and matures, with surprising rapidity, the most valuable plants. Mr. Evans has had wheat in ear nine weeks after it was sown. Even the violent alternations of frost and thaw, of snow and rain, instead of injuring vegetation, are found to pulverize and soften the soil, and thus render it more fertile with less culture. The great steadiness of the summer weather exempts plants from sundry vicissitudes which they undergo in a more changeable climate. From these causes, the _annuals_ suited to a temperate region grow in Canada to full perfection, and as these include the grains fitted for bread, the food most essential to man, she has little cause to envy any other country. In regard to wheat, indeed, the chief of those vegetables, this observation must be somewhat restricted. Its plants are so far biennial, that to acquire the very first quality they must be sown during the preceding autumn. Yet this course has not been found safe in Lower Canada, where wheat must be treated as an annual, sown in spring, and reaped before the end of the year. The defect is owing, not to the rigor of the winter, still less to the depth of snow, which, on the contrary, is found to protect and cherish vegetable growth, but is ascribed to severe frosts, violent and chilling rains, occurring after the snow has left the ground, and the plants have made some progress. An opinion is entertained that, with good management, autumn wheat might be raised with success. The British American Land Company have decidedly adopted this idea, and some successful experiments have been made. Mr. Evans, however, is of opinion that, from the above causes, unless in some favored situations, it must always be an unsafe crop, and peculiarly liable to disease. He had once autumn and spring wheats growing on the same field, when, although the first was completely ruined by rust and mildew, the other proved excellent. He seems to apprehend, therefore, that Lower Canada must be content with her good spring growth. It is said, however, to require a soil more minutely pulverized, while the grain produced contains a greater proportion of gluten, and is thus harder and more difficult to grind. In Upper Canada, autumn wheat is raised without any difficulty."--H. Murray, vol. i., p. 339.

"Canada wheat is of an excellent quality: it is thought superior to the Baltic wheat, being harder, and yielding more flour in proportion to the quality. The Canadian farmers are very negligent in preventing the growth of weeds, so that the wheat, when thrashed, is very foul, and seldom or never in a condition to be shipped until it is cleaned. For that purpose, it undergoes the operation of being once or twice put through what is called the _cribbles_."--Gray's _Canada_, p. 199.

No. XXXIII.

It is still a subject of dispute among naturalists whether the moose deer and the elk are the same animal. Professor Kalm and his translator, Forster, formed this opinion principally on the Algonquin name for the elk, _Musu_, the final u being scarcely sounded. The Algonquins, before the Iroquois attained to such great power in America, were the principal nation in the northern part of the continent, and their language a kind of universal language. Charlevoix says, "Ce qu'on appelle ici Orignal, c'est ce qu'en Allemagne, en Pologne, et en Muscovie on nomme Elau, ou la Grand Bete." The first mention of this remarkable animal is in a tract of Mr. Josselyn's, entitled "New England Rarities." That author says, "It is a very fine creature, growing to twelve feet high; the horns are extremely beautiful, with broad palms, some of them full grown, being two fathoms from the tip of one horn to the tip of the other." The same author, in another work, entitled "Two Voyages to New England," calls this creature "a monster of superfluity;" and says that, "when full grown, it is many times larger than an ox." The best account, however, of the moose deer is Mr. Paul Dudley's. This gentleman says they are of two kinds: the common light-gray moose deer, called by the Indians _Wampoose_, and the larger black moose. The gray moose is the same animal which Mr. Clayton, in his account of the Virginian quadrupeds, calls the elk; and this is the creature described in the Anatomical Discoveries of the Paris Academy under the name of the stag of Canada. Horns of this creature have been sent from Virginia, and called elks' horns; they are wholly the same with those of our red deer, except in size, weighing about twelve pounds, and measuring from the burr to the tip about six feet long.--_Phil. Trans._, No. cxliv., p. 386; Abr., vol. vii., p. 447. Mr. Dudley says that the gray moose is like the English deer, and that these creatures herd together thirty or more in a company. The black or large moose has been taken, he says, measuring 14 spans in height from the withers, which, allowing 9 inches to the span, is 10-1/2 feet. The large horns found fossil in Ireland have, from their vast dimensions, been supposed to have originally belonged to the black moose deer; they are provided with brow antlers between the burr and the palm, which the European elk has not, and the American has. However, the largest horns of the American moose ever brought over are only 32 inches long, and 34 between tip and tip, while some of the Irish horns are near 12 feet between tip and tip, and 6 feet 4 inches long; they may probably be ranked among those remains which fossilists distinguish by the title of diluvian.

Professor Kalm says, "They sometimes dig very large horns out of the ground in Ireland, and nobody in that country, or any where else in the world, knows any animal that has such horns. This has induced many to believe that it is the moose deer so famous in North America, and that the horns found were of animals of this kind which had formerly lived in that island, but were gradually destroyed. It has even been concluded that Ireland, in distant ages, either was connected with North America, or that a number of little islands, which are lost at present, made a chain between them. This led me to inquire whether an animal with such excessive great horns as are ascribed to the moose deer had ever been seen in any part of this country. Mr. Bertram told me that he had carefully inquired to that purpose, and was entirely of opinion that there was no such animal in North America. Mr. Franklin related that he had, when a boy, seen two of the animals which they call moose deer; but he well remembered that they were not near of such a size as they must have been if the horns found in Ireland were to fit them. The two animals which he saw were brought to Boston in order to be sent to England to Queen Anne. The height of the animal up to the back was that of a pretty tall horse, but the head and its horns were still higher. On my travels in Canada, I often inquired of the Frenchmen whether there had ever been seen so large an animal in this country as some people say there is in North America, and with such great horns as are sometimes dug out in Ireland. But I was always told that they had never heard of it, much less seen it; some added that if there was such an animal, they certainly must have met with it in some of their excursions in the woods."--Kalm, in Pink., vol. xiii., p. 472. In shape the elk or moose deer is much less elegant than the rest of the deer kind, having a very short and thick neck; a large head; horns dilating immediately from the base into a broad, palmated form; a thick, broad upper lip, hanging very much over the lower; very high shoulders, and long legs. The hair is a dark grayish-brown color, strong, coarse, and elastic, much longer on the top of the shoulders and ridge of the neck than on other parts, forming together a kind of stiffish mane; the eye and ears are large, the hoofs broad, and the tail extremely short. The elk resides principally in the midst of forests, for the convenience of browsing the boughs of trees, because it is prevented from grazing with facility on account of the shortness of the neck and the disproportionate length of the legs. Their gait is remarkable; their general pace is described to be a high, shambling, but very swift trot, the feet being lifted up very high, and the hoofs clattering much during their motion; in their common walk they lift their feet very high, and will without difficulty step over a gate five feet high. The flesh of the moose is extremely sweet and nourishing; the Indians say that they can travel three times further after a meal of moose than after any other animal food. The tongues are excellent; but the nose is said to be perfect marrow, and is considered the greatest delicacy in Canada. The skin makes excellent buff, being strong, soft, and light. The Indians dress the hide, and, after soaking it for some time, stretch and render it supple by a lather of the brains in hot water. They not only make their snow-shoes of the skin, but after the chase cover the hull of their canoes with it, in which they return home with the spoils of their chase. The hair on the neck, withers, and hams of a full-grown elk is of considerable use in making mattresses and saddles; and the palmated parts of the horns are further excavated by the Indians, and converted into ladles and other culinary articles. An ancient superstition has prevailed that the elk is naturally subject to epilepsy, and that it finds its cure by scratching its ear with the hoof until it draws blood; in consequence of this notion, the hoofs of the elk form an article of the ancient Materia Medica. A piece of the hoof was anciently set in a ring, and worn as a preservative against the complaint above mentioned; sometimes the hoof was held in the patient's hand, or applied to the pulse, to the left ear, or suspended from the neck.--Rees's _Cyclopaedia_, art. Cervus Alces; Lambert's _Canada_, vol. i., p. 414.

Charlevoix speaks of the species having been almost entirely destroyed even in his time (1721) by the indiscriminate carnage of the early settlers.--Vol. v., p. 184. "Les Orignaux etoient partout a foison, lorsque nous decouvrimes a pays, et ils pouvoient faire un objet pour le commerce, une douceur pour la vie, si on les avoit mieux menages."--Vol. v., p. 193.

La Hontan minutely describes the chase of the elk or moose deer, in which laborious amusement he spent three months. Fifty-six elks were killed by the party of savages who accompanied him. He says that the flesh of the Orignal eats deliciously. He was assured by the savages that in summer it would trot for three days and three nights without intermission; it neither runs nor skips, he says, but its trot will almost keep up with the running of a hart.--La Hontan, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii., p. 284.

No. XXXIV.

_Ursus Americanus_, a species distinct from the black bear of Europe: it has a long, pointed nose, and narrow forehead, the hair of a glossy black color, smoother and shorter than that of the European kind, and is generally smaller than the European bear. The brown bear, _Ursus Arctos_, is also found in some of the northern parts of America. La Hontan observed the difference of disposition between the brown and the black bear; the latter, he says, "are extremely black, but not mischievous, for they never attack one unless they be wounded or fired upon." The reddish (_rougeatres_) bears are mischievous creatures, for they fall fiercely upon the huntsmen, whereas the black fly from them. The former sort are less, and more nimble than the latter. The flesh of the black bear, and, above all, their feet, are very nice victuals. The savages affirm that no flesh is so delicious as that of bears, and I think they are right.[226]--La Hontan, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii., p. 288. Charlevoix, vol. v., p. 172.

The _Ursus Maritimus_, or Polar Bear, is confined to the coldest parts of the globe, being unknown except on the coasts of Hudson's Bay, Greenland, and Spitzbergen. (Lambert says that they have been seen at Newfoundland, and La Hontan saw one at a distance at Placentia.) This animal grows to so great a size that the skin of some are thirteen feet long. They are so fond of human flesh that they will greedily disinter dead bodies; they will attack companies of armed men, and will even board small vessels. The skins of the Polar Bear were formerly offered by the hunters of the Arctic regions to the high altars of cathedral and other churches, for the priest to stand on during the celebration of mass in winter.--Rees's _Cyclopaedia_, art. Ursus.

Captain Clarke agrees with La Hontan in ascribing fierceness of disposition to the brown bear, and also speaks of it as "reddish," or of a bay brown. "We had rather," says Captain Clarke, "encounter two Indians than meet a single brown bear; their very track in the mud or sand, which we have sometimes found 11 inches long and 7-1/4 wide, exclusive of the talons, is alarming. The wonderful power of life which they possess renders them dreadful: there is no chance of killing them by a single shot, unless the ball goes through the brain." ... Six of Captain Clarke's party, all good hunters, having sight of a large one of the brown breed, came unperceived within forty paces of him; four of them then fired, and each lodged a ball in his body, two of which went directly through the lungs. The brave beast made at them instantly; as he came near, the two men who had reserved their shot both wounded him; one of the balls broke his shoulder, and retarded his motion for a moment; before they could reload, he was so near that they all ran to the river; two jumped into the canoe, the other four separated, hid themselves among the willows, and, firing as fast as they could reload, struck him repeatedly, but every shot seemed as if it only served to guide him, and he pursued two of them so closely that at last they threw aside their guns and pouches, and jumped down a perpendicular bank of twenty feet into the water. Even this did not secure them; Bruin sprang after them, and was within a few feet of the hindermost, when one of the hunters from the shore shot him in the head. It was found that eight balls had passed through him. Another brown bear, after being shot five times through the lungs, and receiving four other wounds, swam half across the river to a sand-bar. This creature measured 8 feet 7-1/2 inches from the nose to the extremity of the hind feet, and his heart was as big as that of a large ox, his maw ten times larger. Another, having been shot through the middle of the lungs, pursued his enemy for half a mile, than traveled more than a mile in another direction, and dug, as if for his grave, a hole for himself in the earth two feet deep and five feet long, in which he was found by the hunters. The skin of this beast was a burden for two men.--Captain Lewis and Clarke's _Travels to the Source of the Missouri River_.

[Footnote 226: Bear's flesh is reckoned one of the greatest rarities among the Chinese, insomuch that, as Du Halde informs us, the emperor will send fifty or a hundred leagues into Tartary to procure it for a great entertainment.]

No. XXXV.

"None of the foxes of North America possess the long-enduring speed of the European kind, their strength appearing to be exhausted at the first burst, after which they are easily overtaken by a mounted horseman. The American cross fox (_Canis decussatus_) is probably nothing more than a variety of the red fox of that country (_Canis fulvus_), though usually of smaller size. Its fur is highly esteemed; a single skin, not many years ago, being worth from four to five guineas, while that of the red fox did not bring more than 15s. The black, or silver fox (_Canis argentatus_) is a much rarer and still more valuable variety, of which seldom more than four or five individuals are ever taken at any single post throughout the year. It varies from a mixed or hoary hue to a shining black, and La Hontan observes that, in his time, the skin of one was worth its weight in gold. We know that it still brings six times the price of any fur obtained in America."--H. Murray, vol. iii., p. 236.

No. XXXVI.

Charlevoix says that hares and rabbits are the same in America as in Europe, except that their hinder feet are longer than their fore feet. The rabbit, however, has never been found wild in any part of America. La Hontan says that the Ossae are little animals like hares, and resemble them in every thing excepting the ears and fore feet.

No. XXXVII.

Sciurus, a name formed of two Greek words, signifying shade and tail, because the tail serves this animal for an umbrella. The Sciurus Niger, Black Squirrel; the S. Vulpinus, Cat Squirrel; the S. Hudsonius, Hudson's Bay Squirrel, and S. Striatus, Striped Squirrel, are all natives of Canada, besides two species of flying squirrels. The S. Cinereus, Gray Squirrel, is confined entirely to North America. It is about half the size of a full-grown rabbit; the animal is of an elegant pale gray, with the inside of the limbs and the under part of the body white; the ears and tail are sometimes tinged with black. It is frequently so numerous as to do incredible mischief to plantations of corn; hence it is a proscribed animal, and 3_d._ per head given for every one killed; at which rate, in the year 1749, L8000 were paid in rewards.

The black squirrel, Weld says, is also peculiar to North America. It is entirely of a shining black, except that the muzzle and the tail are sometimes white; specimens have sometimes been seen with a white ring round the neck. "In this year" (1796), Weld says, "the black squirrels migrated from the south, from the territory of the United States. As if conscious of their inability to cross a very wide piece of water, they bent their course toward Niagara River, above the falls, and at its narrowest and most tranquil part, crossed over into the British territory. It was calculated that upward of 50,000 of them crossed the river in the course of two or three days, and such great depredations did they commit on arriving at the opposite side, that in one part of the country the farmers deemed themselves very fortunate where they got in as much as one third of their crops of corn. Some writers have asserted that these animals can not swim, but that when they come to a river, in migrating, each one provides itself with a piece of wood or bark, upon which, when a favorable wind offers, they embark, spread their bushy tails to catch the wind, and are thus wafted over to the opposite side. Whether these animals do or do not sometimes cross in this manner, I can not take upon me to say; but I can safely affirm that they do not always cross so, for I have often shot them in the water while swimming. Their tail is useful to them by way of rudder, and they use it with great dexterity; owing to its being so light and bushy, the greater part of it floats upon the water, and thus helps to support the animal."--P. 330.

The S. Striatus, Striped Squirrel, is a native of the colder parts of America and Asia, but has sometimes been found in Europe also. Its body is yellowish, with five longitudinal stripes of a blackish color. It differs from the major part of the squirrel tribe in its mode of life, which rather resembles that of the dormouse. It resembles some of the mouse tribe in this, that it is provided with cheek pouches for the temporary reception of food, a peculiarity not to be found in any other species of squirrel. It is not known whether this is the same species as that described by La Hontan as "Suisse squirrels, little animals resembling rats." The epithet Suisse is bestowed upon them in regard that the hair which covers their body is streaked with black and white, and resembles a Suisse's doublet; and these streaks make a ring on each thigh that strongly resembles a Suisse's cap. He also describes "the flying squirrels, as big as a large rat, and of a grayish white color. They are as drowsy as those of the other species are watchful. They are called flying squirrels, in regard that they fly from one tree to another, by the means of a certain skin which stretches itself out in the form of a wing when they make these little flights." The S. Volucellae and the S. Hudsonius are the only species of the flying squirrel found in America. The former is an animal of great beauty, and is readily tamed, showing a considerable degree of attachment to its possessor. It is naturally of a gregarious disposition, and may be seen flying, to the number of ten or twelve together, from tree to tree.--Rees's _Cyclopaedia_, art. Sciurus. La Hontan, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii., p. 352. Kalm, in Pink., vol. xiii., p. 480.

No. XXXVIII.

"The most interesting feature of the animal creation in the Western Continent is, perhaps, the beaver (_Castor fiber_). These amphibia, indeed, occur in the northern parts of Europe and Siberia, but on comparatively so small a scale, both in number and size, that the beaver may be viewed with propriety as specially American. There appears to be absolutely no animal which makes so close an approach to human art and intelligence. The beaver builds his habitation either in a pond or in the channel of a river, converted into a pond by strong piles being laid across. This operation involves the greatest display of ingenuity. A tall tree is selected, and filed round with the teeth till it is undermined and falls across the stream. It is then fastened down by smaller trees and branches, brought often from a distance, and connected with earth. In the little lake thus formed, the beaver rears his abode to the height of two, three, or four stories, half above and half under the water, and with an opening into both elements. Stones and earth, as well as wood, are used in forming the walls, which, by the joint operation of the feet and the tail, are brought into a mass so solid as to be proof against the action of current, wind, and weather. The outside is plastered in the neatest manner, the floor kept excessively clean, strewed with box and fir. A large provision of food, consisting of bark and leaves, is stored up for the winter. The beavers possess a social and almost a moral existence. Each mansion contains from six to thirty inhabitants, who live together in the greatest harmony, and afford mutual aid and co-operation. From twelve to fourteen houses united form a village, containing thus a population of 200 or 300.

"The flesh of these animals is much prized by the Indians and Canadian voyageurs, especially when roasted in the skin after the hair has been singed off. The enjoyment of this expensive luxury is of course restrained as much as possible by the fur traders. The Iroquois are the greatest beaver-catchers in Canada. Great injury has resulted from the indiscriminate capture of old and young, and the too frequent trenching of the same dams. It is known that in the year 1743 the amount of their skins brought into the ports of London and Rochelle exceeded 150,000, besides a considerable quantity introduced illicitly into Great Britain; while in 1837, the importation into London, from more than four times the extent of fur country formerly possessed, did not much exceed 800,000.

"There are two modes of taking the beaver--one by traps, which is the easiest, and generally followed by single adventurers; the other is what is termed trenching, or the ice chisel. On a beaver house being discovered, all the canals leading from it are stopped up; then, with the instrument above named, it is broken into, and the old animals speared. The young are left untouched, and thus the breed remains uninjured, while in trapping both old and young equally fall victims. The company, therefore, have prohibited the latter operation in all their settlements. The skins are divided into parchment, or those of the old animals; and cub, or those of the young ones. The latter are the finest, but, from their smaller size, not of equal value with the others. They have, of course, become much rarer since their capture was prohibited."--Murray's _America_, vol. ii., p. 306.

Kalm says that he ate beaver flesh, and thought it any thing but delicious, as he had been told it was. He says that it must be boiled in several waters from morning till noon to make it lose the bad taste it has. Charlevoix says the same. The flesh is reckoned best when the beaver has lived only on vegetables; when he has eaten fish it does not taste well. It was a popular food among the French Roman Catholics, as the only meat they could indulge in on fast days, his holiness, in his system (Kalm says), having ranked the beaver among the fish. This arrangement is attributed by Charlevoix to two numerous and learned bodies in France. "Le Castor a ete juridiquement declare poisson par la Faculte de Medicine de Paris, et en consequence de cette declaration la Faculte de Theologie a decide qu'on pouvoit manger sa chair les jours maigres. Par sa queue il est tout a fait poisson." La queue--the tail, so remarkable in natural history, is thus described by Charlevoix, one of the earliest observers of the habits of the beaver in North America: "Elle est presque ovale, epaisse d'un pouce, et longue d'un pied. Elle est couverte d'une peau ecailleuse dont les ecailles sont hexagones, ont une demi ligne d'epaisseur, sur trois ou quatre lignes de longueur, et sont appuyees les unes sur les autres comme toutes celles des poissons. Une pellicule tres delicate leur sert de fond, et elles y sont enchassees de maniere, qu'on peut aisement les en separer apres la mort de l'animal.... Tous les vuides de leurs batimens sont remplis d'une terre grasse si bien appliquee qu'il n'y passe pas une goute d'eau. C'est avec leurs pattes que les Castors preparent cette terre, et leur queue ne leur sert pas seulement de truelle pour maconner, mais encore d'auge pour voiturer ce mortier, ce qu'ils font en se trainant sur leurs pattes de derriere. Arrives au bord de l'eau, ils le prennent avec les dents, et pour l'employer, ils se servent d'abord de leurs pattes, ensuite de leur queue." Charlevoix applies the happy term of "une petite Venise" to the habitations of a society of beavers. He says, that in their erection "les proportions sont toujours exactement gardees. La regle et le compas sont dans l'oeil du grand maitre des arts et des sciences. On a observe que le cote du courant de l'eau est toujours en tatus, et l'autre cote parfaitement a plomb. En un mot il seroit difficile a nos meilleurs ouvriers de rien faire de plus solide et de plus regulier." Both La Hontan and Charlevoix speak of the "Castor terriers." "They are called by the savages 'the idle or lazy kind,' as being expelled by the other beavers from the kennels in which these animals are lodged, because they are unwilling to work. They make holes in the earth, like rabbits or foxes, and resemble the other sort in their figure, except that the hair is rubbed off many parts of their body by their rubbing against the earth whenever they stir out from their holes."--La Hontan, p. 307. Charlevoix adds, "Ils sont maigres, c'est la fruit de leur paresse. Les Castors, ou Bievres d'Europe, tiennent plus de ceux-ci que des autres; en effet M. Lemery dit qu'ils se retirent dans les creux et dans les cavernes qui se rencontrent sur les bords des rivieres surtout en Pologne. Il y en a aussi en Allemagne le long de l'Ehre, et en France, sur le Rhone, l'Isere, et l'Oise. Ce qui est certain c'est que nous ne voyons point dans les Castors Europeens le merveilleux qui distingue si fort ceux du Canada.... Avant la decouverte de l'Amerique on trouve dans les anciens titres des Chapeliers de Paris des reglemens pour la fabrique des chapeaux Bievres, or Bievre et Castor c'est absolument le meme animal, mais soit que le Bievre Europeen soit devenu extremement rare, on que son poil n'eut pas la meme bonte que celui du Castor Americain, on ne parle plus gueres que de ce dernier.... Leur poil est de deux sortes par tout le corps, excepte aux pattes, ou il n'y en a qu'un fort couet. Le plus grand est long de huit a dix lignes, il est rude, gros, luisant, et c'est celui qui donne la couleur a la bete. On n'en fait aucun usage. L'autre poil est un duvet tres fin, fort epais, long tout au plus d'un pouce, et c'est celui qu'on met en oeuvre; on l'appelloit autrefois en Europe, Laine de Moscovie."--Charlevoix, vol. v., p. 147.

