than a foot from his ears. A similar one from each ear hung over his breast, and another over his back. He had also three large nose jewels of silver, which were curiously painted.

The Indians set a great price on these decorations, and they are among the last articles with which they will part. There is a pride in human nature, and she will find some way to express that love of distinction, which she cannot cease to feel. Such a desire to rival others may be a very useful part of our natures, when it incites us to become distinguished more by enlightened minds and pure hearts, more by luminous examples and useful actions, than by any exterior de corations of body or ornaments of dress.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Names.

Character and customs. Hospitality. Kindness. Revenge. Cruelty. Intemperance. Gaming. Politeness. Advantages of a savage state. Disadvantages. Longevity. Cannibals. Love of Liberty. Frequent wars with each other. Treatment of captives. Mode of torture. Passive courage. Contempt of death. Sachems. Songs. Dances. Treatment of women. Polygamy. Marriages. Funerals.

THE Indians are very hospitable. Nothing is to good for a friend; and the entire stranger is at no expense among them. If you give them anything to eat, drink or use, it is well; but they will never ask for it. Kindness makes an impression on their minds, which will never be forgotten. A sense of injury likewise is lasting as the consciousness of their existence. They never have much, and never want but little. Though ignorant of our pleasures, they are equally strangers to our troubles. Our food is our toil; their pleasure feeds them. Their table is every where spread, wherever there is ground on which to sit; and nature is too provident not to afford her children something, when their tastes is not too fastidious.

They are kind to each other. In sickness, they resort to the scene of anguish, where they tender their best aids, till recovery makes them happy to excess, or death terminates the period of sufferings. In sickness they are impatient of a cure, and will give away anything they have in order to procure a remedy. If any are unable by sickness or misfortune to procure the means of subsistence, provisions and comforts are sure to be sent them. When a field is to be cleared, or any great work to be accomplished, men, women and children, all lend their aid.

Their friendship is strong. The Cherokees had resolved to lead col. Bird, who had been sent from Virginia to treat of peace to death. Silouee, an Indian chieftain, on some former occasion, had contracted a friendship for him. As the executioners entered to kill him, Silouee threw himself

between them and the colonel, saying, "this man is my friend. Before you get at him, you must kill me.' The Cherokees so respected the principal of friendship, on which he acted, as to recede from their resolution.

On their enemies, however, the Indians are revengeful. They will go through all dangers to the ends of the earth, in order to chastise one who has done them an injury. Forgiveness with savages is not deemed a virtue, and revenge is not only sweet, but also highly glorious. They are artful to contrive, skillful to select the means, and active to execute plans they adopt. Vigor is joined with the utmost secrecy. With an enemy they keep no faith, and consider no promise binding; but never disappoint a friend.

The Indians are also cruel. No restraints are imposed upon them from their youth. It would be deemed meanness and want of spirit to permit an injury to go unpunished. Their national customs make it the duty of each individual to avenge his own wrougs. The worst passions of his heart increase, therefore, with his strength of body, till anger kindles, revenge burns, and malace consumes, when trifles vex. All their wars are cruel, bloody and fatal. Old men, women and children, though too feeble to hold a weapon, must all be exterminated. Wars cease with life itself. But though we call the savages cruel, yet their cruelties are tender mercies, compared with the miseries, murders and butcheries which the Spaniards carried among the innocent natives of South America; compared with the cruelties which a British company of Merchants inflicted on the millions of Bengal; compared with the tortures in the courts of inquisition on the pretext of curing heresy, throughout the greatest part of christendom; compared with the horrid massacre, in 1572, on St. Bartholomew's day, when 30,000 persons were butchered, on account of religious opinions, in the most polite city of Europe; or compared with the atrocities of the very founders of New-England, where in 1676, they tried and executed by English laws the Indians, who had surrendered with views of being safe, at least in their persons. The civilized world has many expiations to make, before it can talk, with a good grace, of savage cruelties.

Drunkenness is one of the vices inseparable from the savage state. Before the discovery of America, the natives had found out an inebriating liquor expressed from the Indian corn which they cultivated. Strangers to the art of distilling they

of any

were not able to procure a quantity which would prove serious injury to them. Wherever they can obtain spiritous liquors, they seem utterly incapable of moderation in their use. Under their influence too, they are irritable, rash and mischievous to a frightful degree. The strength of this appetite has been attributed to the constant use of fresh water and raw meat. Nature required something more astringent and stimulating. The same mode of living and exposure to the elements will create in Europeans the same desires and sharpen the same appetite.

Disinclined to labor, they become eager to pass away the lingering hours in gaming. Their whole souls being fixed on the object of gain, they become noisy, violent and troublesome. They will put at hazard every thing they possess, however necessary and valuable. But they lose with a good grace in the end, and the trial at chance usually terminates disputes, noise and hard feelings.

The savages possess a share of politeness, peculiar to themselves. No people are more respectful to the aged. They are all attention to what is said. Not a whisper, not a murmur, not even a mark of applause interrupts the speaker. When he has done speaking, they deem it improper to dispute, or to contradict. The most they will do, is to pronounce their own sentiments on the subject.

They are exceedingly bigoted to names. They give themselves those which are very expressive, denoting some interesting object in nature, or some historical event. They change their own names, as new events present occasions. They are much pleased, when the white people assign them names; and in return they select names for their white friends, which are strikingly significant of some prominent trait in their character, shewing that they are critical observers of human nature.

The savage state has, no doubt, its advantages. It promotes bodily activity. Few among them are sickly, feeble or deformed. Their minds possess an astonishing degree of fortitude and passive courage. Their political talents are not inferior; and some of their speeches would not dishonor an European parliament. Their love of country burns with a pure, ardent and inextinguishable flame. They rush up to the cannon's mouth and throw themselves on the weapons of certain death, if their last efforts can leave their tribe safe and

free. All they do is for the common weal, and private interest scarcely finds any place to enter.

The disadvantages of the savage state are more than a balance. Intellectual improvement will be out of the question. The mind will remain a subject too invisible to be noticed. Absolute want, not rational culture, will be the topic of conversation, when they meet. They will have virtues indeed, but they will be few; and these not founded on ethical principles, discovering the reasons of their duty, carried to any sufficient extent.

Longevity is one advantage of the savage state. They live to a great age; and you may often meet with those who can reckon one more generation than the venerable Nestor. Their activity endures to the last, till they slip down the other side of the hill of life in an instant. Persons of 120 years are not rare sights. John Quittamug walked from Woodstock to Boston, a distance of nearly 100 miles, and returned when he was 112 years of age. The kindness of the Bostonians, however, in rich eating and drinking, soon sent him to rest with his fathers.

By writers who never saw a western savage and who resided more than 300 miles from his country, we are told, that the Indians are cannibals. Hunger and famine may have compelled them to subsist for a time on human flesh. Oneco, in triumph over the fallen body of Philip, cut about a pound from it, broiled and eat it, expressing great satisfaction in it. The pleasure was in the triumph, not in the peculiarity of the food. It does not come in evidence that human flesh was used as ordinary diet.

The savages of North American have exalted sentiments of liberty. They have no word to express what we mean by subject. The idea of a master is worse to them than any form of death. In confinement they pine away; and in slavery they soon die. There is with them scarcely such a thing as parental authority and domestic restraint. Their children comprehend this notion of equality, and show their sense of it by being refractory, saucy and disrespectful.

The tribes are often at war with each other. In these, they are cruel and blood to a greater excess than in the wars they wage with the white people. These combats waste more men than famine and pestilence.

Among them, English prisoners are sometimes killed and scalped upon the spot, in the first instant of capture. Some