had before, my informant mildly added,—"It is a constant and favourite subject of reproach against the Indians-this barbarism of their desultory warfare; but I should think more women and children have perished in one of your civilized sieges, and that in late times, than during the whole war between the Chippewas and Sioux, and that has lasted a century."

I was silent, for there is a sensible proverb about taking care of our own glass windows: and I wonder if any of the recorded atrocities of Indian warfare or Indian vengeance, or all of them together, ever exceeded Massena's retreat from Portugal,—and the French call themselves civilized. A war party of Indians, perhaps two or three hundred, (and that is a very large number,) dance their war dance, go out and burn a village, and bring back twenty or thirty scalps. They are savages and heathens. We Europeans fight a battle, leave fifty thousand dead or dying by inches on the field, and a hundred thousand to mourn them, desolate; but we are civilized and Christians. Then only look into the motives and causes of our bloodiest European wars as revealed in the private history of courts:-the miserable, puerile, degrading intrigues which set man against man-so horridly disproportioned to the horrid result! and then see the Indian take up his war-hatchet in vengeance for some personal injury, or from motives that rouse all the natural feelings of the natural man within him! Really I do not see that an Indian warrior, flourishing his tomahawk, and smeared with his enemy's blood, is so very much a

greater savage than the pipe-clayed, padded, embroidered personage, who, without cause or motive, has sold himself to slay or be slain: one scalps his enemy, the other rips him open with a sabre; one smashes his brains with a tomahawk, and the other blows him to atoms with a cannon-ball: and to me, femininely speaking, there is not a needle's point difference between the one and the other. If war be unchristian and barbarous, then war as a science is more absurd, unnatural, unchristian, than war as a passion.

This, perhaps, is putting it all too strongly, and a little exaggerated

God forbid that I should think to disparage the blessings of civilization! I am a woman, and to the progress of civilization alone can we women look for release from many pains and penalties and liabilities, which now lie heavily upon us. Neither am I greatly in love with savage life, with all its picturesque accompaniments and lofty virtues. I see no reason why these virtues should be necessarily connected with dirt, ignorance, and barbarism. I am thankful to live in a land of literature and steam-engines. Chatsworth is better than a wigwam, and a seventyfour is a finer thing than a bark canoe. I do not positively assert that Taglioni dances more gracefully than the Little-Pure tobacco-smoker, nor that soap and water are preferable as cosmetics to tallow and charcoal; for these are matters of taste, and mine may be disputed. But I do say, that if our advan. tages of intellect and refinement are not to lead on to farther moral superiority, I prefer the Indians on

the score of consistency; they are what they profess to be, and we are not what we profess to be. They profess to be warriors and hunters, and are so; we profess to be Christians, and civilized—are we so?

Then as to the mere point of cruelty ;-there is something to be said on this point too. Ferocity, when the hot blood is up, and all' the demon in man is roused by every conceivable excitement, I can understand better than the Indian can comprehend the tender mercies of our law. Owyawatta, better known by his English name, Red-Jacket, was once seen hurrying from the town of Buffalo, with rapid strides, and every mark of disgust and consternation in his face. Three malefactors were to be hung that morning, and the Indian warrior had not nervé to face the horrid spectacle, although

"In sober truth the vericst devil

That ere clenched fingers in a captive's hair."

Thus endeth my homily for to-night.

*

*

*

The more I looked upon those glancing, dancing rapids, the more resolute I grew to venture myself in the midst of them. George Johnston went to seek a fit canoe and a dexterous steersman, and meantime I strolled away to pay a visit to Wayish,ky's family, and made a sketch of their lodge, while pretty Zah,. gah,see,gah,qua held the umbrella to shade me.

The canoe being ready, I went up to the top or the portage, and we launched into the river. It was a small fishing canoe about ten feet long, quite new,

and light and elegant and buoyant as a bird on the waters. I reclined on a mat at the bottom, Indian fashion, (there are no seats in a genuine Indian canoe ;) in a minute we were within the verge of the rapids, and down we went with a whirl and a splash!—the white surge leaping around me-over me. The Indian with astonishing dexterity kept the head of the canoe to the breakers, and somehow or other we danced through them. I could see, as I looked over the edge of the canoe, that the passage between the rocks was sometimes not more than two feet in width, and we had to turn sharp angles-a touch of which would have sent us to destruction-all this I could see through the transparent eddying waters, but I can truly say, I had not even a momentary sensation of fear, but rather of giddy, breathless, delicious excitement. I could even ad. mire the beautiful attitude of a fisher, past whom we swept as we came to the bottom. The whole affair, from the moment I entered the canoe till I reached the landing place, occupied seven minutes, and the distance is about three quarters of a mile.*

My Indians were enchanted, and when I reached home, my good friends were not less delighted at my exploit they told me I was the first European female who had ever performed it, and assuredly I shall not

"The total descent of the Fall of St. Mary's has been ascer. tained to be twenty-two and a half perpendicular feet. It has been found impracticable to ascend the rapid; but canoes have ventured down, though the experiment is extremely nervous and hazardous, and avoided by a portage, two miles long, which connects the navigable parts of the strait."-Bouchette's Canada.

be the last. I recommend it as an exercise before breakfast. Two glasses of champagne could not have made me more tipsy and more self-complacent! As for my Neengai, she laughed, clapped her hands, and embraced me several times. I was declared duly initiated, and adopted into the family by the name of Wah,sah,ge,wah,no,qua. They had already called me among themselves, in reference to my complexion and my travelling propensities, O,daw,yaun,gee, the fair changing moon, or rather, the fair moon which changes her place; but now, in compliment to my successful achievement, Mrs. Johnston bestowed this new appellation, which I much prefer. It signifies the bright foam, or more properly, with the feminine adjunct qua, the woman of the bright foam; and by this name I am henceforth to be known among the Chippewas.

Now that I have been a Chippewa born, any time these four hours,* I must introduce you to some of my new relations "of the totem of the rein-deer ;" and first to my illustrious grand-papa, Waub-Ojeeg,† (the White-fisher.)

The Chippewas, as you perhaps know, have long been reckoned among the most warlike and numer

• Ant. I know you now, Sir, a gentleman born.

Clo. Aye, that I have been any time these four hours. WINTER'S TALE. ↑ The name is thus pronounced, but I have seen it spelt Wabbajik.