"In 1669 an attempt was made to employ the flix or down of the beaver in the manufacture of cloths, flannels, stockings. Much more wool, however, than flix was required, the hair of the beaver being so short, and this prevented the manufacture being very profitable. It flourished for a while, however, in an establishment in the Faubourg St. Antoine, near Paris, but finally was given up on finding by experience that the stuffs lost their dye when wet, and that, when dry again, they were harsh and stiff as felts."--Rees's _Cyclopaedia_, art. Beaver.

"In Captain Lewis and Clarke's Travels to the Source of the Missouri," it is mentioned that "the beavers who have not been invaded here by the furrier are continually altering the course of the river. They dam up the small channels of about twenty yards between the islands; when they have effected this, their pond ere long becomes filled with mud and sand; they then remove to another; this is in like manner filled up; and thus the river, having its course obstructed, spreads on all sides, and cuts the projecting points of lands into islands."--_Quarterly Review_, vol. xii., p. 346.

Weld mentions, in 1796, that "the indiscriminate slaughter of beavers had so much diminished their numbers that an annual deficiency of 15,000 beaver skins had for some years been observed in the number brought to Montreal."--P. 551.

"One day a gentleman, long resident in this country, espied five young beavers sporting in the water, leaping upon the trunk of a tree, pushing one another off, and playing a thousand interesting tricks. He approached softly, under cover of the bushes, and prepared to fire on the unsuspecting creatures; but a nearer approach discovered to him such a similitude between their gestures and the infantile caresses of his own children that he threw aside his gun."--Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea_, p. 91.

"The proprietor of one of the large quarries of gypsum on the Shubenacadie showed me some wooden stakes, dug up a few days before by one of his laborers from a considerable depth in a peat bog. His men were persuaded that they were artificially cut by a tool, and were the relics of aboriginal Indians; but, having been a trapper of beavers in his younger days, he knew well that they owed their shape to the teeth of these creatures. We meet with the skulls and bones of beavers in the fens of Cambridgeshire, and elsewhere in England. May not some of the old tales of artificially cut wood, occurring at great depths in peats and morasses, which have puzzled many a learned antiquary, admit of the like explanation?"--Lyell's _Travels in America_, vol. ii., p. 229.

No. XXXIX.

"The Hudson's Bay Company is now the only survivor of the numerous exclusive bodies, to which almost every branch of British trade was at one time subjected. The Northwest Company, after a long and furious contest, destructive alike to the interests of both, and most demoralizing to the savage aborigines, were at length obliged to yield to their rivals; and, in consequence of their overstrained exertions, they became involved beyond their capital. They obtained in 1821 an honorable capitulation. On transferring all their property and means of influence, the principal partners were admitted to shares in the Hudson's Bay Company, who took the inferior officers into their service. Thus these two concerns were united, with great advantage to the peace of the fur countries, and perhaps to the permanent interests of the trade. A great blank was indeed felt in the city where the partners had resided, and where, according to Washington Irving, they had held huge feasts and revels, such as are described to have taken place in Highland castles. 'The hospitable magnates of Montreal, the lords of the lakes and forests, have passed away,' and that city, as to the fur trade, has sunk to a subordinate station.

"In the present case, there are some peculiar circumstances which plead strongly in favor of the monopoly exercised by the Hudson's Bay Company. For example, their trade is carried on throughout vast regions, free from all control of law, and tenanted by savage races, who are easily prompted to deeds of violence. The struggle with the Northwest Company filled large tracts with outrage, often amounting to bloodshed. The article, too, by far the most prized by those tribes, and which, amid an eager rivalry, can not be prevented from coming into the market, is spirits, the immoderate use of which is productive of the most dreadful consequences. The company, by their present position, obtained the opportunity, of which they have most laudably availed themselves, to withdraw it altogether as an object of trade, merely giving an occasional glass when the natives visit the factories. They have even prohibited it from passing, under any pretext, to the northward of Cumberland House, on the Saskatchawan, so that all the settlements beyond form complete temperance societies. Another very important specialty in their case consists in the nature of the commodities drawn from this range of territory, namely, they are such as human industry can not produce or multiply according to the demand. The wild animals, which afford its staple of furs and skins, exist only in a limited number, and being destined to give way in proportion as colonization advances, will soon be thinned, or even utterly exterminated. Bands of individual hunters, with no permanent interest in the country, capture all they can reach, young and old indiscriminately, without any regard to keeping up the breed. Thus the beaver, the most valuable of the furred animals, has been nearly destroyed in Upper and Lower Canada, and much diminished in the districts beyond the Rocky Mountains, which are traversed by trapping parties from the States. During the competition of the Northwest adventurers, a great part even of the wooded countries suffered severely; but since the Hudson's Bay Company obtained the entire control, they have carefully nursed the various animals, removing their stations from the districts where they had become scarce, and prohibiting all wasteful and destructive modes of capture. It may be finally observed, that in this vast open territory the means of excluding rivalry are so imperfect, that without good management and liberal dealing it would be impossible to maintain their privilege. In fact, Mr. Irving admits, that by the legitimate application of large capital, by good organization, regular transmission of supplies, with faithful and experienced servants, they have carried all before them, even in the western territory, where they are exposed to a full competition from the United States. Several associations from thence have made very active efforts to supplant or rival them, but without success."--Washington Irving's _Adventures of Captain Bonneville_, vol. ii., p. 17, 19; vol. iii., p. 267, 272; H. Murray's _British America_, vol. iii., p. 83.

No. XL.

"This species of rattlesnake is most commonly found between four and five feet in length, and as thick as the wrist of a large man. Its body approaches to a triangular form, the back bone rising higher than any other part of the animal. It is not with the teeth which the rattlesnake uses for ordinary purposes that it strikes its enemy, but with two long, crooked fangs in the upper jaw, which point down the throat. When about to use these fangs, it rears itself up as much as possible, throws back its head, drops its under jaw, and, springing forward upon its tail, endeavors to hook itself, as it were, upon its enemy. In order to raise itself upon its tail, it coils itself up previously in a spiral line, with the head in the middle. It can not spring further forward than about half its own length. Tho body of the rattlesnake, finely pulverized, after being dried to a cinder over the fire, and then infused in a certain portion of brandy, is said to be a never-failing remedy against the rheumatism. The liquor is taken inwardly, in the quantity of a wine-glassful at once about three times a day. It is said that one of the reasons why these creatures are decreasing so much in the neighborhood of human habitations, is, that they are eaten by the pigs."--Sir G. Simpson's _Journey round the World_, vol. i., p. 159; Weld, p. 411.

"The rattle is usually about half an inch in breadth, one quarter of an inch in thickness, and each joint about half an inch long. The joint consists of a number of little cases of a dry, horny substance, inclosed one within another; and not only the outermost of these little cases articulates with the outermost case of the contiguous joint, but each case, even to the smallest one of all, at the inside, is connected by a sort of joint with the corresponding case in the next joint of the rattle. The little cases or shells lie very loosely within one another, and the noise proceeds from their dry and hard coats striking one against the other. It is said that the animal joins a fresh joint to its rattle every year. Of this, however, I have great doubts; for the largest snakes are frequently found to have the fewest joints to their rattles. A medical gentleman in the neighborhood of Newmarket had a rattle in his possession which contained no less than thirty-two joints; yet the snake from which it was taken scarcely measured five feet. Rattlesnakes, however, of the same kind, and in the same part of the country, have been found of a greater length with not more than ten rattles."--Weld, p. 409.

"Man or animals bitten by the rattlesnake expire in extreme agony; the tongue swells to an enormous size, the blood turns black, and, all the extremities becoming cold, gangrene ensues, and is speedily succeeded by death. The remedies in common use are the _Polygala seneca_ or _Aristolochia serpentaria_, employed as a decoction. Sometimes scarification, or cauterizing the wound with a burning iron, if immediate in their application, is attended with success. The Indians' favorite remedy is sucking the wound, which in a slight bite is generally successful. Mr. Catesby, by traveling much among the Indians, had frequent opportunities of seeing the direful effects of the bite inflicted by these snakes. He seems to consider that the success of any remedy is owing more to the force of nature or to the slightness of the bite than to any other cause. He has known persons bitten to survive without assistance for many hours; but where a rattlesnake with full force penetrates with his deadly fangs into a vein or artery, inevitable death ensues, and that, as he has often seen, in less than two minutes. The Indians, for this reason, know their destiny directly they are bit, and when they perceive it is mortal, apply no remedy, concluding all efforts in vain. From experiments made in Carolina by Captain Hall, and related in the Philosophical Transactions, it appears that a rattlesnake of about four feet long, being fastened to a stake in the ground, bit three dogs, the first of which died in less than a quarter of a minute; the second, which was bitten a short time afterward, in about two hours, in convulsions; and the third, which was bitten about half an hour afterward, showed the visible effects of the poison in about three hours, and died likewise. Four days after this, another dog was bitten, which died in half a minute; and then another, which died in four minutes. A cat which was bitten was found dead the next day. The experiments having been discontinued some time, from want of subjects, a common black-snake was procured, which was healthy and vigorous, and about three feet long. It was brought to the rattlesnake, when they bit each other, the black-snake biting the rattlesnake so as to make it bleed. They were then separated, and in less than eight minutes the black-snake died, while the rattlesnake, on the contrary, showed no signs of indisposition, appearing as well as before. Lastly, in order to try whether the rattlesnake could poison itself, it was provoked to bite itself: the experiment succeeded, and the animal expired in less than twelve hours."--Rees's _Cyclopaedia_, art. Crotalus.

Charlevoix says that "La morsure du Serpent a Sonnettes est mortelle, si on n'y remedie sur-le-champ; mais la Providence y a pourvu. Dans tous les endroits, ou se rencontre ce dangereux reptile, il croit une plante a laquelle on a donne le nom d'Herbe a Serpent a Sonnettes (Bidens Canadensis) et dont la racine est un antidote sur contre le venin de cet animal.... Il est rare que le serpent a sonnettes attaque les passans qui ne lui cherchent point nuire. J'eu ai en un a mes pieds qui eut assurement plus de peur que moi, car je ne l'apercus que quand il fuyoit."--Charlevoix, vol. v., p. 235.

"Archdeacon Burnaby was told by a planter in Virginia that he had one day provoked a rattlesnake to such a degree as to make it strike a small vine which grew close by, and the vine presently drooped and died."--Burnaby's _Travels in North America_, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii., p. 724.

"The rattlesnake has two fangs, which are concealed in a sheath, one at each side of the upper jaw. They are curved in their shape, and their point is as sharp as that of a common needle. They are hollow in the center, and the roots of the fangs are connected with the poison bags. These reptiles generally use only one fang at a time, and when they do use it, they seize with their mouth the part which they intend to poison, then perforate it deeply with the fang. At this moment the bag contracts, and the deleterious fluid, which has such an enmity to the blood, is injected into the very bottom of the wound, through a small aperture in the under part of the fang, at a short distance from the sharp point. Having effected his purpose, he withdraws the instrument, and leaves his victim to his fate. He does not seem to feel pain at the moment, and generally for the first five minutes he appears to be perfectly well. At the end of this period, however, the ears begin to droop; he seems giddy and uneasy; the lower extremities soon lose their power; he falls on the ground; the pupils dilate; slight convulsions come on; and the animal dies, generally, in about fifteen minutes from the time that the poison had been injected into the wound. When we examine the part immediately after death, we find that the poison has completely destroyed the red color of the blood; and not only of this, but for two inches all round the puncture, the muscular fibers, and even the cellular substance, are as black as if they had been for hours in a state of complete mortification. When the muriate of soda (common salt) is immediately applied to the wound, it is a complete antidote. When an Indian is bitten by a snake, he applies a ligature above the part, and scarifies the wound to the very bottom; he then stuffs it with common salt, and after this it soon heals, without producing any effect on the general system. (The ligature may be the efficacious remedy, intercepting the current of blood to the heart, and consequently preventing the action of the poison upon that vital organ.) A rabbit, under the influence of the rattlesnake poison, has been seen to drink a saturated solution of muriate of soda and soon recover, while healthy rabbits would not taste a drop of the same saline water."--Stevens's _Observations on the Properties of the Blood_, p. 137, 315.

"I was with the Hon. Esquire Boyle when he made certain experiments of curing the bite of vipers with certain East India snake-stones, that were sent him by King James II., purposely to have him try their virtue and efficacy. For that end he got some brisk vipers, and made them bite certain pullets; he applied nothing to one of the pullets, and it died within three minutes and a half; but I think they all recovered to whom he applied the snake-stones, though they turned wonderful pale, their combs drooped immediately, and the next morning all their flesh was turned green to a wonder; nevertheless, they recovered by degrees."--_Miscellanea Curiosa_, vol. iii., p. 345.

No. XLI.

"It is an unquestionable fact, that the copper-colored man can not endure the spread of European civilization in his neighborhood, but perishes in its atmosphere, without suffering from ardent spirits, epidemics, or war, as if touched by a poisonous breath." Thus writes Mr. Poeppig, a German naturalist, who has resided for some years in South America; and he proceeds to compare the substitution of the one race for the other, with the destruction of the first growth of low vegetation in the recently-formed islands of the Pacific by the vigorous crop of forest trees which succeeds it.--_Encyclopaedia_ of Erz and Gruber, art. Indici.

Thus also writes the philosophical traveler, Mr. Darwin: "Besides several evident causes of destruction, there appears to be some more mysterious agency at work. Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal. We may look to the wide extent of the Americas, Polynesia, the Cape of Good Hope, and Australia, and we shall find the same result. Nor is it the white man alone that thus acts the destroyer. The Polynesian of Malay extraction has, in parts of the East Indian Archipelago, thus driven before him the dark-colored native. The varieties of man seem to act upon each other in the same way as different species of animals, the stronger always extirpating the weaker. It was melancholy at New Zealand to hear the fine, energetic natives saying, 'They knew the land was doomed to pass from their children.'"

Sir Richard Bourke writes thus to Lord Glenelg respecting New Zealand (1837): "Disease and death prevail even among those natives who, by their adherence to the missionaries, have received only benefit from the English connection, and even the very children, who are reared under the care of the missionaries, are swept off in a ratio which promises, at no very distant period, to leave the country destitute of a single aboriginal inhabitant. The natives are perfectly sensible of this decrease, and when they contrast their own condition with that of the English families, they conceive that the God of the English is removing the aboriginal inhabitants to make room for them; and it appears to me that this impression has produced among them a very general unhappiness and indifference to life."

Sir Francis Head justified the sweeping measures of removal[227] contemplated during his administration of Canada, by asserting his belief in the same mysterious certainty of the aboriginals' extirpation. "We may as well endeavor to make the setting sun stand still on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, as attempt to arrest the final extermination of the Indian race."--See Merivale's _Lectures on Colonization_, No. 19 (delivered before the University of Oxford in 1839, 1840, and 1841), in which he objects to the truth of the facts on which the above statements are founded, in so far as they are supposed to involve any mysterious influence of the white over the copper-colored races. "Perhaps I may venture to attribute some of the coloring (of the foregoing statements) to that taste for fanciful analogies, and speculations partaking of the mysterious, in which natural philosophers are apt to indulge when they apply their knowledge to subjects not immediately within their province. When we find one race of animals, or one class of vegetation, extirpating another, there is nothing inexplicable in the succession of cause and effect. The stronger destroys the weaker by natural agencies: animals become the prey of newly-imported indigenous ones, or their food is destroyed by the multiplication of the latter: the seeds of one class of vegetables can not spring where a stronger growth has established itself, and so forth. What is there in these or similar processes analogous to the supposed mysterious influence of the mere contact of one family of the human race upon another? If it be true that the mere presence of a white population is sufficient to cause the Red Indians or the Polynesians to dwindle and decay, without any assignable agency of the one or the other, it must be confessed that this is an anomaly in the laws of Providence utterly unexplained by all our previous knowledge, wholly at variance with all the other laws by which animal life and human society are governed."--Vol. ii., p. 206.

[Footnote 227: Three millions of fertile acres were to be resumed; several thousand Indians were persuaded to relinquish them, and migrate to a large island (Manitoulin) on Lake Huron. "The greatest kindness," says Sir F. Head, "which we can perform to these intelligent and simple-minded people, is to remove and fortify them as much as possible from all communication with the whites."--_Returns_, 1839, p. 145. These are nearly the same arguments which have uniformly been urged in the United States, and would justify incessant acts of arbitrary removal, such as would render all improvement impossible.]

No. XLII.

"The small-pox proves almost always fatal to the Red Indian, his hardened skin preventing the appearance of the eruption. In Abyssinia, where this dreadful disease is supposed to have originated, when any person is seized with it, the neighbors surround the house and set it on fire, consuming it with its miserable inhabitants. The American Indians regard the contagion with almost as much horror. The Mahas had been a powerful and warlike tribe till now, when they saw their strength wasted by a malady which they could neither resist nor prevent; they became frantic; they set fire to their village, and many of them killed their wives and children, to spare them the sufferings of disease, and that they might all go together to the land of souls."--Lewis and Clarke's _Travels to the Source of the Missouri_.

Lambert says, "Many nations have been totally exterminated by the small-pox. When I was in Canada in the spring of 1808, a village of Mississagas, residing near Kingston, was nearly depopulated by the small-pox; not more than twenty escaped of five hundred."

"Repeated efforts have been made, and so far, generally, as the tribes have ever had the disease (or, at all events, within the recollection of those who are now living in the tribes), the government agents (of the United States) have succeeded in introducing vaccination as a protection; but among the tribes in their wild state, who have not yet suffered from the disease, very little success has been met with in the attempt to protect them, on account of their superstitions, which have generally resisted all attempts to introduce vaccination. While I was on the Upper Missouri, several surgeons were sent into the country with the Indian agents, where I several times saw the attempt made without success. They have perfect confidence in the skill of their own physicians, until the disease has made one slaughter in their tribe, and then, having seen white men among them protected by it, they are disposed to receive it, before which they can not believe that so minute a puncture in the arm is going to protect them from so fatal a disease; and as they see white men so earnestly urging it, they decide that it must be some new trick of the pale faces, by which they are to gain some new advantage over them, and they stubbornly and successfully resist it."--Catlin, vol. ii., p. 258.

From the accounts brought to New York in the fall of 1838 by Messrs. M'Kenzie, Mitchell, and others, from the Upper Missouri, and with whom I conversed on the subject, it seems that in the summer of that year the small-pox was accidentally introduced among the Mandans by the fur traders, and that in the course of two months they all perished except some thirty or forty, who were taken as slaves by the Riccarees, an enemy living two hundred miles below them, and who worked up and took possession of their village soon after their calamity, taking up their residence in it, it being a better built village than their own; and from the lips of one of the traders who had more recently arrived from there, I had the following account of the remaining few, in whose destruction was the final termination of this interesting and once numerous tribe:

"'The Riccarees,' he said, 'had taken possession of the village after the disease had subsided, and, after living some months in it, were attacked by a large party of their enemies, the Sioux, and while fighting desperately in resistance, in which the Mandan prisoners had taken an active part, the latter had concerted a plan for their own destruction, which was effected by their simultaneously running through the pickets on to the prairie, calling out to the Sioux (both men and women) to kill them, "that they were Riccaree dogs, that their friends were all dead, and they did not wish to live;" that they here wielded their weapons as desperately as they could, to excite the fury of their enemy, and that they were thus cut to pieces and destroyed.'

"The accounts given by two or three white men, who were among the Mandans during the ravages of this frightful disease, are most appalling, and actually too heart-rending and disgusting to be recorded. The disease was introduced into the country by the Fur Company's steamer from St. Louis, which had two of their crew sick with the disease when it approached the Upper Missouri, and imprudently stopped to trade at the Mandan village, which was on the bank of the river, where the chiefs and others were allowed to come on board, by which means the disease got ashore.

"I am constrained to believe that the gentlemen in charge of the steamer did not believe it to be the small-pox; for if they had known it to be such, I can not conceive of such imprudence as regarded their own interests in the country, as well as the fate of these poor people, by allowing their boat to advance into the country under such circumstances.

"It seems that the Mandans were surrounded by several war parties of their more powerful enemies, the Sioux, at that unlucky time, and they could not, therefore, disperse upon the plains, by which many of them could have been saved; and they were necessarily inclosed within the pickets of the village, where the disease in a few days became so very malignant, that death ensued in a few hours after its attacks; and so slight were their hopes when they were attacked, that nearly half of them destroyed themselves with their knives, with their guns, and by dashing their brains out by leaping head foremost from a thirty-foot ledge of rocks in front of their village. The first symptom of the disease was a rapid swelling of the body, and so very virulent had it become, that very many died in two or three hours after their attack, and that in many cases without the appearance of the disease upon the skin. Utter dismay seemed to possess all classes and all ages, and they gave themselves up in despair as entirely lost. There was but one continual crying and howling, and praying to the Great Spirit for his protection, during the nights and days; and there being but few living, and those in too appalling despair, nobody thought of burying the dead, whose bodies, whole families together, were left in horrid and loathsome piles in their own wigwams, with a few buffalo robes, &c., thrown over them, there to decay, and be devoured by their own dogs. That such a proportion of their community as that above mentioned should have perished in so short a time, seems yet to the reader an unaccountable thing; but, in addition to the causes just mentioned, it must be borne in mind that this frightful disease is every where far more fatal among the native than in civilized population, which may be owing to some extraordinary susceptibility, or, I think, more probably, to the exposed lives they live, leading more directly to fatal consequences. In this, as in most of their diseases, they ignorantly and imprudently plunge into the coldest water while in the highest state of fever, and often die before they have the power to get out.

"Some have attributed the unexampled fatality of this disease among the Indians to the fact of their living entirely on animal food; but so important a subject for investigation I must leave for sounder judgments than mine to decide. They are a people whose constitutions and habits of life enable them most certainly to meet most of its ills with less dread, and with decidedly greater success, than they are met in civilized communities; and I would not dare to decide that their simple meat diet was the cause of their fatal exposure to one frightful disease, when I am decidedly of opinion that it has been the cause of their exemption and protection from another, almost equally destructive, and, like the former, of civilized introduction.

"During the season of the ravages of the Asiatic cholera, which swept over the greater part of the Western country and the Indian frontier, I was a traveler through those regions, and was able to witness its effects; and I learned from what I saw, as well as from what I have heard in other parts since that time, that it traveled to and over the frontiers, carrying dismay and death among the tribes on the borders in many cases, so far as they had adopted the civilized modes of life, with its dissipations, using vegetable food and salt; but wherever it came to the tribes living exclusively on meat, and that without the use of salt, its progress was suddenly stopped. I mention this as a subject which I looked upon as important to science, and therefore one on which I made careful inquiries; and, so far as I have learned, along that part of the frontier over which I have since passed, I have, to my satisfaction, ascertained that such became the utmost limits of this fatal disease in its travel to the west, unless where it might have followed some of the routes of the fur traders, who, of course, have introduced the modes of civilized life.

"From the trader who was present at the destruction of the Mandans I had many most wonderful incidents of this dreadful scene, but I dread to recite them. Among them, however, there is one that I must briefly describe, relative to the death of that noble _gentleman_, of whom I have already said so much, and to whom I became so much attached, _Mah-to-to-pa_, or 'the Four Bears.' This fine fellow sat in his wigwam and watched every one of his family die about him, his wives and his little children, after he had recovered from the disease himself, when he walked out round the village, and wept over the final destruction of his tribe; his braves and warriors, whose sinewy arms alone he could depend on for a continuance of their existence, all laid low; when he came back to his lodge, where he carried his whole family in a pile, with a number of robes, and wrapping another around himself, went out upon a hill at a little distance, where he laid several days, despite all the solicitations of the traders, resolved to _starve_ himself to death. He remained there till the sixth day, when he had just strength enough to creep back to the village, when he entered the horrid gloom of his own wigwam, and, laying his body alongside of the group of his family, drew his robe over him, and died on the ninth day of his fatal abstinence.

"So have perished the friendly and hospitable Mandans, from the best accounts I could get; and although it may be _possible_ that some few individuals may yet be remaining, I think it is not probable; and one thing is certain, even if such be the case, that, as a nation, the Mandans are extinct, having no longer an existence.

"There is yet a melancholy part of the tale to be told, relating to the ravages of this frightful disease in that country on the same occasion, as it spread to other contiguous tribes, to the Minatarrees, the Knisteneaux, the Blackfeet, the Chayennes, and Crows, among whom 25,000 perished in the course of four or five months, which most appalling facts I got from Major Pilcher, now Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis, from Mr. M'Kenzie, and others."--Catlin's _American Indians_, vol. ii., p. 257.

No. XLIII.

"In man the coloring matter seems to be deposited in the dermoidal system by the roots or the bulbs of the hair,[228] and all sound observations prove that the skin varies in color from the action of external stimuli on individuals, and is not hereditary in the whole race. The Eskimoes of Greenland, and the Laplanders, are tanned by the influence of the air, but their children are born white. We will not decide on the changes which Nature may produce in a space of time, exceeding all historical traditions. Reason stops short in these matters when no longer under the guidance of experience and analogy. The nations that have a white skin begin their cosmogony by white men; according to them, the negroes and all tawny people have been blackened or embrowned by the excessive heat of the sun. This theory, adopted by the Greeks, though not without contradiction (Onesicritus apud Strabon, lib. xv., p. 983), has been propagated even to our own times. Buffon has repeated, in prose, what Theodectes had expressed in verse two thousand years before, 'that the nations wear the livery of the climate they inhabit.' If history had been written by black nations, they would have maintained what even Europeans have recently advanced (Prichard's _Researches into the Physical History of Man, 1813_), p. 233, 239, that man was originally black, or of a very tawny color, and that he has whitened in some races from the effect of civilization and progressive debilitation, as animals in a state of domestication pass from dark to lighter colors. I shall here cite the authority of Ulloa. This learned man has seen the Indians of Chili, of the Andes, of Peru, of the burning coasts of Panama, and those of Louisiana, situated under the northern temperate zone. He had the good fortune to live at a time when theories were less numerous, and, like me, he was struck at seeing the native under the line as much bronzed as brown, in the cold climate of the Cordilleras as in the plains. Where differences of color are observed, they depend on the race."--Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_, vol. iii., p. 298.

[Footnote 228: According to the interesting researches of Mr. Gaultier, on the _Organization of the Human Skin_, p. 57. John Hunter observes, that in several animals, the coloration of the hair is independent of that of the skin.

Blumenbach informs us how climate operates in modifying the color of the skin. He states that the proximate cause of the dark color of the integuments in an abundance of carbon, secreted by the skin with hydrogen, precipitated and fixed in the rete mucosum by the contact of the atmospheric oxygen.--_De Variet._, p. 124.

If Voltaire is to be believed, no well-informed person formerly passed by Leyden without seeing a part of the black membrane (the reticulum mucosum) of a negro, dissected by the celebrated Ruysell. Their error is, however, now universally admitted. The "rete mucosum" has been discovered to be nothing but the latest layer of epidermis, the inner surface of which is being continually renewed as the exterior is worn away, just like the bark of a tree. There is no distinct coloring layer, it appears, either in the fair or the dark-skinned races, the peculiar hue of the latter depending upon the presence of coloring matter in the cells of the epidermis itself. Color, therefore, is not even _skin deep_, for it does not reach the true skin, being entirely confined to the epidermis or scarf skin.]

No. XLIV.

"The Indian and the negro races, both fated, as it seems, to yield the supremacy to the _whites_, present in every other particular a curious contrast to each other. The red man appears to have received from nature every quality which contributes to greatness, except--I have no other word for it--_tamability_; he has shown in many remarkable instances intellectual capacity, talents for government, eloquence, energy, and self-command.... There is something noble and striking--something that commands respect and admiration, in the Indian character, irreconcilable though it be with advanced civilization and the operation of Christian influences. The negro, on the contrary, has precisely what the Indian wants; he is a domestic animal.... The Indian avoids his conqueror; the negro bows at his feet. The Indian loves the independence and privations of his solitude better than all the flesh-pots of Egypt; the negro, if left to himself, is helpless and miserable: he must have society and sensual pleasures; if he be allowed to eat and drink well, to dance, to sing, and to make love, he seems to have no further or higher aspirations, and to care nothing for the degradation of his race. With the single exception of Toussaint, I know no instance of a negro distinguishing himself in politics, or arms, or letters; and though I make every allowance for the difficulties and obstacles to his doing so which his situation imposes on him, I can not allow that these account for the fact that, notwithstanding the excellent education which many negroes receive, and the stimulus afforded by constant intercourse with whites, not one of them has yet, either here or in the West Indies, with the above-named exception, taken the lead among his countrymen, or made a name for himself. And this natural superiority of the Indian is, perhaps unconsciously, recognized and illustrated in a singular manner by the white man, in the different feelings which he exhibits upon the subject of amalgamation with the two races. Some of the best families in the United States are _proud_ to trace their origin to Indian chiefs (_e.g._, the Randolphs of Virginia boast that they came of the lineage of Powhatan); and I have myself met with half-breeds who were considered (and most justly) in every respect equal in estimation with full-blooded whites. It is needless to observe, that with respect to the negroes, the precise converse is the case. _Caeteris paribus_, we seem naturally to receive the red man as our equal."--Godley's _Letters from America_, vol. i., p. 153.

No. XLV.

"These islands were partly discovered by Behring in 1741, and the rest at several periods since his time. The most considerable of them amount to forty in number, and they may be justly considered as a branch of the Kamtskadale Mountains continued in the sea. The three small islands, known by the names of Attak, Shemya, and Semitshi, with a few others, were denominated by the Russians Aleutskie Ostrova, because a bold rock in the language of these parts is called 'Aleut.' In the sequel this name was extended to the whole chain, though a part of it is named the Andreanoffskoi, and the rest, lying further toward America, the Fox Islands. The survey of these islands, more anciently discovered by the Russians, and of the adjacent parts of the two continents, was made by Captain Cook in his third voyage, in 1778. If the Russians, then, can deservedly claim the priority of the discovery, no one can withhold from the adventurous and persevering Captain Cook the glory and the merit of having fixed the distance of the two continents and their respective extent, to the east for Asia, and to the west for North America."--Rees's _Cyclopaedia_, art. Aleutian Islands.

No. XLVI.

"Almost every where in the New World we recognize a multiplicity of forms and tenses in the verb, an artificial industry to indicate before-hand, either by inflection of the personal pronouns, which form the terminations of the verb, or by an intercalated _suffix_, the nature and the relation of its object and its subject, and to distinguish whether the object be animate or inanimate, of the masculine or the feminine gender, simple, or in complex number. This multiplicity characterizes the rudest American languages. Astarloa reckons, in like manner, in the grammatical system of the Biscayan, 206 forms of the verb. Strange conformity in the structure of languages among races of men so different, and on spots so distant.

"Those languages, the principal tendency of which is inflection, excite less the curiosity of the vulgar than those which seem formed by aggregation. In the first, the elements of which words are composed, and which are generally reduced to a few letters, are no longer distinguished. These elements, when isolated, exhibit no meaning; the whole is assimilated and mixed together. The American languages, on the contrary, are like complicated machines, the wheels of which are exposed. The artifice is visible--I mean the industrious mechanism of their construction. We seem to be present at their formation, and we should state them to be of very recent origin, if we did not recollect that the human mind follows imperturbably an impulse once given; that nations enlarge, improve, and repair the grammatical edifice of their language according to a plan already determined; finally, that there are countries where the languages of all the institutions and the arts have remained stereotyped, as it were, during the lapse of ages. The highest degree of intellectual development has been hitherto found among nations which belong to the Indian and Pelasgic branch. The languages, formed principally by aggregation, seem themselves to oppose obstacles to the improvement of the mind. They are, in fact, unfurnished with that rapid movement, that interior life, to which the inflection of the root is favorable, and which gives so many charms to works of the imagination. Let us not, however, forget that a people celebrated in the remotest antiquity, from whom the Greeks themselves borrowed knowledge, had perhaps a language, the construction of which recalls involuntarily that of the language of America. What a scaffolding of little monosyllabic and dissyllabic forms is added to the verb and to the substantive in the Coptic language!"--Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_, vol. iii., p. 273.

In his "Researches," Humboldt observes: "We find in the New Continent languages, some of which, as the Greenland, the Cora, the Tamanac, the Totonac, and the Quichua (_Archiv. fuer Ethnographie_, b. i., s. 345; Vaters, s. 206), display a richness of grammatical forms which we trace nowhere in the Old World, except at Congo, and among the Biscayans, who were the remains of the ancient Cantabrians. But, amid these marks of civilization (referring to the Aztec nation), and this progressive perfection of language, it is remarkable that no people of America had attained that analysis of sounds which leads to the most admirable, we might almost say the most miraculous of all inventions, an alphabet. We are led to think that the progressive perfection of symbolic signs, and the facility with which objects are painted, had prevented the introduction of letters ... _not_ the case in Egypt."

Chateaubriand says that the Jesuits have left important works relative to the language of the Canadian savage. Father Chaumont, who had lived fifty years among the Hurons, composed a grammar of their language. To Father Rasles, who spent ten years in an Abenakis village, we are indebted for valuable documents. A French and Iroquois dictionary--a new treasure for philologists--is finished. There is also a manuscript dictionary--Iroquois and English--but, unluckily, the first volume is lost.

"Les trois langues, Huronne, Algonquine et Siou sont les langues meres du Canada. Ils ont tous les caracteres des langues primitives, et il est certain qu'elles n'ont pas une origine commune. La seule prononciation suffisoit pour le pronom. Le Siou sifle en parlant, le Huron n'a point de lettre labiale, qu'il ne scanroit prononcer, parle du gosier et aspire presque toutes les syllabes; l'Algonquin prononce avec plus de douceur, et parle plus naturellement. Je n'ai pu rien apprendre de particulier de la premiere de ces trois langues; mais nos anciens missionnaires ont beaucoup travaille sur les deux autres, et sur les principales de leurs dialectes: voici ce que j'en ais oui dire aux plus habiles.

"La langue Huronne est d'une abondance, d'une energie, et d'une noblesse, qu'on ne trouve peut-etre reunies dans aucune des plus belles, que nous connoissons, et ceux, a qui elle est propre, quoiqu'ils ne soient plus qu'une poignee d'hommes, ont encore dans l'ame une elevation, qui s'accorde bien mieux avec la majeste de leur langage, qu'avec le triste etat, ou ils sont reduits. Quelques uns ont cru y trouver des rapports avec l'Hebreu; d'autres en plus grand nombre ont pretendu qu'elle avoit la meme origine que celle des Grecs; mais rien n'est plus frivole que les preuves, qu'ils en apportent. La langue Algonquine n'a pas autant de force, que la Huronne, mais elle a plus de douceur et d'elegance. Toutes deux ont une richesse d'expressions, une variete de tones, une propriete de termes, une regularite, qui etonnent: mais ce qui surprend encore davantage, c'est que parmi des Barbares qu'on ne voit point s'etudier a bien parler, et qui n'ont jamais eu l'usage de l'ecriture, il ne s'introduit point un mauvais mot, un terme impropre, une construction vicieuse, et que les enfans memes en conservent, jusque dans le discours familier, toute la purete. D'ailleurs, la maniere dont ils animent tout se qu'ils disent, ne laisse aucun lieu de douter qui ne comprennent toute la valeur de leur expressions, et toute la beaute de leur langue. Dans le Huron tout se conjugue; un certain artifice, que je ne vous expliquerois pas bien, y fait distinguer des verbes, les noms, les pronoms, les adverbes, &c. Les verbes simples ont une double conjugaison, l'une absolue, l'autre reciproque. Les troisiemes personnes ont les deux genres, car il n'y en a que deux dans ces langues; a scavoir, le genre noble, et le genre ignoble. Pour ce qui est des nombres et des tems, on y trouve les memes differences que dans le Grec. Par exemple, pour raconter un voyage, on s'exprime autrement si on la fait par terre, ou si on l'a fait par eau. Les verbes actifs se multiplient autant de fois, qu'il y a de choses, qui tombent sous leur action; comme le verbe, qui signifie _Manger_, varie autant de fois, qu'il y a de choses comestibles. L'action s'exprime autrement a l'egard d'une chose inanimee: ainsi _voir un homme_, et _voir une pierre_, ce sont deux verbes. Se servir d'une chose, qui appartient a celui qui s'en sert, ou a celui a qui on parle, ce sont autant de verbes differens.

"Il y a quelque chose de tout cela dans la langue Algonquine, mais la maniere n'en est pas la meme, et je ne suis nullement en etat de vous en instruire. Cependant, madame, si du peu, que je viens de vous dire, il s'ensuit que la richesse et la variete de ces langues les rendent extremement difficiles a apprendre, la disette et la sterilite ou elles sont tombees ne causent pas un moindre embarras. Car, comme les peuples, quand nous avons commence a les frequenter, ignoroient presque tout ce dont ils n'avoient pas l'usage, ou qui ne tomboit pas sous leurs sens, ils manquoient de termes pour les exprimer, ou les avoient laisse tomber dans l'oubli."--Charlevoix, tom. v., p. 288.

The variety of dialects proves the little communication held between the different tribes of savages, a necessary consequence of their living by the chase, and requiring extensive hunting-grounds.

"We need only," says Acosta (_De Procur. Indorum Salut._), "cross a valley for hearing another jargon."

No. XLVII.

"The following are the results of the most recent researches on the lines of fortifications, and the tumuli found between the Rocky Mountains and the chain of the Alleganies. The fortifications chiefly occupy the space between the great lakes of Canada, the Mississippi and the Ohio, from the fourty-fourth to the thirty-ninth degree of latitude. Those which advance most toward the northeast are on the Black River, one of the tributary streams of Lake Ontario. The most remarkable ancient fortifications in the State of Ohio are, 1st. Newark, a very regular octagon, containing an area of 32 acres, and connected with a circular circumvallation of 16 acres; the eight great doors of the octagon are defended by eight works placed before each opening. 2d. Perryvale County, numerous walls, not in clay, but stone. 3d. Marietta, two great squares with twelve doors; the walls of earth are 21 feet high, and 42 feet at their base. 4th. Circleville, a square with eight doors, and eight small works for their defense connected with a circular fort, surrounded by two walls and a moat. 5th. Point Creek, at the confluence of the Scioto and the Ohio; the fortifications are partly irregular; one of them contains 62 acres. 6th. Portsmouth, opposite Alexandria; vast ruins, disposed on parallel lines, denote that this spot heretofore contained a numerous population. 7th. Little Miami and Cincinnati, a wall of 7 feet high and 6300 toises long. All these square forts are placed as exactly to the east as the Egyptian and Mexican pyramids; when the forts have only one opening, it is directed toward the rising sun. The walls of these lines of fortification are most frequently of earth, but two miles from Chilicothe, in the State of Ohio, we find a wall constructed in stone, from 12 to 15 feet high, and from 5 to 8 feet thick, forming an inclosure of 80 acres. It is not yet precisely known how far those works extend to the west, along the course of the Missouri and the River La Plata; but they are not found on the north of the Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Michigan, neither do they pass the chain of the Alleganies. Some circumvallations discovered on the banks of the Chenango, near Oxford, in the State of New York, may be considered as a very remarkable exception. We must not confound these military monuments with the mounds or _tumuli_ containing thousands of skeletons of a stunted race of men, scarcely 5 feet high. These mounds increase in number from the north toward the south; Mr. Brackenridge thinks there are nearly 3000 tumuli, from 20 to 100 feet high, between the mouth of the Ohio, the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Rio San Francisco, and that the number of skeletons they contain indicate how considerable must have been the population heretofore of those countries. These monuments, considered as the places of sepulture of great communes, are most frequently situated at the confluence of rivers, and on the most favorable points for trade. The base of the tumuli is round, or of an oval form; they are generally of a conical form, and sometimes flattened at the summit, as if intended to serve for sacrifices, or other ceremonies to be seen by a great mass of people at once. Some of those monuments are two or three stories high, and resemble in their form the Mexican _Teocallis_, and the pyramids with steps of Egypt and Western Asia. Some of the tumuli are constructed of earth, and some of stones heaped together. Hatchets have been found on them, together with painted pottery, vases, and ornaments of brass, a little iron, silver in plates (near Marietta), and perhaps gold (near Chilicothe). Some of these mounds are only a few feet high, and are placed at the center or in the neighborhood of the circular circumvallations; they were either tribunes for haranguing the assembled people, or places of sacrifice, and where they are only from 20 to 25 feet high, they may be considered as observatories erected to discover the movements of a neighboring enemy. The great tumuli, from 80 to 100 feet high, are most frequently insulated, and sometimes seem to be of the same age as the fortifications to which they are linked. The latter merit particular attention: I know nowhere any thing that resembles them either in South America or the ancient continent. The regularity of the polygon and circular forms, and the small works intended to cover the doors of the building, are, above all, remarkable. We know not whether they were inclosures of property, walls of defense against enemies, or intrenched camps, as in Central Asia. The custom of separating the different quarters of a town by circumvallations is observed alike in the ancient Tenochleitian and the Peruvian town of Chimu, the ruins of which I examined, between Truxillo and the coast of the South Sea. The _tumuli_ are less characteristic constructions, and may have belonged to nations who had no communication with one another; they cover both Americas, the north of Asia, and the whole east of Europe, and, it is said, are still constructed by the Omawhaws of the River Plata. The skulls contained in the _tumuli_ of the United States furnish means of recognizing, almost with certainty, to what degree the race of men by whom they were raised differ from the Indians who now inhabit the same countries. Mr. Mitchell believes that the skeletons of the caverns of Kentucky and Tennessee 'belong to the Malays, who came by the Pacific Ocean to the western coast of America, and were destroyed by the ancestors of the present Indians, and who were of Tartar race (Mongul).' With respect to the tumuli and the fortifications, the same learned writer supposes, with Mr. De Witt Clinton, that those monuments are the works of Scandinavian nations, who, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, visited the coast of Greenland, Newfoundland, or Vinland, or Drageo, and a part of the continent of North America. If this hypothesis be well founded, the skulls found in the _tumuli_ ought to belong, not to the American, Mongul, or Malay race, but to a race vulgarly called Caucasian.... Did the nations of the Mexican race, in their migrations to the south, send colonies toward the east, or do the monuments of the United States pertain to the Autochthone nations? Perhaps we must admit in North America, as in the ancient world, the simultaneous existence of several centers of civilization, of which the mutual relations are not known in history. The very civilized nations of New Spain, the Tolteques, the Azteques, and the Chichimeques, pretended to have issued successively, from the sixth to the twelfth century, from three neighboring countries situated toward the north. These nations spoke the same language, they had the same cosmogonic fables, the same propensity for the sacerdotal congregations, the same hieroglyphic paintings, the same divisions of time, the same taste (Chinese and Japanese) for noting and registering every thing. The names given by them to the towns built in the country of Analmae; were those of the towns they had abandoned in their ancient country. The civilization on the Mexican table-land was regarded by the inhabitants themselves as the copy of something which had existed elsewhere, as the reflection of the primitive civilization of Aztlan. Where, it may be asked, must be placed that parent land of the colonies of Anahuac, that _officinum gentium_ which, during five centuries, sends nations toward the south who understand each other without difficulty, and recognize each other for relations? Asia, north of Amour, where it is nearest America, is a barbarous country, and in supposing (which is geographically possible) a migration of southern Asiatics by Japan, Tarakay (Tchoka), the Kurile and Aleutian Isles, from southwest toward the northeast (from 40 to 55 degrees of latitude), how can it be believed that in so long a migration, on a way so easily intercepted, the remembrance of the institutions of the parent country could have been preserved with so much force and clearness? The cosmogonic fables, the pyramidal constructions, the system of the calendar, the animals of the tropics found in the catasterim of days, the convents and congregations of priests, the taste for statistic enumerations, the annals of the empire held in the most scrupulous order, lead us toward Oriental Asia, while the lively remembrances of which we have just spoken, and the peculiar physiognomy which Mexican civilization presents in so many other respects, seem to indicate the antique existence of an empire in the north of America, between the thirty-sixth and forty-second degrees of latitude. We can not reflect on the military monuments of the United States without recollecting the first country of the civilized nations of Mexico. It is in rising to more general historical considerations, in examining with more care than has been hitherto done the languages and the osteologic conformation of different tribes, in exploring the immense country bounded by the Alleganies and the coast of the Western Ocean, that means will be obtained of throwing light on a problem so worthy of exercising the sagacity of historians.... According to the traditions collected by Mr. Heckewelder, the country east of the Mississippi was heretofore inhabited by a powerful nation, of gigantic stature, called Alleghewi, and which gave its name to the Alleganian mountains. The Alleghewis were more civilized than any of the other tribes found in the northern climates by the Europeans of the sixteenth century. They inhabitated towns founded on the banks of the Mississippi, and the fortifications that now excite the astonishment of travelers were constructed by them, in order to defend themselves against the Delawares, who came from the west, and were allied at that period with the Iroquois. It may be supposed that this invasion of a barbarous people changed the political and moral state of those countries. The Alleghewis were vanquished by the Delawares after a long struggle. In their flight toward the south they gathered together the bones of their relations in separate _tumuli_; they descended the Mississippi, and what became of them is not known.... The lines of fortification of a prodigious length observed by Captain Lewis on the banks of the Missouri sufficiently prove that the ancient habitation of the Alleghewis, that powerful people which I am inclined to regard as being of Tolteque or Azteque race, extended far to the west of the Mississippi, toward the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Mr. Nuttall, in going up the Arkansas to Cadron, was informed of the existence of an ancient intrenchment, resembling a triangular fort. The Arkansas assert that it is the work of a _white_ and civilized people, whom, when they arrived in this country, their ancestors fought and vanquished, not by force, but cunning. They attribute, also, to a more ancient and polished people than themselves, the monuments of rough stones heaped up on the summit of the hills. Other monuments, not less curious, are the commodious roads of immense length which the natives have traced from time immemorial, and which lead from the banks of the Arkansas, near Little Rock, to Saint Louis on the right, and by the settlement of Mont Prairie, as far as Natchitoches, on the left. Do the characteristic features of colossal stature and _white_ color, attributed to nations now destroyed, owe their origin to the ideas of power and physical force in general, to the feeling of the intellectual preponderance of the Europeans, or are those features linked with the fables of white men, legislators, and priests, which we find among the Mexicans, the inhabitants of New Granada, and so many other American nations? The skeletons contained in the _tumuli_ of the trans-Alleganian country belong, for the most part, to a stunted race of men, of lower stature than the Indians of Canada and the Missouri.

"An idol discovered at Natchez has been justly compared by M. Malte-Brun to the images of celestial spirits found by Pallas among the Mongul nations. If the tribes who inhabit the towns on the banks of the Mississippi issued from the same country of Aztlan, it must be admitted that the Tolteques, the Chichimeques, and the Azteques, from the inspection of their idols, and their essays in sculpture, were much less advanced in the arts than the Mexican tribes, who, without deviating toward the east, have followed the great path of the nations of the New World, directed from north to south, from the banks of the Gila toward the Lake of Nicaragua."--Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_, vol. vi., p. 328.

No. XLVIII.

"Dr. Morton, in his luminous and philosophical essay on the aboriginal race of America, seems to have proved that all the different tribes, except the Eskimaux, are of one race, and that this race is peculiar and distinct from all others. The physical characteristics of the Fuegians, the Indians of the tropical plains, those of the Rocky Mountains, and of the great Valley of the Mississippi, are the same, not only in regard to feature and external lineaments, but also in osteological structure. After comparing nearly 400 crania, derived from tribes inhabiting almost every region of both Americas, Dr. Morton has found the same peculiar shape pervading all; 'the square or rounded head, the flattened or vertical occiput, the high cheek bones, the ponderous maxillae, the large quadrangular orbits, and the low, receding forehead.' The oldest skulls from the cemeteries of Peru, the tombs of Mexico, or the mounds of the Mississippi and Ohio, agree with each other, and are of the same type as the heads of the most savage existing tribes."--Lyell, vol. ii., p. 37.

No. XLIX.

"I saw no person among the Chaymas who had any natural deformity. I might say the same of thousands of Caribs, Muyseas, and Mexican and Peruvian Indians, whom we observed during the course of five years. Bodily deformities--deviations from nature--are infinitely rare among certain races of men, especially those nations who have the dermoid system highly colored. I can not believe that they depend solely on the progress of civilization, a luxurious life, or the corruption of morals. We might be tempted to think that savages all appear well made and vigorous, because feeble children die young for want of care, and that the strongest alone survive; but these causes can not act on the Indians of the missions, who have the manners of our peasants, and the Mexicans of Cholula and Tlascala, who enjoy wealth that has been transmitted to them by ancestors more civilized than themselves. If, in every state of cultivation, the copper-colored race manifest the same inflexibility, the same resistance to deviation from a primitive type, are we not forced to admit that this property belongs in great measure to hereditary organization--to that which constitutes the race? I use intentionally the phrase _in great measure_, not entirely to exclude the influence of civilization. Besides, with copper-colored men, as with the whites, luxury and effeminacy, by weakening the physical constitution, had heretofore rendered deformities more common at Corezco and Tenochtitlan."--Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_, vol. iii., p. 235.

No. L.

To those well read in the sad records of Indian history, the names of Powhatan, Opechancanough, Massasoit, Alexander, Philip, Canonchet, Logan, Pontiac, and the never-to-be-forgotten Tecumthe, will suggest memories fully justifying the above assertion. The name of Tecumthe signifies "a tiger crouching for his prey." He was equally great in council and in war, noble and generous in spirit as commanding in intellect. He bore the commission of Chief of the Indian Forces in the British army during the late war. He did not, however, join the ranks of the white men until the failure of several admirably contrived projects convinced his sound and enlightened judgment that opposition to the white race was vain. Pontiac was an Ottawa chieftain, who in 1763 succeeded in the next-to-impossible scheme of uniting all the scattered and often hostile Indian tribes distributed throughout the colonized districts of North America in one grand confederacy against their European invaders. Their first step was the projected extinction of all the white man's posts along a thousand miles of frontier; and he actually succeeded so far as to cut off, almost simultaneously, nine out of twelve of these military establishments. The surprise of Michillimackinac, one of these stations, is thus narrated in a public document. (It was a period of profound peace between the Europeans and Indians):

"The fort was then upon the main land, near the northern point of the peninsula. The Ottawas, to whom the assault was committed, prepared for a great game of ball, to which the officers of the garrison were invited. While engaged in play, one of the parties gradually inclined toward the fort, and the other pressed after them. The ball was once or twice thrown over the pickets, and the Indians were suffered to enter and procure it. Nearly all the garrison were present as spectators, and those on duty were alike unprepared as unsuspicious. Suddenly the ball was again thrown into the fort, and all the Indians rushed after it. The rest of the tale is soon told: the troops were butchered, and the fort destroyed." This extensive and well-laid scheme failed, from Pontiac himself being betrayed at the fort of Detroit. He has been accused of great cruelty; but, in contests waged between the red and white races, this is a word of doubtful import. His generosity and heroism are undeniable.

As a compliment, Major Rogers had sent Pontiac a bottle of brandy. His counselors advised him not to take it: "It must be poisoned," said they, "and sent with a design to kill him;" but Pontiac laughed at their suspicions. "He can not," he replied, "he can not take my life; I have saved his!"

No. LI.

But a far truer insight into the religious state of the American Indian will be obtained by observing how peculiarly and emphatically he is, in the words of the apostle, "a law unto himself." I mean, how distinctly he evinces, in the whole moral conduct of his life, that he lives under a strong and awful sense of positive obligation. It is of little matter with what doctrines that sense of obligation connects itself. It often appears to connect itself with none. The Indian can not tell why a burden is laid upon him to act in this or that manner. He obeys a law undefined, unwritten, but mysteriously binding upon his spirit. All the compulsive force which what we call the law of honor had upon the conscience of a man of the world--I had almost said which religious sanctions have upon the man of principle--is scarcely to be paralleled with that kind of moral necessity which seems in some cases to actuate his proceedings. If religion be what its name implies, _id quod relligat_, that which binds the will, and enforces self-denial and self-devotion (be the object or motive held out what it may), then no people taken in the mass is to be compared, in this respect, to the savages of America. "After all," says Mr. Flint, "that which has struck us, in contemplating the Indians, with the most astonishment and admiration, is the invisible but universal energy of the operation and influence of an inexplicable law, which has, where it operates, a more certain and controlling power than all the municipal and written laws of the whites united. There is despotic rule without any hereditary or elected chief. There are chiefs with great power, who can not tell when, where, or how they became such. There is perfect unanimity on a question involving the existence of a tribe, when every member belonged to the wild and fierce democracy of nature, and could dissent without giving a reason. A case occurs where it is prescribed by custom that an individual should be punished with death. Escaped from the control of his tribe, and as free as the winds, this invisible tie is about him, and he returns and surrenders himself to justice. His accounts are not settled, and he is in debt. He requests delay till he shall have finished his summer's hunt. He finishes it, pays his debt, and dies with a constancy which has always been, in all views of the Indian character, the theme of admiration."--Flint's _Geography of the Mississippi Valley_, p. 125.

In the expressive words of Penn, "What good might not a good people graft, where there is so distinct a knowledge both of good and evil?"--_Report on Aborigines_, 1837, p. 116.

Mr. Merivale adds, "I would not insert the following high-colored expression in a work edited by Washington Irving, were it not for the remarkable agreement between all capable observers of the uncontaminated races of Indians upon this subject. 'Simply to call these people religious (some tribes of the Rocky Mountains) would convey but a faint idea of the deep hue of piety and devotion which pervades the whole of their conduct. They are more like a nation of saints than a horde of savages.'"--_Adventures of Captain Bonneville._

No. LII.

Catlin gives the same account of the appropriation of the Manitou or guardian angel as Lafitau and Charlevoix. He applies to it the term of Mystery, or Medicine-bag, and thus explains the derivation of the modern term:

"The term Medicine, in its common acceptation among the Indians, means mystery, and nothing else. The origin of the term is, that in the French language a doctor is called '_Medecin_;' the Indian country is full of doctors, and as they are all magicians, and profess to be skilled in many mysteries, the word '_medecin_' has become habitually applied to every thing mysterious or unaccountable, and the English and American have easily and familiarly adopted the same word, with a slight alteration conveying the same meaning; and, to be a little more explicit, they have denominated these personages 'Medicine-men,' which means something more than merely a doctor or physician. The Indians do not use the word 'medicine,' however, but in each tribe they have a word of their own construction synonymous with mystery or mystery-man. Their medicine-bag then is a mystery-bag, and its meaning and importance necessary to be understood, as it may be said to be the key to Indian life and character.

"Feasts are often made, and dogs and horses sacrificed, to a man's 'medicine;' and days, and even weeks of fasting and penance of various kinds are often suffered to appease his medicine, which he fancies he has in some way offended. This curious custom has generally been done away with along the frontier, where white men laugh at the Indian for the observance of so ridiculous and useless a form; but in this country (beyond the Rocky Mountains) it is still in full force, and every male in the tribe carries this his supernatural charm or guardian, to which he looks for the preservation of his life in battle or in other danger.... During my travels thus far I have been unable to buy a medicine-bag of an Indian, though I have offered extravagant prices for them; and even on the frontier, where they have been induced to abandon the practice, though a white may induce an Indian to relinquish his medicine, yet he can not buy it of him: the Indian in such case will bury it to please a white, and save it from his sacrilegious touch, and he will linger around the spot, and at regular times visit and pay it his devotions as long as he lives."--Catlin's _North American Indians_, vol. i., p. 36.

No. LIII.

Catlin says, "The tribes, so far as I have visited them, all distinctly believe in the existence of a Great (or Good) Spirit, an Evil (or Bad) Spirit, and also in a future existence and future accountability, according to their virtues and vices in this world. So far the North American Indians would seem to be one family, and such, an unbroken theory among them; yet, with regard to the manner and form, and time and place of that accountability--to the constructions of virtues and vices, and the modes of appeasing and propitiating the Good and Evil Spirits, they are found in all the change and variety which fortuitous circumstances, and fictions and fables have wrought upon them.... These people, living in a climate where they suffer from cold in the severity of their winters, have very naturally reversed our ideas of heaven and hell. The latter they describe to be a country very far to the north, of barren and hideous aspect, and covered with eternal snow and ice. The torments of this freezing place they describe as most excruciating, while heaven they suppose to be in a warmer and delightful latitude, where nothing is felt but the keenest enjoyment, and where the country abounds in buffaloes and other luxuries of life. The Great or Good Spirit they believe dwells in the former place, for the purpose of there meeting those who have offended him, increasing the agony of their sufferings by being himself present, administering the penalties. The Bad or Evil Spirit they suppose to be at the same time in Paradise, still tempting the happy; and those who have gone to the regions of punishment they believe to be tortured for a time proportioned to the amount of their transgression, and that they are then to be transferred to the land of the happy, where they are again liable to the temptation of the Evil Spirit, and answerable again at a future period for their new offenses."--Catlin, vol. i., p. 159.

Dr. Richardson says, "While at Carlton I took an opportunity of asking a communicative old Indian of the Blackfoot nation his opinion of a future state. He replied that they had heard from their fathers that the souls of the departed have to scramble with great labor up the sides of a steep mountain, upon attaining the summit of which they are rewarded with the prospect of an extensive plain, interspersed here and there with new tents, pitched in agreeable situations, and abounding in all sorts of game. While they are absorbed in the contemplation of this delightful scene, they are descried by the inhabitants of the happy land, who, clothed in new skins, approach and welcome, with every demonstration of kindness, those Indians who have led good lives; but the bad Indians, who have imbrued their hands in the blood of their countrymen, are told to return from whence they came, and, without more ceremony, precipitated down the steep sides of the mountain."--Franklin's _Journey_, p. 77.

"C'est du cote de l'ouest, d'ou les sauvages pretendent etre venus, qu'il placent le pays des ancetres, ou des ames. C'est, disent-ils, un pays tres eloigne, et ou chacun est contraint de se rendre, apres son trepas, par un chemin fort long et fort penible, dans lequel il y a beaucoup a souffrir, a cause des rivieres qu'il faut passer sur des ponts tremblants, et si etroits qu'il faut etre une ame pour pouvoir s'y soutenir; encore trouve-t-il au bout du pont un chien, qui comme un antre cerbere leur dispute le passage, et en fait tomber plusieurs dans les eaux, dont la rapidite les roule de precipice en precipice. Celles qui sont assez heureuses pour franchir ce pas, trouvent en arrivant, un grand et beau pays, au milieu duquel est une grande Cabane, dont _Tharonhiaouagon_, leur Dieu, occupe une partie, et Ataensic, son ayeule, occupe l'autre. L'appartement de cette vielle est tapisse d'une quantite infini de colliers de porcelaine, de bracelets, et d'autres meubles, dont les morts, qui sont sous sa dependance, lui ont fait present a leur arrivee. _Ataensic_ est maitresse de la Cabane, selon le style des sauvages, elle et son petit fils dominent sur les manes, et font consister leur plaisir a les faire danser devant eux. Il y a une infinite de versions sur le pays des ames, mais ce qui je viens d'en rapporter en est comme le fonds, ou tout le reste se reduit."--Lafitau, tom. i., p. 402.

No. LIV.

"Un officier Francais, qui parle la langue Huronne comme les Hurons meme, et qui connoit fort bien le genie des sauvages, m'a raconte un fait, dont il a ete le temoin ... Quelques sauvages intrigues, au sujet d'un parti de sept guerriers de leur village, et dont tout le monde commencoit a etre en peine, prierent une vielle sauvagesse de _jongler_ pour eux. Cette femme etoit en grande reputation, et on avoit verifie plusieurs de ses predictions, mais on avoit beaucoup de peine a la determiner a faire ces sortes d'operations, quoiqu'on la payat bien, parce-qu'elle souffroit beaucoup. Comme elle avoit de l'amitie pour moi, dit cet officier, je me mis de la partie avec les sauvages, ajoutant neanmoins tres peu de foy a ces sortes de choses, je la priai tres fortement, et je fis tant, qu'elle s'y resolut. Elle commenca d'abord par preparer un espace de terrain qu'elle nettoya bien, et qu'elle couvrit de farine. Elle disposa sur cette poudre comme sur une carte geographique, quelques paquets de buchettes, qui representaient divers villages de differentes nations, observant particulierement leur position, et les rhumbs de vent. Elle entra ensuite dans de grandes convulsions, pendant lesquelles nous vimes sensiblement sept bluettes de feu sortir des buchettes qui representoient notre village; tracer un chemin sur cette farine et aller d'un village a l'autre. Apres d'etre eclipsees pendant un assez long tems, dans l'un de ces villages, ces bluettes reparurent au nombre de neuf, tracerent un nouveau chemin pour le retour, jusqu'a ce qu'enfin elles s'arreterent assez pres du village, ou paquet de buchettes, d'ou les sept premiers etoient d'abord sorties. Alors la sauvagesse, toujours en fureur, troubla tout l'ordre des buchettes, foula aux pieds tout le terrain qu'elle avoit prepare, et ou cette scene venoit de passer. Elle s'assit ensuite et apres s'etre donne le tems de se tranquilliser, et de reprendre ses esprits, elle raconta tout ce qui etoit arrive aux guerriers, la route qu'ils avoient tenue, les villages par ou ils avoient passe, le nombre des prisonniers qu'ils avoient fait; elle nomma l'endroit ou ils etoient dans ce moment, et assura qu'ils arriveroient trois jours apres au village, ce qui fut verifie par l'arrivee des guerriers, qui confirmerent de point en point ce qu'elle avoit dit."--Lafitau, tom. i., p. 387.

"Quoiqu' aujourd'hui les Abenaquis fassent tous profession du Christianisme, ils ne laissent pas encore d'avoir quelquefois recours a cet art qu'ils ont recu de leurs peres (la Pyromantie, ou Divination par le feu). Ils s'en confessent neanmoins, a cause de l'horreur qu'on leur en a inspire, mais il s'en trouve quelques uns qui cherchent a le justifier. Une sauvagesse disoit a un missionnaire, qui tachoit de lui faire concevoir sa faute: 'Je n'ai jamais compris qu'il n'y eut a elle aucun mal, et j'ai peine a y en voir encore: ecoute, Dieu a partage differemment les hommes; a vous autres Francois, il a donne l'ecriture, par laquelle vous apprennez lea choses qui se passent loin de vous, comme si elles vous etoient presentes; pour ce qui est de nous, il nous a donne l'art de connoitre par le feu les choses absentes et eloignees; suppose donc que le feu c'est notre livre, notre ecriture; tu ne verras pas qu'il y ait de difference, et plus de mal dans l'un que dans l'autre. Ma mere m'a appris ce secret pendant mon enfance, comme tes parents t'ont appris a lire et a ecrire; je m'en suis servi plusieurs fois avec succes, avant d'etre Chretienne, je l'ai fait quelquefois avec le meme succes depuis que je la suis; j'ai ete tente, et j'ai succombe a la tentation, mais sans croire commettre aucune peche.'"--Lafitau, tom, i., p. 388.

Some of the Indians seem to have been acquainted with the mysteries of _clairvoyance_. "Ils croyent qu'il y a des personnes que les esprits favorisent d'avantage, qui sont plus eclairees que le commun, dont l'ame scut, non seulement ce qui les concerne personnellement, mais qui voient jusques dans le fonds de l'ame des autres, qui percent a travers le voile qui les couvre, et y appercoit les desirs naturels et innes, qu'elle a, quoique cette ame elle meme ne les ait pas apercus; c'est ce qui leur a fait donner le nom de Iaiotkatta par les Hurons, c'est a dire _voyans_, parce qu'ils voyent les hommes dans leur interieur."--Lafitau, tom. i., p. 371.

Charlevoix also relates instances of the successful exercise of magical arts.--Vol. vi., p. 92.

No. LV.

"In the neighborhood of Caughnawaga are the large tracts of land once belonging to the Johnson family, whose possessions were all confiscated at the period of the Revolution, in consequence of their adherence to the British, who gave them compensation by grants of land in Canada. The founder of this family is said to have acquired this fine tract of country by a dexterous piece of management. He traded extensively with the tribe of Mohawk Indians. Their chiefs were in the habit of applying to him frequently for tobacco and rum, which they had, they told him, dreamed that he was to give them. Johnson never failed to encourage their strong faith in dreams, humoring their foible by acceding to every request founded on them. Thus visits and dreams became frequent on the part of the Indians. Johnson never sent them away empty handed. To every request he replied, 'I will prove that you are right,' and presented them with whatever they applied for, on the footing that they had dreamed of it. At length the king had the conscience to dream that, if he were invested with Johnson's military dress of scarlet and gold, he should be as great a man as King George; and King George he soon in so far became, for no long time elapsed before Johnson had him appareled as he wished. But Johnson's turn to dream had now arrived, for he had all the while attached the same weight to dreams. He dreamed that the nation had, in consequence of his kindness to them, and in return for the hospitality he had shown them, bestowed on him part of their territory, which he had described, and which he of course took care should be sufficiently extensive and valuable--in fact, one of the finest tracts of land that it is possible to conceive. 'Have you really had such a dream?' they exclaimed, with terror and alarm depicted on their countenances. Being satisfied on this point, the chief or king convoked his tribe, who deliberated, and then announced to the dreamer that they had confirmed the dream. 'Brother Johnson,' they said, 'we give thee that tract of land, but never dream any more.' The head of this family was subsequently created a baronet, for his gallantry in the war, when the French made an incursion from Canada in 1755."--Stuart's _America_, vol. i., p. 71. See, also, Mrs. Grant's _Letters of an American Lady_, for an account of Sir William Johnson's intercourse with the Indians.

Lafitau and Charlevoix write at great length upon the Indian faith in dreams; Lafitau gives the following curious illustration of the extent to which this superstition is carried: "Un ancien missionnaire m'a raconte qu'un sauvage ayant reve que le bonheur de sa vie dependoit de son mariage avec une femme qui etoit deja mariee a l'un des plus considerables du village ou il demeuroit. Le mari et la femme vivoient dans une grande union et s'entre-aimoient beaucoup. La separation fut rude a l'un et a l'autre, cependant ils n'osoient refuser. Ils se separerent donc. La femme prit un nouvel engagement, et le mari abandonne, par complaisance et pour oter tout soupcon qu'il pensat encore a sa premiere epouse, se marie avec une autre. Il reprit la premiere cependant, apres la mort de celui qui les avait desunis, laquelle arriva peu de temps apres."--Lafitau, vol. i., p. 364.

No. LVI.

"C'etoit une loi generale chez certains peuples barbares de l'antiquite (AElian, _de Cois_, lib. iii.; Sext. Emp., _de Tybaren_.; Procop., _de Etulis_., lib. ii.; _de Bello Gotico_; Stobaeus, _de Massag._, Serm. 122) de faire mourir leurs viellards avant l'age de soixante ou soixante et dix ans, soit qu'ils ne voulassent point parmis eux conserver des morte payes, qui consumassent le peu qui restoit aux autres pour vivre: soit qu'ils se persuadassent rendre service a ceux qu'ils faisoient ainsi perir, en leur epargnant par une morte prompte et courte, la tristesse et les ennuis d'un age avance, dont les infirmites peuvent etre regardees comme une mort continuelle. Cela a ete, dit-on, une loi generale parmi quelques peuples de l'Amerique, et une de nos dernieres relations porte, qu'il y a une nation ou il n'est pas meme permis de laisser passer aux femmes l'age de trente ans; ce qui paroitra sans doute bien rigoureux a celles qui veulent encore etre jeune dans un age plus avance.

"Les Algonquins et les autres nations errantes sont plus sujets a cette inhumanite envers les viellards que les autres, parcequ' etant presque toujours en voyage, et plus souvent reduits a la faim, l'incommodite des viellards qu'il faut porter et nourrir, devient alors plus sensible. Ces pauvres malheureux sont souvent les premiers a dire a celui qui les porte, 'Mon petit fils, je le donne bien de la peine, je ne suis plus bon a rien, casse-moi la tete.' On ne les ecoute pas toujours; mais quelquefois aussi il arrive que le jeune homme epuise de lassitude et de faim, repond froidement, 'Tu as raison, mon grand pere.' Il decharge en meme tems son paquet, prend sa hache, et casse la tete au bon homme, qui sans doute est fache interieurement d'etre pris au mot."--Lafitau, tom. ii., p. 490.

In 1819, James writes thus of the same inhuman custom: "The worst trait in the Indian character is the neglect shown toward the aged and helpless, which is carried to such a degree that, when on a march or a hunting excursion, it is a common practice to leave behind their nearest relations when reduced to that state, with a little food and water, abandoning them without ceremony to their fate. When thus abandoned by all that is dear to them, their fortitude does not forsake them, and the inflexible passive courage of the Indian sustains them against despondency. They regard themselves as entirely useless; and as the custom of the nation has long led them to anticipate this mode of death, they attempt not to remonstrate against the measure, which is, in fact, frequently the result of their earnest solicitation."--James's _Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, vol. i., p. 237.

"This cruelty to living relations strongly contrasts with the extravagance and self-sacrifice of their mourning for the dead. The same people who expose a living parent because they can not carry him, are often found to convey the corpses of their departed friends to 'the festivals of the dead,' during many days of wearisome journeying."--P. de Breboeuf, _Relation de la Nouvelle France_; Charlevoix: Lafitau.

Catlin, one of the most partial observers, and the most zealous defender of the Indian character, relates the following scene, of which he was an eye-witness (in 1840): "We found that the Puncahs were packing up all their goods, and preparing to start for the prairies in pursuit of buffaloes, to dry meat for their winter's supplies. They took down their wigwams of skins to carry with them, and all were flat to the ground, and every thing packing up ready for the start. My attention was directed by Major Sanford, the Indian agent, to one of the most miserable and helpless-looking objects I ever had seen in my life--a very aged and emaciated man of the tribe, who, he told me, was going to be _exposed_. The tribe were going where hunger and dire necessity obliged them to go, and this pitiable object, who had once been a chief, and a man of distinction in his tribe, who was now too old to travel, being reduced to mere skin and bone, was to be left to starve, or meet with such death as might fall to his lot, and his bones to be picked by the wolves! I lingered around this poor old forsaken patriarch for hours before we started, to indulge the tears of sympathy which were flowing for the sake of this poor benighted and decrepit old man, whose worn-out limbs were no longer able to support him, and his body and his mind doomed to linger into the withering agony of decay, and gradual solitary death. I wept; and it was a pleasure to weep; for the painful looks and the dreary prospects of this old veteran, whose eyes were dimmed, whose venerable locks were whitened by a hundred years, whose limbs were almost naked, and trembling as he sat by a small fire which his friends had left him, with a few sticks of wood within his reach, and a buffalo's skin stretched upon some crotches over his head. Such was to be his only dwelling, and such the chances for his life, with only a few half-picked bones that were laid within his reach, and a dish of water, without means of any kind to replenish them, or move his body from that fatal locality. His friends and his children had all left him, and were preparing in a little time to be on the march. He had told them to leave him; 'he was old,' he said, 'and too feeble to march.' 'My children,' said he, 'our nation is poor, and it is necessary you should all go to the country where you can get meat. My eyes are dimmed, and my strength is no more; my days are nearly all numbered, and I am a burden to my children; I can not go, and I wish to die. Keep your hearts stout, and think not of me; I am no longer good for any thing.' In this way they had finished the ceremony of _exposing_ him, and taken their final leave of him. I advanced to the old man, and was undoubtedly the last human being who held converse with him. I sat by the side of him, and though he could not distinctly see me, he shook me heartily by the hand, and smiled, evidently aware that I was a white man, and that I sympathized with his inevitable misfortune. When passing by the site of the Puncah village a few months after this in my canoe, I went ashore with my men, and found the poles and the buffalo skin standing as they were left over the old man's head. The fire-brands were lying nearly as I had left them; and I found at a few yards' distance the skull and others of his bones, which had been picked and cleaned by the wolves, which is probably all that any human being can ever know of his final and melancholy fate. This cruel custom of exposing their aged people belongs, I think, to all the tribes who roam about the prairies, making severe marches, when such decrepit persons are totally unable to go, unable to ride or to walk, when they have no means of carrying them."--Catlin's _American Indians_, vol. i., p. 217.

No. LVII.

"The child, in its earliest infancy, has its back lashed to a straight board, being fastened to it by bandages, which pass around it in front, and on the back of the board they are tightened to the necessary degree by lacing-strings, which hold it in a straight and healthy position, with its feet resting on a broad hoop, which passes around the foot of the cradle, and the child's position (as it rides about on its mother's back, supported by a broad strap that passes across her forehead), that of standing erect, no doubt has a tendency to produce straight limbs, sound lungs, and long life. The bandages that pass around the cradle, holding the child in, are often covered with a beautiful embroidery of porcupine quills, with ingenious figures of horses, men, &c. A broad hoop of elastic wood passes around in front of the child's face to protect it in case of a fall, from the front of which is suspended a toy of exquisite embroidery for the child to handle, and amuse itself with. The papoose (the Indian name for the cradle) seems a cruel mode of confining the child; but I am inclined to believe it is a very good one for those who use it, and well adapted to the circumstances under which they live; in support of which opinion, I offer the universality of the custom, which has been practiced for centuries among all the tribes of North America, as a legitimate and a very strong reason. Along the frontiers, where the Indians have been ridiculed for the custom, they have in many instances departed from it; but even there they will generally be seen lugging their child about in this way, when they have abandoned almost every other native custom, and are too poor to cover it with more than rags and strings, which fasten it to its cradle. The infant is carried in this manner until it is five, six, or seven months old.... If the infant dies during the time allotted for it to be carried in this cradle, it is buried, and the disconsolate mother fills the cradle with black quills and feathers, in the parts which the child's body had occupied, and in this way carries it about with her wherever she goes for a year or more; and she often lays or stands it against the side of the wigwam, where she is all day engaged in her needle-work, and chatting and talking to it as familiarly and affectionately as if it were her loved infant instead of its shell that she was talking to."--Catlin, vol. ii., p. 133.

No. LVIII.

The following is Lafitau's description of this barbarous operation: "Ils cernent pour cet effet la peau qui couvre la crane, coupant au-dessus du front et des oreilles jusqu'au derriere de la tete. Apres l'avoir arrachee, ils la preparent, et la ramollissent comme ils ont coutume de faire a celles des betes qu'ils ont prises a la chasse. Ils etendent ensuite cette peau sur un cercle au ils l'attachent, ils la peignent des deux cotes de diverses couleurs, quelquefois ils tracent du cote oppose aux cheveux, le portrait de celui a qui ils l'ont enlevee at la suspendent au bout d'une perche et la portent ainsi en triomphe. Ce qu'il y a de surprenant, c'est que tous ceux a qui l'on fait cette cruelle operation de leur enlever la chevelure, n'en meurent point, non plus que du coup de casse-tete, dont on a cru les avoir assommes a n'en plus revenir. Plusieurs en sont rechappes et j'ai vu une femme dans notre mission, a qui apres un semblable accident, les Francois avoient donnee le nom de la Tete-pelee, et qui se portoit fort bien. Elle etoit mariee a un Francois Iroquoise, dont elle avoit des enfans." Lafitau does not omit to notice the striking similarity between Indian and Scythian barbarity; he cites the following passage from Herodotus as a support and illustration of his own peculiar theory: "Un Scythe boit du sang du premier prisonnier qu'il fait, et il presente au roi les tetes de tous ceux qu'il a tues dans le combat; car en portant une tete il a part au butier, auquel il n'a nul droit sans cette condition. Il coupe la tete de cette maniere. Il la cerne autour les oreilles et ayant separe le test d'avec le reste, il en arrache la peau, qu'il a soin de ramollir avec ses mains, et d'appreter comme un apprete une peau de boeuf. Il en fait ensuite un ornement, et l'attache au harnois de son cheval en guise de trophee. Plus un particulier a de ces sortes de depouilles, plus il est considere et estime."--Lafitau, tom. ii., 258; Herodotus, lib. iv., n. 64.

"The scalping is an operation not calculated of itself to take life, as it only removes the skin, without injuring the bone of the head, and necessarily, to be a genuine scalp, must contain and show the crown and center of the head--that part of the skin which lies directly over what the phrenologists call 'self-esteem,' where the hair divides and radiates from the center, of which they all profess to be strict judges, and able to decide whether an effort has been made to produce two or more scalps from one head. Besides taking the scalp, the victor generally, if he has time to do it without endangering his own scalp, cuts off and brings home the rest of the hair, which his knife will divide into a great many small locks, and with them fringe the seams of his shirt and leggins, which also are worn as trophies and ornaments to the dress, and these are familiarly called 'scalp-locks.' ... As the scalp is taken in evidence of a death, it will easily be seen that an Indian has no business or inclination to take it from the head of the living, which I venture to say is never done in North America, unless it be, as has sometimes happened, when a man falls in the heat of battle, and the Indian, rushing over his body, snatches off his scalp, supposing him dead, who afterward rises from the field of battle, and easily recovers from this superficial wound of the knife, wearing a bald spot on his head during the remainder of his life."--Catlin, vol. i., p. 238.

No. LIX.

Charlevoix gives the following account of some of the games of chance in use among the red Indians:

"_Le Jeu de Pailles._--Ces pailles sont de petits joncs de la grosseur des tuyaux de froment et de la longueur de deux doigts. On en prend un paquet, qui est ordinairement de deux cent un, et toujours en nombre impair. Apres qu'on les a bien remues, en faisant mille contortions, et en invoquant les genies, on les separe avec une espece d'aliene, ou un os pointee, en paquets de dix; chacun prend le sien a l'aventure, et celui, a qui echoit le paquet de onze, gagne un certain nombre de points, dont on est convenu: les parties sont en soixante ou en quatre vingt.... On m'a dit qu'il y avoit autant d'addresse que de hazarde dans ce jeu, et que les sauvages y sont extremement fripons, comme dans tous les autres; qu'ils s'y acharnent souvent jusqu'a y passer les jours et les nuits.

"_Le Jeu de la Crosse._--On y joue avec une bale et des batons, recourbes et termines par une espece de raquette. On dresse deux poteaux qui servent des bornes, et qui sont eloignes l'un de l'autre, a proportion du nombre des joueurs. Par exemple s'ils sont quatre vingt, il y a entre les poteaux une demie lieue de distance. Les joueurs sont partages en deux bandes, qui ont chacune leur poteau, et il s'agit de faire aller la bale jusqu'a celui de la partie adverse, sans qu'elle tombe a terre, et sans qu'elle soit touchee avec la main; car si l'un ou l'autre arrive on perd la partie, a moins que celui qui a fait la faute ne la repare, en faisant aller la bale d'un seul trait au but, ce qui est souvent impossible. Ces sauvages sont si adroits a prendre la bale avec leurs crosses, que quelquefois ces parties durent plusieurs jours de suite.

"_Le Jeu du Plat, appelle aussi le Jeu des Osselets._--Il ne se joue qu'entre deux personnes. Chacun a six ou huit osselets, que je pris d'abord pour des noyaux d'abricots; els en ont la figure et sont de meme grandeur, mais en les regardant de pres je m'apercus qu'ils etoient a six faces inegales, dont les deux principales sont peintes, l'une en noir, l'autre en blanc tirant sur le jaune. On les fait sauter en l'air, en frappant la terre, ou la table, avec un plat rond et creux, ou ils sont, et qu'ils font pirouetter auparavant. Si tous en tombant presentent la meme couleur, celui qui a joue gagne cinq points, la partie est en quarante, et on defalque les points gagnes, a mesure que l'adversaire en gagne de son cote. Cinq osselets d'une meme couleur ne donnent qu'un point pour la premiere fois, mais a la seconde on fait rafle de tout. En moindre nombre on ne gagne rien. Celui, qui gagne la partie, continue de jouer; le perdant cede sa place a un autre, qui est nomme par les marqueurs de sa partie. Car on se partage d'abord, et souvent tout le village s'interesse au jeu: quelquefois meme un village joue contre un autre. Chaque partie choisit son marqueur, mais il se retire quand il veut, ce qui n'arrive que lorsque la chose tourne mal pour les siens. A chaque coup que l'on joue, surtout si c'est un coup decisif, il s'eleve de grands cris: les joueurs paroissent comme des fascines, et les spectateurs ne sont pas plus tranquils."--Charlevoix, vol. v., p. 386; vol. vi., p. 26.

No. LX.

"The action in which Sir Richard met with his death is so extraordinary that it well merits recital: its object was to surprise the Spanish fleet when it rendezvoused at the Azores, on its return from America. For this purpose, Lord Thomas Howard sailed from England with six of the queen's ships, six victualers, and some pinnaces, Sir Richard Grenville being vice admiral in the Revenge. Having set out in the spring, 1591, they waited six months at Flores in expectation of their prize. Philip, however, obtaining intelligence of their design, dispatched Don Alphonso Barcau with fifty-three ships of war to act as convoy. So secure had the English become by protracted delay, that this armament was bearing down upon them before they had the least suspicion of its approach. Most of the crews were on shore, providing water, ballast, and other necessaries, and many were disabled by sickness. To hurry on board, weigh anchor, and leave the place with the utmost speed, was their only safety; and Grenville, upon whom the charge of the details at this pressing crisis was imposed, was the last upon the spot, superintending the embarkation, and receiving his men on board, of whom ninety were on the sick-list, and only one hundred able for duty. Thus detained, he found it impossible to recover the wind, and there was no alternative but either to cut his mainsail, tack about, and fly with all speed, or remain and fight it out single handed. It was to this desperate resolution that he adhered. 'From the greatness of his spirit,' says Raleigh, 'he utterly refused to turn from the enemy, protesting he would rather die than be guilty of such dishonor to himself, his country, and her majesty's ship.' His design was to force the squadron of Seville, which was on his weather bow, to give way; and such was the impetuosity of his attack, that it was on the point of being successful. Divers of the Spaniards, springing their loof, as the sailors of those times termed it, fell under his lee; when the San Philip, a galleon of 1500 tons, gained the wind, and coming down on the Revenge, becalmed her sails so completely that she could neither make way nor obey the helm. The enemy carried three tier of guns on each side, and discharged eight foreright from her chase, besides those of her stern ports. At the moment Sir Richard was thus entangled, four other galleons loofed up and boarded him, two on his larboard and two on his starboard. The close fight began at three in the afternoon, and continued, with some slight intermission, for fifteen hours, during which time, Grenville, unsupported, sustained the reiterated attacks of fifteen Spanish ships, the rest not being able to engage in close fire. The unwieldy San Philip, having received a broadside from the lower tier of the Revenge, shifted with all speed, and avoided the repetition of such a salute; but still, as one was beaten off, another supplied the vacant space. Two galleons were sunk, and two others so handled as to lie complete wrecks upon the water; yet it was evident no human power could save Sir Richard's vessel. Although wounded in the beginning of the action, its brave commander refused, for eight hours, to leave the upper deck. He was then shot through the body, and as his wound was dressing he received another musket ball, and saw the surgeon slain at his side. Such was the state of things during the night; but the darkness concealed the full extent of the calamity. As the day broke, a melancholy spectacle presented itself. 'Now,' says Raleigh, 'was to be seen nothing but the naked hull of a ship, and that almost a skeleton, having received eight hundred shot of great artillery, and some under water; her deck covered with the limbs and carcasses of forty valiant men, the rest all wounded, and painted with their own blood; her masts beat overboard; all her tackle cut asunder; her upper works raised and level with the water, and she herself incapable of receiving any direction or motion except that given her by the heaving billows.' At this moment Grenville proposed to sink the vessel, and trust to the mercy of God rather than fall into the hands of the Spaniards--a resolution in which he was joined by the master gunner and a part of the crew; but the rest refused to consent, and compelled their captain to surrender. Faint with the loss of blood, and, like his ship, shattered with repeated wounds, this brave man soon after expired, with these remarkable words: 'Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen, religion, and honor.'"--_Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of the Azores_, 4to, 1501, quoted in Tytler's "Life of Raleigh."

No. LXI.

"Pocahontas, before her marriage, was instructed in the principles of the Christian religion, which she cordially embraced, and was baptized by the name of Rebecca. Soon after, she set sail to visit England. As soon as Smith heard of her arrival, he sent a letter to the queen, recounting all her services to himself and to the nation, assuring her majesty that she had a great spirit, though a low stature, and earnestly soliciting her majesty's kindness and courtesy. Mrs. Rolfe was accordingly introduced, and well received at court. At first James fancied that Rolfe, in marrying her, might be advancing a claim to the crown of Virginia; however, by great pains, this idea was at last driven out of his brains. Mrs. Rolfe was for some time, as a novelty, the favorite object in the circles of fashion and nobility. On her introduction into these, she deported herself with a grace and propriety which, it is said, many ladies, bred with every advantage of education and society, could not equal. Purchas mentions meeting her at the table of his patron, Dr. King, bishop of London, where she was entertained 'with festival state and pomp,' beyond what, at his hospitable board, was shown to other ladies. She carried herself as the daughter of a king, and was respected as such. She was accompanied by Vitamokomakkin, an Indian chief and priest, who had married one of her sisters, and had been sent to attend her. Purchas saw him repeatedly 'sing and dance his diabolical measures.' He endeavored to persuade this chief to follow the example of his sister-in-law, and embrace Christianity, but found him 'a blasphemer of what he knew not, preferring his God to ours.' He insisted that their _Okee_, having taught them to plant, sow, and wear a cork twisted round their left ear, was entitled to their undivided homage. Powhatan had instructed him to bring back every information respecting England, and particularly to count the number of people, furnishing him for that purpose with a bundle of sticks, that he might make a notch for every man. Vitamokomakkin, the moment he landed at Plymouth, was appalled at the magnitude of the task before him; however, he continued notching most indefatigably all the way to London; but the instant that he entered Piccadilly, he threw away the sticks, and on returning, desired Powhatan to count the leaves on the trees, and the sand on the sea-shore. He also told Smith that he had special instructions to see the English god, their king, their queen, and their prince. Smith could do nothing for him as to the first particular; but he was taken to the levee, and saw the other three, when he complained bitterly that none of them had made him any present. As soon as Smith learned that Pocahontas was settled in a house at Brentford, which she had chosen in order to be out of the smoke of London, he hastened to wait upon her. His reception was very painful. The princess turned from him, hid her face, and for two hours could by no effort be induced to utter a word. A certain degree of mystery appears to hang on the origin of this deadly offense. Her actual reproaches, when she found her speech, rested on having heard nothing of him since he left Virginia, and on having been assured there that he was dead. Prevost has taken upon him to say that the breach of plighted love was the ground of this resentment, and that it was only on believing that death had dissolved the connection between them that she had been induced to marry another. I can not in any of the original writers meet with the least trace of this alleged vow, and should be sorry to find in Smith the false lover of the fair Pocahontas. It would not also have been much in unison with her applauded discretion to have resented a wrong of this nature in such a time and manner. I am persuaded that this love was a creation of the romantic brain of Prevost, and that the real ground of her displeasure was, that during the two years when she was so shamefully kept in durance, she had heard nothing of any intercession made in her favor by one whom she had laid under such deep obligation, and really the thing seems to require some explanation. It appears that when Smith at last was able to draw speech from the indignant fair one, he succeeded in satisfying her that there had been no such neglect as she apprehended, and she insisted on calling him by the name of father.

"It is said that Pocahontas departed from London with the most favorable impressions, and with every honor, her husband being appointed Secretary and Recorder General of Virginia. But Providence had not destined that she should ever revisit her native shore. As she went down to embark at Gravesend she was seized with illness, and died in a few days. Her end is described to have edified extremely all the spectators, and to have been full of Christian resignation and hope."--Murray's _America_. See Smith, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii., p. 120-123; Beverley; Prevost, _Hist. Gen. des Voyages_, vol. xiv., p. 471; Purchas, vol. iv., 1774.

No. LXII.

"The historians of Virginia have left some records respecting this unfortunate race, who have not even left behind a relic of their name or nation. A rude agriculture, devolved solely on the women; hunting, pursued with activity and skill, but rather as a pastime than a toil; strong attachment of the members of the little communities to each other, but deadly enmity against all their neighbors, and this manifesting itself in furious wars--these features belong to the Virginians, in common with almost every form of savage life. There are others which are more distinctive. Although a rude independence has been supposed to be, and in many cases is, the peculiar boast of the savage, yet, when a yoke of opinion and authority has once been established over his mind, he yields a submission more entire and more blind than is rendered to the most absolute of Eastern despots. Such a sway had the King of Virginia. 'When he listeth,' says Smith, 'his will is a law, and must be obeyed; not only as a king, but as half a god they esteem him. What he commandeth they dare not disobey in the least thing. It is strange to see with what great fear and adoration all this people do adore this Powhatan; at the least frown of his brow their greatest spirits will tremble with fear.' Powhatan (father of the celebrated Pocahontas; see Appendix, No. LXI.) had under him a number of chiefs, who ruled as supreme within their own circle; and they were so numerous, and covered so large an extent of territory, that Powhatan is often dignified by Europeans with the title of emperor.

"The priests and conjurers formed a separate order, and enjoyed that high influence which marks a certain advance in the social state. They possessed some knowledge of nature, and of the history and traditions of their country, superior, at least, to that of their ruder countrymen. Their temples were numerous, formed on a similar plan to those of Florida, and each served by one or more priests.

"Beverley was the man who made the most close inquiry into the Virginian mythology. He did not meet with all the success he wished, finding them excessively mysterious on the subject. Having got hold, however, of an intelligent Indian, and plied him heartily with strong cider, he at last got him to open his heart in some degree. As he declared his belief in a wise, perfect, and supremely beneficent being, who dwelt in the heavens, Beverley asked him how then he could confine his worship to the devil, a wicked, ugly, earthly being. The Indian said that they were secure as to the good being, who would shower down his blessings without asking any return; but that the evil spirit was perpetually busy and meddling, and would spoil all if court were not paid to him. Beverley, however, pressed upon him how he could think that an insensible log, 'a helpless thing, equipped with a burden of clouts,' could ever be a proper object of worship. The visage of the Indian now assumed a very marked and embarrassed expression. After a long pause, he began to utter, in broken sentences, 'It is the priests;' then, after another pause, 'It is the priests;' but 'a qualm crossed his conscience,' and he would say no more.

"Beverley had been so well informed upon this last point, in consequence of a favorable accident of which he had availed himself. While the whole town were assembled to deliberate upon some great state affair, he was ranging the woods, and stumbled upon their great temple. He resolved not to lose so favorable an occasion. After removing about fourteen logs, with which the door was barricadoed, he entered the mansion, which appeared at first to consist only of a large, empty, dark apartment, with a fire-place in the middle, and set round with posts, crowned with carved or painted heads. On closer observation, he at length discovered a recess, with mats hung before it, and involved in the deepest darkness. With some hesitation he ventured into this wondrous sanctuary, where he found the materials, which, on being put together, made up Okee, Kiwasee, or Mioceos, the mighty Indian idol. The main body consisted of a large plank, to whose edges were nailed half hoops, to represent the breast and belly. Long rolls of blue and red cotton cloth, variously twisted, made arms and legs, the latter of which were represented in a bent position. The reputation of the god was chiefly supported by the very dim religious light under which he was viewed, and which enabled also the conjurer to get behind him, and move his person in such a manner as might be favorable to the extension of his influence, while the priest in front, by the most awful menaces, deterred any from approaching so near as might lead to any revelation of the interior mysteries.

"Smith alleges against the Virginians that they made a yearly sacrifice of a certain number of children; but it appears clear, from the statements of Beverley, that he misunderstood, in this sense, the practice of _huskenawing_, a species of severe probation through which those were required to pass who desired either to be chiefs or priests. On this occasion, after various preparatory ceremonies, the children are led naked through two lines of men, armed with bastinadoes, which are employed with great rigor against the victims, who, after running through this gauntlet, are more dead than alive, and are covered with boughs and leaves of trees. If any expire under this trial, it is esteemed that the Okee has fixed his heart upon him, and carried him off. The rest are conveyed into the depths of a wood, and shut up into a cage or pen, where they are plied with intoxicating drugs till they are said to become for several weeks actually deranged. By this process they are supposed completely to lose all memory of what they have seen and known in their former life, and to begin a new and brighter era. They must not, on their return home, recognize their nearest friends or comrades, the most common objects, nor even know a word of their own language; all must be learned afresh. If any indications of memory escape, the youth must pass again through the dreadful ordeal. Above all, he must be careful not to have retained the slightest recollection of any property he may have possessed, and which the neighbors usually consider a favorable opportunity to appropriate.

"These Indians had not the least tincture of science, nor, of course, used any form of writing. They made, however, paintings of animals and other natural objects, by the form and natural position of which information was transmitted; but it is to be regretted that none of the Virginian paintings have been preserved to compare with those of the Mexicans."--Murray's _America_, vol. i., p. 235. See _History of Virginia_, by R. Beverley, a native and inhabitant of the place. 8vo. London, 1702.

No. LXIII.

The following is Hennepin's account of the voyage of the first vessel built by Europeans on the American lakes:

"It now became necessary for La Salle, in furtherance of his object, to construct a vessel above the Falls of Niagara sufficiently large to transport the men and goods necessary to carry on a profitable trade with the savages residing on the Western lakes. On the 22d of January, 1679, they went six miles above the falls to the mouth of a small creek, and there built a dock convenient for the construction of their vessel.[229]

"On the 26th of January, the keel and other pieces being ready, La Salle requested Father Hennepin to drive the first bolt, but the modesty of the good father's profession prevented.

"During the rigorous winter La Salle determined to return to Fort Frontenac;[230] and leaving the dock in charge of an Italian named Chevalier Tuti, he started, accompanied by Father Hennepin, as far as Lake Ontario; from thence he traversed the dreary forests to Frontenac on foot, with only two companions and a dog, which drew his baggage on a sled, subsisting on nothing but parched corn, and even that failed him two days' journey from the fort. In the mean time, the building of the vessel went on under the suspicious eyes of the neighboring savages, although the most part of them had gone to war beyond Lake Erie. One of them, feigning intoxication, attempted the life of the blacksmith, who defended himself successfully with a red-hot bar of iron. The timely warning of a friendly squaw averted the burning of their vessel on the stocks, which was designed by the savages. The workmen were almost disheartened by frequent alarms, and would have abandoned the work had they not been cheered by the good father, who represented the great advantage their perseverance would afford, and how much their success would redound to the glory of God. These and other inducements accelerated the work, and the vessel was soon ready to be launched, though not entirely finished. Chanting Te Deum, and firing three guns, they committed her to the river amid cries of joy, and swung their hammocks in security from the wild beasts and still more dreaded Indians.

"When the Senecas returned from their expedition they were greatly astonished at the floating fort, 'which struck terror among all the savages who lived on the great lakes and river within 1500 miles.' Hennepin ascended the river in a bark canoe with one of his companions as far as Lake Erie. They twice pulled the canoe up the rapids, and sounded the lake for the purpose of ascertaining the depth. He reported that with a favorable north or northwest wind the vessel could ascend to the lake, and then sail without difficulty over its whole extent. Soon after, the vessel was launched in the current of Niagara, about four and a half miles from the lake. Hennepin left it for Fort Frontenac, and, returning with La Salle and two other fathers, Gabriel and Zenobe Mambre, anchored in the Niagara on the 30th of July, 1769. On the 4th of August they reached the dock where the ship was built, which he calls distant eighteen miles from Lake Ontario, and proceeded from thence in a bark canoe to their vessel, which they found at anchor three miles from the 'beautiful Lake Erie.'

"The vessel was of sixty tons burden, completely rigged, and found with all the necessaries, arms, provisions, and merchandise; it had seven small pieces of cannon on board, two of which were of brass. There was a griffin flying at the jib-boom, and an eagle above. There were also all the ordinary ornaments and other fixtures which usually grace a ship of war.

"They endeavored many times to ascend the current of the Niagara into Lake Erie without success, the wind not being strong enough. While they were thus detained La Salle employed a few of his men in clearing some land on the Canadian shore opposite the vessel, and in sowing some vegetable seeds for the benefit of those who might inhabit the place.

"At length, the wind being favorable, they lightened the vessel by sending most of the crew on shore, and with the aid of their sails and ten or a dozen men at the tow-lines, ascended the current into Lake Erie. Thus, on the 7th of August, 1679, the first vessel set sail on the untried waters of Lake Erie. They steered southward after having chanted their never-failing Te Deum, and discharged their artillery in the presence of a vast number of Seneca warriors. It had been reported to our voyagers that Lake Erie was full of breakers and sandbanks, which rendered a safe navigation impossible; they therefore kept the lead going, sounding from time to time.

"After sailing without difficulty through Lake Erie, they arrived on the 11th of August at the mouth of the Detroit River, sailing up which they arrived at Lake St. Clair, to which they gave the name it bears. After being detained several days by contrary winds at the bottom of the St. Clair River, they at length succeeded in entering Lake Huron on the 23d of August, chanting Te Deum through gratitude for a safe navigation thus far. Passing along the eastern shore of the lake, they sailed with a fresh and favorable wind until evening, when the wind suddenly veered, driving them across Saginaw Bay (Sacinaw). The storm raged until the 24th, and was succeeded by a calm, which continued until next day noon (25th), when they pursued their course until midnight. As they doubled a point which advanced into the lake, they were suddenly struck by a furious wind, which forced them to run behind the cape for safety. On the 26th the violence of the storm compelled them to send down their top-masts and yards and to stand in, for they could find neither anchorage nor shelter.

"It was then the stout heart of La Salle failed him; the whole crew fell upon their knees to say their prayers and prepare for death, except the pilot, whom they could not compel to follow their example, and who, on the contrary, 'did nothing all that time but curse and swear against M. la Salle, who had brought him thither to make him perish in a nasty lake, and lose the glory he had acquired by his long and happy navigation on the ocean.' On the 27th, favored with less adverse winds, they arrived during the night at Michillimackinack, and anchored in the bay, where they report six fathoms of water and a clay bottom. This bay is protected on the southwest, west, and northwest, but open to the south. The savages were struck dumb with astonishment at the size of their vessel and the noise of their guns.

"Here they regaled themselves on the delicious trout, which they described as being from 50 lbs. to 60 lbs. in weight, and as affording the savages their principal subsistence. On the 2d of September they left Mackinack, entered Lake Michigan (Illinois), and sailed forty leagues to an island at the mouth of the Bay of Puara (Green Bay). From this place La Salle determined to send back the ship laden with furs to Niagara. The pilot and five men embarked in her, and on the 10th she fired a gun and set sail on her return with a favorable wind. Nothing more was heard from her, and she undoubtedly foundered in Lake Huron, with all on board. Her cargo was rich, and valued at 60,000 livres.

"Thus ended the first voyage of the first ship that sailed over the Western lakes. What a contrast is presented between the silent waves and unbroken forests which witnessed the course of that adventurous bark, and the busy hum of commerce which now rises from the fertile bottoms, and the thousand ships and smoking palaces which now furrow the surface of those inland seas!"--_American Tourist._

[Footnote 229: There can be but little doubt that the place they selected for building their bark was the mouth of the Cayuga Creek, about six miles above the falls. Governor Cuss says "the vessel was launched at Erie;" Schoolcraft, in his Journal, says, "near Buffalo;" and the historian Bancroft locates the site at the mouth of Tonawanda Creek. Hennepin says the mouth of the creek was two leagues above the great falls; the mouth of the Tonawanda is more than twice that distance, and the Cayuga is the only stream that answers to that description.]

[Footnote 230: Now Kingston, Canada.]

No. LXIV.

MILITIA OF CANADA BEFORE THE CONQUEST IN 1760.

"All the inhabitants of the colony, by virtue of the Law of Fiefs (except such gentlemen and other persons who, by their employments, had the privilege of nobles), were militia-men, and enrolled in the several companies of militia of the province. The captains of militia were the most respectable persons in the country parishes, and were entitled to the first seat in the churches; they also received the same distinctions as the magistrates in the towns; they were held in great respect, and government exacted from the inhabitants obedience to the orders they signified to them on the part of government. If any of the inhabitants did not obey orders, the captains were authorized to conduct them to the city, and, on complaint, they were punished according to the nature of the delinquency. When the government wanted the services of the militia as soldiers, the colonels of militia, or the town majors, in consequence of a requisition from the governor general, sent orders to the several captains of militia in the country parishes to send a certain number of militia-men, chosen by those officers who ordered the draughts, into town, under an escort commanded by an officer of militia, who conducted them to the town major, who furnished each militia-man with a gun, a capot or Canadian cloak, a cotton shirt, a cap, a pair of leggins, a pair of Indian shoes, and a blanket; after which they were marched to the garrison to which they were destined. The militia were generally reviewed once or twice a year to inspect their arms. The militia of the city of Quebec were frequently exercised, and the company of artillery every Sunday were exercised at the great gun practice, under the orders and directions of the artillery sergeant major of the king's troops. To excite the emulation of the militia-men, a premium was given to such as excelled. The captains in the country were obliged to execute all orders addressed to them by the governor general, and also all processes from the intendant respecting the police, and also with regard to suits touching fiefs. They were also obliged to execute all orders respecting the roads from the grand voyer. It was customary for the governor general to deliver to the several captains of militia every year, by way of gratification, a quantity of powder and ball."--General Murray's _Report_.

No. LXV.

"When the French began their settlements in Canada, the country exhibited one vast and unbounded forest, and property was granted in extensive lots called _seigneuries_, stretching along either coast of the St. Lawrence for a distance of ninety miles below Quebec, and thirty miles above Montreal, comprehending a space of three hundred miles in length.

"The _seigneuries_ each contain 100 to 500 square miles, and are parceled out into small tracts on a freehold lease to the inhabitants, as the persons to whom they were granted had not the means of cultivating them. These consisted of officers of the army, of gentlemen, and of communities, who were not in a state to employ laborers and workmen. The portion to each inhabitant was of three acres in breadth, and from seventy to eighty in depth, commencing on the banks of the river, and running back into the woods, thus forming an entire and regular lot of land.

"To the proprietors of _seigneuries_ some powers, as well as considerable profits, are attached. They are by their grants authorized to hold courts and sit as judges in what is termed _haute_ and _basse justice_, which includes all crimes committed within their jurisdiction, treasons and murders excepted. Few, however, exercised this privilege except the ecclesiastical seigneurs of Montreal, whose right of jurisdiction the King of France purchased from them, giving them, in return, his _droit de change_. Some of the seigneurs have a right of villain service from their tenants.

"At every transfer or mutation of proprietor, the new purchaser is bound to pay a sum equal to a fifth part of the purchase money to the seigneur or to the king; but if this fine be paid immediately, only one third of the fifth is demanded. This constituted a principal part of the king's revenues in the province. When an estate falls by inheritance to a new possessor, he is by law exempted from the fine.

"The income of a seigneur is derived from the yearly rent of his lands, from _lots et vents_, or a fine on the disposal of property held under him, and from grist mills, to whose profits he has an exclusive right. The rent paid by each tenant is considerable; but they who have many inhabitants on their estates enjoy a tolerably handsome revenue, each person paying in money, grain, or other produce, from five to twelve livres _per annum_. In the event of a sale of any of the lots of his _seigneurie_, a proprietor may claim a preference of repurchasing it, which is seldom exercised but with a view to prevent frauds in the disposal of the property. He may also, whenever he finds it necessary, cut down timber for the purpose of building mills and making roads; tithes of all the fisheries on his domain likewise belong to him.

"Possessed of these advantages, seigneurs might in time attain to a state of comparative affluence were their estates allowed to remain entire. But by the practice of divisions among the different children of a family, they become, in a few generations, reduced. The most ample share, which retains the name of _seigneurie_, is the portion of eldest son; the other partitions are denominated _feofs_. These are, in the next generation, again subdivided, and thus, in the course of a few descents, a seigneur is possessed of little more than his title. This is the condition of most of those estates that have passed to the third or fourth generation.

"The inhabitants, in like manner, make divisions of their small tracts of land, and a house will sometimes belong to several proprietors. It is from these causes that they are in a great measure retained in a state of poverty, that a barrier to industry and emulation is interposed, and that a spirit of litigation is excited.

"There are in Canada upward of 100 _seigneuries_, of which that of Montreal, belonging to the seminary of St. Sulpicius, is the richest and most productive. The next in value and profit is the territory of the Jesuits. The members of that society who resided at Quebec were, like the priests of Montreal, only agents for the head of their community. But since the expulsion of their order from France, and the seizure by the Catholic sovereigns of Europe of all the lands of that society within their dominions, the Jesuits in Canada held their _seigneurie_ in their own right.

"Some of the domiciliated savages held also in the province land in the right of seigneurs.

"Upon a representation of the narrow circumstances to which many of the _noblesse_ and gentlemen of the colony were reduced, not only by the causes already assigned, but by others equally powerful, Louis XIV. was induced to permit persons of that description to carry on commerce by sea or land without being subjected to any inquiry on this account, or to an imputation of their having derogated from their rank in society.

"To no _seigneurie_ is the right of patronage to the Church attached; it was upon the advancement of the pretensions of some seigneurs, founded on their having built parochial churches, that the king in 1685 pronounced in council that this right should belong to the bishop, he being the most capable of judging concerning the qualifications of persons who were to serve, and the incomes of the curacies also being paid from the tithes, which belonged to him alone. The right of patronage was at the same time declared not to be reputed an honor."--Heriot's _Canada_, p. 98.

No. LXVI.

"Louis Joseph, marquis de Montcalm de St. Veran, lieutenant general, naquit au chateau de Candiac, pres de Nimes, en 1712. Sa famille, originaire du Ronerque, joint ordinairement a son nom celui de Gozon.[231] L'education du Marquis de St. Veran fut confiee, ainsi que celle de son frere aine, enfant celebre,[232] aux soins de Dumas, l'inventeur du bureau typographique. Quoiqu'il fut sorti a l'age de quatorze ans des mains de cet habile instituteur, pour entrer dans la carriere militaire, il avoit si bien profite de ses lecons qu'il conserva le gout de l'etude jusque dans le tumulte des camps; et l'etendue de ses connaissances justifia son ambition et son esperance d'etre admis a l'Academie Royale des inscriptions et belle-lettres de Paris. Il ne vecut pas assez pour jouir de cette honneur.

"Sa vie militaire a jette un grand eclat. Il se distingua des les premiers pas dans la carriere, recut trois blessures a la bataille de Plaisance, et deux au funeste combat d'Exilles (ou de l'Assiette).[233] Il etoit alors colonel d'infanterie. Devenue brigadier il passa dans la cavalerie et fut fait mestre-de-camp d'un regiment de son nom. Marechal-de-camp en 1756 il alla commander en chef les troupes chargees de la defense des colonies Francaises dans l'Amerique Septentrionale."-_Biographie Universelle_, art. Montcalm.

The French troops that served in Canada, being desirous of erecting a monument in honor of Montcalm, their general, who fell in the action at Quebec, when we also lost the brave Wolfe, a French colonel wrote to the Academy of Belles-Lettres for an epitaph to be placed over Montcalm's tomb, in a church in that city, which occasioned the following letter from M. de Bougainville, member of the academy, to Mr. Pitt:

"Sir,--The honors paid, under your ministry, to Mr. Wolfe, assure me that you will not disapprove of the grateful endeavors of the French troops to perpetuate the memory of the Marquis de Montcalm. The body of their general, who was honored by the regret of your nation, is interred in Quebec. I have the honor to send you an epitaph made for him by the Academy of Inscriptions. I beg the favor of you, sir, that you will be pleased to examine it, and, if not improper, obtain leave for me to send it to Quebec, engraved on marble, and to be placed on the Marquis de Montcalm's tomb. Should such leave be granted, may I presume, sir, that you will be so good as to inform me of it, and at the same time to send me a passport, that the marble, with the epitaph engraved upon it, may be received into an English ship, and Mr. Murray, governor of Quebec, allow it to be placed in the Ursuline Church. You will be pleased, sir, to pardon me for this intrusion on your important occupations; but endeavoring to immortalize illustrious men and eminent patriots is doing honor to yourself.

"I am, with respect, &c.,

DE BOUGAINVILLE."[234]

Mr. Pitt's answer:

"Sir,--It is a real satisfaction to me to send you the king's consent on a subject so affecting as the epitaph composed by the Academy of Inscriptions at Paris for the Marquis de Montcalm, and which it is desired may be sent to Quebec, engraved on marble, to be placed on the tomb of that illustrious soldier. It is perfectly beautiful; and the desire of the French troops which served in Canada to pay such a tribute to the memory of their general, whom they saw expire at their head in a manner worthy of them and himself, is truly noble and praiseworthy.

"I shall take a pleasure, sir, in facilitating every way such amiable intentions; and on notice of the measures taken for shipping this marble, I will not fail immediately to transmit you the passport you desire, and send directions to the governor of Quebec for its reception.

"I withal beg of you, sir, to be persuaded of my just sensibility of that so obliging part of the letter with which you have honored me relating to myself, and to believe that I embrace as a happiness the opportunity of manifesting the esteem and particular regard with which I have the honor to be, &c.,

W. PITT

"_London, April 10th, 1761_."

The epitaph was as follows:

Utroque in orbe aeternum victurus, Ludovicus Josephus de Montcalm Gozon, Marchio Sancti Verani, Baro Gebriaci, Ordinis sancti Ludovici commendator, Legatus generalis exercituum Gallicorum; Egregius et civis et miles, Nullius rei appetens praeterquam verae laudis, Ingenio felici, et literis exculto; Omnes militiae gradus per continua decora emensus, Omnium belli artium, temporum, discriminum gnarus, In Italia, in Bohemia, in Germania Dux industrius. Mandata sibi ita semper gerens ut majoribus par haberetur. Jam clarus periculus Ad tutandam Canadensem provinciam missus, Parva militum manu hostium copias non semel repulit, Propuguacula cepit viris armisque instructissima. Algoris, inediae, vigiliarum, laboris patiens, Suis unice prospiciens, immemor sui, Hostis acris, victor mansuetus. Fortunam virtuti, virium inopiam peritia et celeritate compensavit; Imminens coloniae fatum et consilio et manu per quadrimum sustinuit, Tandem ingentum exercitum duce strenuo et audaci, Classemque omni bellorum mole gravem, Multiplici prudentia diu ludificatus, Vi pertractus ad dimicandum, In prima acie, in primo conflictu vulneratus, Religioni quam semper coluerat innitens, Magno suorum desiderio, nec sine hostium moerore, Extinctus est Die xiv. Sept., A.D. MDCCLIX., aetat. XLVIII. Mortales optimi ducis exuvias in excavata humo, Quam globus bellicus decidens dissiliensque defoderat, Galli lugentes deposuerunt, Et generosae hostium fidei commemdarunt.

TRANSLATION.

Here lieth, In either hemisphere to live forever, Lewis Joseph de Montcalm Gozon, Marquis of St. Veran, Baron of Gabriac, Commendatory of the Order of St. Louis, Lieutenant general of the French army; Not loss an excellent citizen than soldier, Who knew no desire but that of true glory; Happy in a natural genius, improved by literature, Having gone through the several steps of military honors With uninterrupted luster, Skill'd in all the arts of war, The juncture of times, and the crisis of dangers, In Italy, in Bohemia, in Germany, An indefatigable general. He so discharged his important trusts, That he seemed always equal to still greater. At length, grown bright with perils, Sent to secure the province of Canada, With a handful of men He more than once repulsed the enemy's forces, And made himself master of their forts, Replete with troops and ammunition. Inured to cold, hunger, watchings, and labors, Unmindful of himself, He had no sensation but for his soldiers; An enemy with the fiercest impetuosity, A victor with the tenderest humanity. Adverse fortune he compensated with valor, The want of strength with skill and activity, And, with his counsel and support, For four years protracted the impending fate of the colony. Having with various artifices Long baffled a great army, Headed by an expert and intrepid commander, And a fleet furnished with all warlike stores, Compelled at length to an engagement, He fell, in the first rank, in the first onset, With those hopes of religion which he had always cherished, To the inexpressible loss of his own army, And not without the regret of the enemy's, XIV. September, A.D. MDCCLIX., of his age XLVIII. His weeping countrymen Deposited the remains of their excellent general In a grave, Which a fallen bomb in bursting had excavated for him, Recommending them to the generous faith of their enemies.

--_Annual Register_, 1762.

[Footnote 231: "La famille de Montcalm joint ordinairement a son nom celui de Gozon, sons lequel elle s'illustra au quatorzieme siecle; le grand-maitre de l'ordre de St. Jean de Jerusalem, qui obtint cette dignite pour avoir delivre l'ile de Rhodes d'un dragon qui la ravageoit. Les grans bois de la terre de Gozon, vendu domainalement, portent encore le nom de dragonnieres, d'apres la tradition que c'est la que le chevalier Dieu Donne exercoit ses chiens a la poursuite d'un dragon artificiel avant d'attaquer celui que desoloit l'ile de Gozon. La meme tradition de la famille Montcalm a conserve le nom du fidele domestique qui accompagna ce heros; il se nomma Roustan. On grava sur son tombeau cette courte inscription, 'Draconia Extinctor.' Plusieurs critiques ont cherche a jeter des doutes sur le combat de Gozon. On peut voir dans le Dictionnaire de Chaufepie, les raisons qu'on leur oppose, tirees de l'existence de serpents monstreux, prouvee par l'accord des historiens anciens, et par les recits des voyageurs, comme par le temoignage des monuments contemporains, des Chroniques de l'Ordre de Malte, et enfin d'une tapisserie sur laquelle est represente le memorable combat de Gozon."--_Biographie Universelle_, art. Gozon.]

[Footnote 232: "Le frere aine de Montcalm, Jean Louis Pierre Elizabeth de Montcalm de Candiac, etoit un enfant celebre, qui attira l'attention et les hommages des savants a Nimes, a Montpellier, a Grenoble, a Lyons, a Paris. Sa vie n'eut que sept ans de duree, et cependant outre sa langue maternelle qu'il connoissait par principes, il avoit des notions assez avancees de Latin, de Grec, et d'Hebreu, il possedoit toute l'arithmetique, savoit la fable, le blason, la geographie et plusieurs parties importantes de l'histoire sacree et profane, ancienne et moderne. Il etoit l'eleve de Dumas aussi bien que son frere; sa mort fut causee par une hydropisie de cerveau."--_Biographie Universelle_, art. Candiac.]

[Footnote 233: "Le Comte de Belleisle avoit la promesse du baton de Marechal de France s'il reussissait de penetrer dans le coeur du Piemont avec l'armee du Dauphine. Le 19 Juillet, 1746, a la pointe du jour, il commenca l'attaque memorable et sanglante, ou tous les prodiges de la valeur Francaise furent vains. Quatorze bataillons Piemontais defendaient le col de l'Assiette qui couvroit, a la fois, Exilles et Fenestrelles. Desespere du mauvais succes d'une attaque desapprouvee par les generaux les plus experimentes, le Comte de Belleisle se mit a la tete des officiers de l'armee, dont il forma une colonne, et qui, presque tous, vinrent se faire tuer au pied des retranchemens. Blesse aux deux mains, Belleisle tachoit d'arracher les palisades avec les dents, lorsque il recut un coup mortel. Les Francois repousses et sans chef firent leur retraite sur Briancon."--_Biographie Universelle_, art. Belleisle.]

[Footnote 234: Jean Pierre de Bougainville was Secretary to the French Academy of Inscriptions. He died in 1763, at the age of forty-one, of asthma, brought on by intense application. His brother, Louis Antoine, the celebrated circumnavigator, who had been Montcalm's aide-de-camp, retired from the service in 1790. He was afterward made a count and a senator by Bonaparte, became member of the National Institute, and of the Royal Society of London. He died at Paris in 1811, at the age of eighty-two.]

No. LXVII.

MEMOIR OF GENERAL WOLFE.

James Wolfe was the second son of Colonel Edward Wolfe, who was afterward colonel of the 8th Regiment, and died on the 27th of March, 1759, but a short time before the death of his gallant son. Colonel Wolfe had served and won honorable estimation, under Marlborough in early life; on his return from the continental wars he married Miss Harriett Thompson, sister to the then member of Parliament for York. The inhabitants of that city made a vigorous effort to appropriate the honor of James Wolfe having been born among them, and a controversy in prose and verse, neither of them of a very brilliant description, was long carried on in the periodicals of the day, between the capital of the North and the quiet village of Westerham. Whatever the merits of the writers upon either side may have been, and their power of wit and argument, there were a few lines in the parish register of the Kentish hamlet which proved more convincing than any thing else; James, son of Colonel Edward Wolfe, was baptized on January 11th, 1727. On a tablet erected to his memory in Westerham Church, it is stated that he was born on the 2nd of January, 1727.

The vicarage house of the village was the place of Wolfe's birth, then leased to his father by the Reverend George Lewis, the vicar, whose son was vicar when Wolfe died, and wrote the inscription for his monument. The elder brother of this gallant general died young; he himself was sent to a respectable private school in the neighborhood, where, although an ardent and clever boy, he was not distinguished for any very remarkable characteristics.

When only fourteen years of age he embarked with his father, who was engaged in the expedition to Flanders under Lord Cathcart; the youth, however, who was then and always of a very delicate constitution, fell ill, and was under the necessity of being landed at Portsmouth. After a little time, his health being somewhat re-established, he joined his father on the Continent, and at once began to read the lessons of military art in the stern school of reality.

On the 3rd of November, 1741, Colonel Wolfe caused his youthful son to be appointed to a commission in a battalion of marines which he himself commanded. On the 27th of March, 1742, James Wolfe removed into the 12th Regiment as ensign, and fought at the battle of Dettingen in that same year. In April he appears to have been on leave, traveling probably for health; in this month he writes to his mother, dating Rome, a grateful and affectionate letter. On the 14th of July, 1743, he was promoted to a lieutenancy in the same regiment, while serving with the allies behind the Scheldt, and in 1744 was engaged under Wade in his inglorious operations; in that year he was given a company in the 4th Regiment; in the following, he fought under the Duke of Cumberland in the fatal but glorious battle of Fontenoy. Up to this time Wolfe had been with his regiment in every engagement in which it had taken part, and had already gained greater distinction than can usually fall to the lot of those in the junior ranks of the army. In 1746 he fought under Hawley in the front line at the disgraceful rout at Falkirk, and his conduct, even in that unfortunate occasion, called forth the praise of his superiors. In the same year his services were transferred to a service more worthy of his future fame than the obscure and painful struggles of a civil war; he served and gained new approbation under the gallant Ligonier at Liers.

On the 5th of February, 1746-7, he was raised to a majority in the 33d Regiment. This step of rank afforded new opportunity to this gallant youth; at the battle of La Feldt, in the same year, he distinguished himself in so remarkable a manner, that the British general-in-chief, the Duke of Cumberland, publicly thanked him on the battle-field. On the 5th of January, 1748-9, he removed into Lord George Sackville's, the 20th Regiment of Foot.

Wolfe commanded this regiment during the absence of the colonel for a considerable time, and soon brought it into a state of the highest discipline. Wherever he went, he received the praise of the different general officers commanding, and gained the esteem and regard of all who became acquainted with him in civil or military life. His regimental orders, which are still extant, are admirable, and furnish ample evidence of zeal for, and knowledge of, his profession.

In February, 1748-9, Wolfe served at Stirling, in Scotland; in April, at Glasgow; in October, at Perth. March 20th, 1749-50, he was made colonel of the regiment which he had for some time so admirably commanded; in October he was at Dundee, in November at Banff; and remained in Scotland till 1753, when he removed to Reading, where his regiment was reviewed and highly commended by the Duke of Cumberland. In December in that year he was at Dover Castle. In 1755 he was at Winchester and Southampton; at the end of October he marched to Gravesend, and in December to Canterbury. While in the south of England, he constantly practiced his regiment in such evolutions as might be necessary to oppose the landing of an invading army, and wrote an elaborate code of instructions, to be acted upon in case of any attempt being made upon the coast. At the same time, a number of his trained soldiers were withdrawn to fill up the ill-fated ranks of the 44th and 48th, then about to sail for America under Braddock, where many of them perished miserably and ingloriously.

Early in 1757, Lieutenant-colonel Wolfe was selected, on account of his known merit, by Mr. Pitt to serve as quarter-master general of the force sent against Rochefort, under Sir John Mordaunt, the general, and Sir Edward Hawke, the admiral. While the expedition lay motionless in Basque Roads, from the untoward dissensions between the naval and military officers, Wolfe landed one night alone upon the hostile shore, and walked two miles up the country. He found that there were no real difficulties in the way of debarkation, and that no preparations had been made to oppose it. When he returned to the fleet he reported the result of his observations, and strongly, but vainly, urged the general to land, and at once attack Rochefort. Finally, he pledged himself to carry the place, should three ships of war and 500 men be placed at his disposal. The proposal was neglected: however, the zeal and daring shown by the gallant young soldier on this occasion confirmed Pitt in the estimate which he had formed of his character. Some more days were wasted in inaction, and at length the expedition, having destroyed the unimportant fortifications of Aix, returned ingloriously to England. Wolfe's merit was thrown out in strong relief by the incapacity of those under whom he served; while they were despised, he was honored. The rank of brevet colonel on the 21st of October of that year was his first reward.

On the 23d of January, 1758, Mr. Pitt made Wolfe brigadier general, and gave him the command of a brigade under Amherst, in the expedition against Louisburg, disregarding the mere official routine of seniority. Events soon proved the wisdom of the selection. From thenceforward Wolfe's biography is English history. However, it may be added that he was made colonel of the 67th Foot on the 21st of April, 1758. In January, 1759, Pitt again selected him for service. This time he was to command in chief: he was gazetted as major general, and intrusted with the conduct of the arduous expedition against Quebec.

It is a painful duty to repeat here an anecdote of Wolfe, which stands recorded by the high authority of Lord Mahon. The young general dined with Mr. Pitt shortly after his appointment to the command, a third person only being present. After dinner, when the conversation turned upon the approaching expedition, Wolfe became unreasonably excited: he strode about the room, flourished his sword, and broke forth in a style of vaporing altogether surprising in a man of real spirit. When he at length departed, Mr. Pitt remained dismayed at having intrusted the fate of the country and of the ministry in such hands. Happily, he did not suffer new doubts to alter his former arrangements.

For some time Wolfe appears to have been unsuccessful in a suit which he pleaded to Miss Lowther, and, in consequence, his naturally domestic mind was re-strung to the harsher tones of ambition. Subsequently, however, he became engaged to this lady, and the marriage was to have been celebrated immediately on his return from the expedition against Quebec. After his death Miss Lowther became Duchess of Bolton, but tradition says that she always wore henceforth a pearl necklace which he had given her, covered with black velvet, in memory of the departed.

Wolfe was a plain man: his features were sharp, his forehead somewhat receding, his hair sandy or red, and, contrary to the fashion of the time, was not powdered; his skin was coarse, fair, and freckled; but his mouth wore a smiling and gentle expression, and his eyes were blue and benignant. He was delicate from early youth, and the seeds of fatal diseases were displayed in his constitution. At first his address and manner were unengaging, but he invariably endeared himself to all with whom he was familiar. All his thoughts and actions were influenced by a deep religious feeling. When a courtier remonstrated with the king upon Wolfe's appointment to command the expedition against Quebec, saying that "he was mad" (meaning that he was over-religious), the king replied, "If he be mad, I wish he would bite some of my other generals."

Wolfe was assiduously and conscientiously attentive to his profession, and was constitutionally and steadily daring. His mind was clear and active, his temper lively and almost impetuous; he was independent without pride, and generous to profusion. "He never caviled with his instructions, or hesitated to obey orders; exact in discipline himself, he was always punctual to obey. His judgment was acute, his memory quick and retentive, and his disposition candid, constant, and sincere. The union of the gentle and the bold, of ambition and affection, formed the peculiar charm of his character. His courage never quailed before danger, nor shrank from responsibility."

Little is known of Wolfe's private life. Dr. Southey contemplated the task of writing his biography, but abandoned it from the want of materials. To Lord Mahon and Mr. Gleig we are indebted for some very interesting particulars, and for a few judiciously selected portions of such of the hero's letters as are still extant. It only remains to conclude this imperfect memoir with a few of these selections.

On first assuming the command of a regiment, Wolfe writes, "I take upon me the difficult duty of a commander. It is a hard thing to keep the passions within bounds, where authority and immaturity go together. It is hard to be a severe disciplinarian, yet humane; to study the temper of all, and endeavor to please them, and yet be impartial--to discourage vice at the turbulent age of twenty-three."

His letters breathe a spirit of tenderness and gentleness, over which ambition could not triumph. In writing to his mother on the 28th of September, 1755, he says, "My nature requires some extraordinary events to produce itself. I want that attention and those assiduous cares that commonly go along with good nature and humanity. In the common occurrences of life I am not seen to advantage." So far back as the 13th of August, 1749, he writes also to his mother from Glasgow, "I have observed your instructions so rigidly that, rather than want the word, I got the reputation of being a very good Presbyterian by frequenting the Kirk of Scotland till our chapel opens." Again he writes to his mother from Inverness, November 6th, 1751, "There are times when men fret at trifles, and quarrel with their tooth-picks. In one of these ill habits I exclaim against my present condition, and think it the worst of all, but coolly and temperately, it is plainly the best. Where there is most employment and least vice, there should one wish most to be."

On the 18th of February, 1755, he writes to his father, "I find that your bounty and liberality keep pace, as they usually do, with my necessities. I shall not abuse your kindness, nor receive it unthankfully, and what use I make of it shall be for your honor and the king's service--an employment worthy of the hand that gives it." His amiable temper strongly inclined him, from an early age, to domestic life; in the letter, November 6th, 1751 (before quoted), he declares that he has "a turn of mind that favors matrimony prodigiously; I love children, and think them necessary to people in their later days." He, however, struggled with these wishes, and for a long time overcame them, from his ardent love of fame.

Of Wolfe's life we know but little; the waves of oblivion have closed over it, but the story of his death remains forever treasured in England's grateful memory.

"Annual Register," May, 1760.

Some gentlemen in the parish of Westerham, in Kent, have erected a plain monument to the late General Wolfe, in the inscription on which the extraordinary honor intended his memory by his sovereign is hinted at, and the impropriety of a more expensive monument in that place justly shown. The table is of statuary marble, beautifully executed by Mr. Lovel, near Cavendish Square.

JAMES, Son of Colonel Edward WOLFE, and Henrietta his wife, was born in this parish, January 2d, 1727, And died in America, September 13th, 1759.

"While George in sorrow bows his laurel'd head, And bids the artist grace the soldier dead, We raise no sculptured trophy to thy name, Brave youth! the fairest in the list of fame. Proud of thy birth, we boast th' auspicious year; Struck with thy fall, we shed a general tear; With humble grief inscribe one artless stone, And from thy matchless honors date our own." "I DECUS I NOSTRUM."[235]

"Annual Register," October, 1773.

On an oval tablet on front of the sarcophagus of General Wolfe's monument in Westminster Abbey, just opened, is the following inscription:

To the memory of JAMES WOLFE, Esq., Major General and Commander-in-Chief Of the British Land Forces On an expedition against Quebec, Who, Surmounting, by ability and valor, All obstacles of art and nature, Was slain, In the moment of Victory, At the head of his conquering troops, On the 13th of Sept., 1759, The King And the Parliament of Great Britain Dedicate this monument.

"Annual Register," 1762.

The Right Honorable the Earl Temple has lately dedicated a most magnificent building at Stowe, of the Ionic order, CONCORDIAE ET VICTORIAE.

In the pediment of the portico is a fine alto relievo, representing the four quarters of the world bringing gifts to Britain. In the portico, or ante-temple, two medallions, _Concordia foederatorum_, _Concordia civium_. Over the door, _Quo tempore salus corum in ultimas angustias deducta nullum ambitioni locum relinquebat_. In the inner temple, in a niche facing the entrance, the statue of BRITANNIA: over which, in a tablet, _Candidis autem animis voluptatum, praebuerint in conspicuo posita, quae cuique magnifica merito contigerunt_. On the walls, fourteen medallions, representing the taking of Quebec, Martinico, &c.; Louisburg, Guadeloupe, &c.; Montreal, &c.; Pondicherry, &c. Naval victory off Belleisle, naval victory off Lagas, Crevelt and Minden, Fellinghausen; Senegal and Gorce, Niagara and Crown Point, Beau Sejour and Fort du Quesne, Cherburg and Belleisle. On a hill at a distance, in a diagonal line, runs an obelisk above a hundred feet, inscribed

TO MAJOR-GENERAL WOLFE.

_Ostendunt Terris nunc tantum Fata._

[Footnote 235: Is in white marble letters, inlaid in a ground of black marble.]

No. LXVIII.

"Lord Howe always lay in his tent with the regiment which he commanded, while the rest of the army were quartered in the town and fort of Albany. This regiment he modeled in such a manner that they were ever after considered as an example to the whole American army. Lord Howe laid aside all pride and prejudice, and gratefully accepted council from those whom he knew to be the best qualified to direct him. Madame Schuyler was delighted with the calm steadiness with which he carried through the austere rules which he found it necessary to lay down. In the first place, he forbade all displays of gold and scarlet in the rugged march they were about to undertake, and set the example by wearing himself an ammunition coat, that is to say, one of the surplus soldiers' coats cut short. This was a necessary precaution, because, in the woods, the hostile Indians who started from behind the trees usually caught at the long and heavy skirts then worn by the soldiers; and, for the same reason, he ordered the muskets to be shortened, that they might not, as on former occasions, be snatched from behind by these agile foes. To prevent the march of his regiment from being descried at a distance by the glittering of their arms, the barrels of their guns were all blackened; and to save them from the tearing of bushes, the stings of insects, &c., he set them the example of wearing leggins, a kind of buskin made of strong woolen cloth. The greatest privation to the young and vain yet remained. Hair well dressed and in great quantity was then considered as the greatest possible ornament, which those who had it took the utmost care to display to advantage, and to wear in a bag or queue. Lord Howe's was very full and very abundant; he, however, cropped it, and ordered every one else to do the same.

"The austere regulations and constant self-denial which he imposed upon the troops he commanded were patiently borne, because he was not only gentle in his manners, but generous and humane in a very high degree, and exceedingly attentive to the health and real necessities of the soldiery. Among many instances of this, a quantity of powdered ginger was given to every man, and the sergeants were ordered to see that when, in the course of marching, the soldiers arrived hot and tired at the banks of any stream, they should not be permitted to stoop to drink, as they generally inclined to do, but be obliged to lift water in their canteens, and mix ginger with it. This became afterward a general practice, and in those aguish swamps through which the troops were forced to march, was the means of saving many lives. Aunt Schuyler, as this amiable young officer familiarly styled his maternal friend, had the greatest esteem for him, and the greatest hope that he would at some future time redress all those evils that had formerly impeded the service. The night before the march they had a long and serious conversation. In the morning Lord Howe proposed setting out very early; but, when he arose, was astonished to find Madame Schuyler waiting, and breakfast ready; he smiled, and said he would not disappoint her, as it was hard to say when he might again breakfast with a lady. Impressed with an unaccountable degree of concern about the fate of the enterprise in which he was embarked, she again repeated her counsels and her caution; and when he was about to depart, embraced him with the affection of a mother, and shed many tears, a weakness she did not often give way to. A few days after Lord Howe's departure, in the afternoon, a man was seen coming on horseback from the north, galloping violently, without his hat. Pedrom ran eagerly to inquire, well knowing he rode express. The man galloped on, crying out that Lord Howe was killed. Shrieks and sobs of anguish re-echoed through every part of the house."--_Letters of an American Lady_, vol. ii.; p. 73.

No. LXIX.

"Le troisieme de Juillet de cette annee Samuel de Champlain fonda la ville de Quebec, capitale de la Nouvelle France, sur la riviere septentrionale du fleuve St. Laurent a six-vingt lieues de la mer, entre une petite riviere qui porte le nom de St. Charles et un gros cap, qu'on appelle le Cap aux Diamans, parce qu'on y trouvoit alors quantite de diamans assez semblables a ceux d'Alencon."--_Fastes Chronologiques_, 1608.

"Cape Diamond abounds with very fine specimens of quartz, or rock crystals. I have myself, in walking on the banks of the river at the foot of the rocks, found many of them. They are discovered from the brilliancy of their reflecting surfaces: they sparkle like the diamond, and hence the place had its name. On examination, I have generally found that they are pentagons, terminating in a point, and possessing _naturally_ much of the brilliancy and polish of a cut diamond; and they are so hard, that, like a diamond, they cut glass."--_Gray's Canada_, p. 68.

"The mountain on which Quebec is built, and the hills along the River St. Lawrence, consist of it for some miles together on both sides of Quebec. About a yard from the surface this stone is quite compact, and without any cracks, so that one can not perceive that it is a slate, its particles being imperceptible. It lies in strata, which vary from three or four inches to twenty thick and upward. In the mountains on which Quebec is built the strata do not lie horizontal, but dipping, so as to be nearly perpendicular, the upper ones pointing northwest and the lower ones southeast. From hence it is, the corners of these strata always strike out at the corners into the streets, and cut the shoes in pieces. I have likewise seen some strata inclining to the northward, but rather perpendicular, as the former. The strata are divided by narrow cracks, which are commonly filled by fibrous white gypsum, which can sometimes be got loose with a knife, if the larger stratum of slate above it is broken in pieces; and in that case it has the appearance of a thin white leaf. The large cracks are almost filled up with transparent quartz crystals of different sizes. One part of the mountain contains great quantities of these crystals, from which the corner of the mountain which lies to S.S.E. of the palace has got the name of Pointe de Diamante, or Diamond Point."--Kalm, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii., p. 678.

No. LXX.

"The Cherokees are planters and farmers, tradespeople and mechanics. They have corn-fields and orchards, looms and work-shops, schools and churches, and orderly institutions. In 1824, when the population of the Cherokees was 15,560 persons, it included 1277 negroes; they had 18 schools, 36 grist-mills, 13 saw-mills, 762 looms, 2486 spinning-wheels, 172 wagons, 2923 plows, 7683 horses, 22,531 black cattle, 46,732 swine, 2546 sheep, 430 goats, 62 blacksmiths' shops, &c., with several public roads, and fences, and turnpikes. The natives carry on a considerable trade with the adjoining states, and some of them export cotton to New Orleans. A printing-press has been established for several years, and a newspaper, written partly in the English and partly in the Cherokee language, has been successfully carried on. This paper, called the _Cherokee Phoenix_, is written entirely by a Cherokee, a young man under thirty. The missionaries among them declare that the converts generally are very attentive to preaching, and very exemplary in their conduct. Public worship, conducted by native members of the church, is held in three or four places remote from the station. The pupils are making great progress at the schools. Many of them are leaving the schools with an education sufficient for life. New Echota is the seat of government of the Cherokees. The provisions of the Constitution are placed under six heads, divided into sections. The trial by jury is in full operation. The right of suffrage is universal; every free male citizen who has attained the age of eighteen years is entitled to vote at public elections."--Stuart's _Three Years in North America_, vol. ii., p. 143.

"The Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws certainly hold out a promise of the gradual attainment of civilization.... The recent invention of written characters by a full-blood Cherokee,[236] consisting of eighty-four signs expressing all the dominant sounds of that language, and the great number of half words among them, are both favorable to this change of life. The best proof that they are advancing from their savage state to a higher grade is, that their numbers increase, while almost all other tribes spread over the American continent far and near are known to diminish in numbers so rapidly that common observation alone would enable any one to predict their utter extinction before the lapse of many years."--Latrobe, _Rambler in America_, vol. i., p. 163.

The Stockbridge Indians (so called from Stockbridge, Massachusetts) are, upon the whole, considered to have made greater attainments in the useful arts of civilized life, and also in the Christian religion, than any other tribe of the aborigines. They heard the preaching of Brainard and Edwards, and have enjoyed Christian privileges and education with little interruption for more than ninety years. The Stockbridge Indians, and the Oneidas, under the celebrated Oneida half-blood Mr. Williams, were the principal of those unfortunate New York Indians who were persuaded, on the faith of solemn treaties, to leave their homes in New York and form new settlements among the wild Indian tribes beyond the Mississippi. One of the visitors to these new settlements, after the Indians had been a few years established there, thus describes the improvements they had effected in this remote wilderness: "On the east bank of Fox River they had in the course of some half dozen years reared a flourishing settlement; built houses and barns in the usual style of the white settlements under similar circumstances; cleaved away portions of the forest, and reduced their farms to an interesting state of improvement; organized and brought into solitary operation a political and civil economy; established schools, and in 1830 were building a very decent Christian church; had erected mills and machinery; exhibiting, in a word, a most interesting phasis of civilization, along with the purest morals under the simplest manners."--Colton's _Tour among the Northwest Indians_, vol. i., p. 203. This American writer is justly indignant at the cruel and dishonest policy of the American government in driving these unfortunate wanderers away from the new home solemnly promised them into the wild and dreary regions of the Far West, as soon as the settlement at Fox River was ascertained to possess sufficient natural advantages to entitle it to form a part of the Union.

[Footnote 236: "It is remarkable that a red Indian should have been able to accomplish that which no civilized societies have accomplished during thousands of years. He had already attained to manhood when he invented an alphabet of his own language, having no knowledge of any other. The idea of writing Cherokee struck him on hearing several whites boasting of their superiority over the Indians, and adding that they could do many things which the red man never dared attempt, particularly in committing to paper a conversation, so as to make it understood by all, even in the most distant parts. He determined to try if it was not possible. At first he saw no other chance of executing his project than to make a sign or figure for every sound, which he partly learned by heart himself, partly gave to his own family to learn and remember; but, after working at it a whole twelvemonth, he found that the number of signs already amounted to several thousands, and that it was impossible to retain them in the memory. He now began to divide the words into parts, and then discovered that the same syllables might be applied to a variety of words. Exulting in this discovery, he continued his exertions with unremitting zeal, and directed his attention particularly to the sounds, and thus discovered at last all the syllables in the language. After working upon this plan for a month, he had diminished the number of sounds to eighty-four, of which the language at present consists. He first wrote them on sand, afterward cut out the signs in wood, and finished by printing them such as they now are in the Cherokee Phoenix."--Arfwedson's _United States and Canada_.]

No. LXXI.

Articles of Capitulation demanded by M. de Ramsay, the king's lieutenant, commanding the high and low towns of Quebec, chief of the Military Order of St. Louis, to his excellency the general of the troops of his Britannic majesty.

"The capitulation demanded on the part of the enemy, and granted by their excellencies, Admiral Saunders and General Townshend, &c., &c., is in manner and form as hereafter expressed:

"I.M. de Ramsay demands the honors of war for his garrison, and that it shall be sent back to the army in safety, and by the shortest route, with arms, baggage, six pieces of brass cannon, two mortars or howitzers, and twelve rounds for each of them. The garrison of the town, composed of land forces, marines, and sailors, shall march out with their arms and baggage, drums beating, matches lighted, with two pieces of French cannon, and twelve rounds for each piece, and shall be embarked as conveniently as possible, to be sent to the first port in France.

"II. That the inhabitants shall be preserved in the possession of their houses, goods, effects, and privileges.--Granted, upon their laying down their arms.

"III. That the inhabitants shall not be accountable for having carried arms in the defense of the town, forasmuch as they were compelled to do it, and that the inhabitants of the colonies, of both crowns, equally serve as militia.--Granted.

"IV. That the effects of the absent officers and citizens shall not be touched.--Granted.

"V. That the inhabitants shall not be removed, nor obliged to quit their houses, until their condition shall be settled by their Britannic and most Christian majesties.--Granted.

"VI. That the exercise of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion shall be maintained, and that safeguards shall be granted to the houses of the clergy and to the mountaineers, particularly to his lordship the Bishop of Quebec, who, animated with zeal for religion, and charity for the people of his diocese, desires to reside in it constantly, to exercise freely, and with that decency which his character and the sacred offices of the Roman religion require, his episcopal authority in the town of Quebec, whenever he shall think proper, until the possession of Canada shall be decided by a treaty between their Britannic and most Christian majesties. The free exercise of the Roman religion is granted, likewise safeguards to all religions persons, as well as to the bishop, who shall be at liberty to come and exercise, freely and with decency, the functions of his office whenever he thinks proper, until the possession of Canada shall have been decided between their Britannic and most Christian majesties.

"VII. That the artillery and warlike stores shall be faithfully given up, and that an inventory of them shall be made out.--Granted.

"VIII. That the sick and wounded, the commissaries, chaplains, physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and other people employed in the service of the hospitals, shall be treated conformably to the cartel of the 6th of February, 1759, settled between their Britannic and most Christian majesties.--Granted.

"IX. That before delivering up the gate and the entrance of the town to the English troops, their general will be pleased to send some soldiers to be posted as safeguards upon the churches, convents, and principal habitations.--Granted.

"X. That the king's lieutenant commanding in Quebec shall be permitted to send information to the Marquis de Vaudreuil, governor general, of the reduction of the place, as also that the general may send advice thereof to the French ministry.--Granted.

"XI. That the present capitulation shall be executed according to its form and tenor, without being subject to non-execution under pretense of reprisals, or for the non-execution of any preceding capitulation.--Granted.

"Duplicates hereof, taken and executed by and between us, at the camp before Quebec, this 18th day of September, 1759.

"CHARLES SAUNDERS, GEORGE TOWNSHEND, DE RAMSAY."

No. LXXII

Extracts from "Lettres de M. le Marquis de Montcalm, G.G. en Canada, a MM. de Berryer et de la Mole, 1757-1759. Londres, 1777."

In 1757.--Letter 1. Montcalm informs M. de Berryer that he carries on a correspondence with the English planters by giving them a few prohibited articles. "They dupe their own people, who think they dupe us; their letters discover to me many curious political secrets. Our governors of Canada have neglected the only means of making the country prosperous ... another system is indispensable."

S.J., of Boston, writes to Montcalm, "The cause of your non-progress lies in the genius of your nation. Your governors were French gentlemen, hating and despising commerce--wealth, commerce, and strength are inseparable--your skeleton colony has lost more in a year than it can regain in ten. Your commerce with us ought to be free and unfettered.... We shall soon break with England for commercial reasons."

Montcalm observes on the foregoing, "Let us beware how we allow the establishment of manufactures in Canada; she would become proud and mutinous like the English. So long as France is a nursery to Canada, let not the Canadians be allowed to trade, but kept to their wandering, laborious life with the savages, and to their military exercises. They will be less wealthy, but more brave and more faithful to us.

"We may lose Canada--no great loss, if we keep some port in North America for fishing and trade.... The English settlers are as hostile to their mother country as to us. The state of their country is singular--not a city is fortified. The English governors often wished to fortify, but the people objected. If Canada be in the hands of an able (French) governor when the certain quarrel comes on, it will repay us for all former cost. England made a great mistake in not taxing these colonies from the first, even ever so little. If they now attempt it--revolt."

Letter from M. de Montcalm to M. de Mole, Premier President au Parliament de Paris, 1759:

"MONSIEUR ET CHER COUSIN,

"Me voici, depuis plus de trois mois, aux prises avec M. Wolfe: il ne cesse jour et nuit de bombarder Quebec, avec une furie qui n'a gueres d'example dans le siege d'une place qu'en veut prendre et conserver. Il a deja consume par le feu presque toute la basse ville, une grande partie de la haute est ecrasee par les bombes. Mais ne laissa-t-il pierre sur pierre, il ne viendra jamais a bout de s'emparer de cette capitale de la colonie, tandis qu'il se contentera de l'attaquer de la rive opposee, dont nous lui avons abandonne la possession. Aussi apres trois mois de tentative, n'est il pas plus avance dans son dessein qu'on premier jour. Il nous ruine, mais il ne s'enrichit pas. La campagne n'a gueres plus d'un mois a durer, a raison du voisinage de l'automne, terrible dans ces parages pour une flotte, par les coups de vent qui regnent constamment et periodiquement.

"Il semble qu'apres un si heureux prelude, la conservation de la colonie est presque assuree. Il n'en est cependant rien: la prise de Quebec depend d'un coup du main. Les Anglois sont maitres de la riviere: il n'ont qu'a effectuer une descente sur la rive, ou cette ville, sans fortifications et sans defense, est situee. Les voila en etat de me presenter la battaille, que je ne pourrai plus refuser, et que je ne devrai pas gagner. M. Wolfe, en effet, s'il entend son metier, n'a qu'a essuyer le premier feu, venir en suite a grand pas sur mon armee, faire a bout partant sa decharge, mes Canadiens, sans discipline, sourds a la voix du tambour, et des instrumens militaires, deranges par cet escarre, ne scauront plus reprendre leurs rangs. Ils sont ailleurs sans bagonettes pour repondre a celles de l'ennemi: il ne leur reste qu'a fuir, et me voila, battue sans ressource. Voila ma position!... Position bien facheuse pour un general, et qui me fait passer de bien terribles momens. La connaissance que j'en aye m'a fait tenir jusqu'ici sur la defensive, qui m'a reussi; mais reussira-t-elle jusqu'a la fin? Les evenemens en decideront! Mais une assurance que je puis vous donner, c'est, que je ne survivrois pas probablement la perte de la colonie. Il est des situations ou il ne reste plus a un general, que de perir avec honneur: je crois y etre: et sur ce point je crois que jamais la posterite n'aura rien a reprocher a ma memoire; mais si la Fortune decide de ma vie, elle ne decidera pas de mes sentimens--ils sont Francois, et ils le seront, jusque dans le tombeau, si dans le tombeau on est encore quelque chose! Je me consolerai du moins de ma defaite, et de la perte de la colonie, par l'intime persuasion ou je suis, que cette defaite vaudroit un jour a ma patrie plus qu'une victoire, et que le vainqueur en s'aggrandissant, trouveroit un tombeau dans son aggrandissement meme.

"Ce que j'advance ici, mon cher cousin, vous paroitra un paradoxe; mais un moment de reflexion politique, un coup d'oeil sur la situation des choses en Amerique, et la verite de mon opinion, brillera dans tout son jour. Non, mon cher cousin, les hommes n'obeissent qu'a la force et a la necessite; c'est a dire, que quand ils voyent arme devant leurs yeux, un pouvoir toujours pret, et toujours suffisant pour les y contraindre, ou quand la chaine de leurs besoins leur en dicte la loi. Hors de la point de joug pour eux, point d'obeissance de leur part; ils sont a eux; ils vivent libres, parce qu'ils n'ont rien au dedans, rien au dehors, qui les oblige a se depouiller de cette liberte, qui est le plus bel appanage, la plus precieuse prerogative de l'humanite. Voila les hommes! et sur ce point les Anglois, soit par l'education, soit par sentiment, sont plus hommes que les autres: La gene de la contrainte leur deplait plus qu'a tout autre: il leur faut respirer un air libre et degage; sans cela ils sont hors de leur element. Mais si ce sont la les Anglois de l'Europe, c'est encore plus les Anglois d'Amerique. Une grand partie de ces colons sont les enfans de ces hommes qui s'expatrierent dans ces temps de trouble, ou l'ancienne Angleterre, en proye aux divisions, etoit attaquee dans ses privileges et droits, et allerent chercher en Amerique une terre, ou ils puissent vivre et mourir libres, et presqu'independents; et ces enfans n'ont pas degeneres des sentimens republicains de leurs peres. D'autres sont des hommes, ennemis de tout frein, de tout assujettissement, que le government y a transporte pour leur crimes. D'autres, enfin, sont un ramas de differentes nations de l'Europe, qui tiennent tres peu a l'ancienne Angleterre par le coeur et le sentiment, tous en general no se soucient gueres du roi ni du Parlement d'Angleterre.

"Je les connois bien, non sur des rapports etrangers, mais sur des correspondances, et des informations secrets, que j'ai moi-meme menages, et dont un jour, si Dieu me prete vie, je pourrais faire usage a l'avantage de ma patrie. Pour surcroit de bonheur pour eux, tous ces colons sont parvenu dans un etat tres florissant; ils sont nombreux et riches; ils recueillent dans le sein de leur patrie, toutes les necessites de la vie. L'ancienne Angleterre a ete assez sotte, et assez dupe, pour leur laisser etablir chez eux les arts, les metiers, les manufactures; c'est a dire, qu'elle leur a laisse briser la chaine de besoins, qui les lioit, qui les attachoit a elle, et qui les fait dependants. Aussi toutes ces colonies Angloises auroient depuis long temps secoue le joug, chaque province auroient forme une petite republique independante, si la crainte de voir les Francois a leur porte n'avoit ete un frein, qui les avoit retenu. Maitres pour maitres ils ont prefere leur compatriotes aux etrangers, prenant cependant pour maxime, de n'obeir que le moins qu'ils pourroient; mais que la Canada vint a etre conquis, et que les Canadiens et ces colons ne fussent plus qu'un seul peuple, et la premiere occasion, ou l'ancienne Angleterre sembleroit toucher a leurs interets, croiez-vous, mon cher cousin, que colons obeiroient? Et qu'auroient-ils a craindre, en se revoltant?

* * * * *

"Je ne puis cependant pas dissimuler que l'ancienne Angleterre avec un peu de bonne politique pourroit toujours se reserver dans les mains une ressource toujours prete pour mettre a la raison ses anciennes colonies. Le Canada considere dans lui-meme, dans ses richesses, dans ses forces, dans le nombre de ses habitans n'est rien en comparaison du conglobat des colonies Angloises; mais la valeur, l'industrie, la fidelite de ses habitans, y supplie si bien, que depuis plus d'un siecle ils se battent avec avantage contre toutes ces colonies: dix Canadiens sont suffisants contre cent colons Anglois. L'experience journaliere prove ce fait. Si l'ancienne Angleterre, apres avoir conquis le Canada scavoit se l'attacher par la politique des bienfaits, et se le conserver a elle seule, si elle le laissoit a sa religion, a ses loix, a son language, a ses coutumes, a son ancienne gouvernement, le Canada, divise dans tous ces points, d'avec les autres colonies, formerait toujours un pais isole, qui n'entreroit jamais dans leurs interets; ... mais ce n'est pas la la politique Brittannique. Les Anglois font-ils une conquete, il faut qu'ils changent la constitution du pays, ils y portent leur loix, leur coutumes, &c., &c.... Voila les Canadiens transformes en politiques, en negocians, en hommes infatues d'une pretendue liberte, qui chez la populace tient souvent en Angleterre de la licence, et de la nardin.... Je suis si sur de ce que j'ecris, que je ne donnerai pas dix ans apres la conquete de Canada pour en voir l'accomplissement.

"Voila ce que, comme Francois, me console aujourd'hui du danger eminent que court ma patrie, de voir cette colonie perdue pour elle.

"Du camp devant Quebec, Jan.

MONTCALM.

"24 d'Aout, 1759."

THE END.

[TRANSCRIBERS NOTE: Original spelling has been retained]