along, we came to a sluggish, melancholy-looking rivulet, to which the man pointed with his whip. "I expect," said he, "you know all about the battle of Bloody Run ?"

I was obliged to confess my ignorance, not without a slight shudder at the hateful, ominous name which sounded in my ear like an epitome of all imaginable horrors.

This was the scene of a night attack made by three hundred British upon the camp of the Indians, who were then besieging Detroit. The Indians had notice of their intention, and prepared an ambush to receive them. They had just reached the bank of this rivulet, when the Indian foe fell upon them sud. denly. They fought hand to hand, bayonet and tomahawk, in the darkness of the night. Before the English could extricate themselves, seventy men and most of the officers fell and were scalped on the spot. "Them Indians," said my informant, "fought like brutes and devils," (as most do, I thought, who fight for revenge and existence,) "and they say the creek here, when morning came, ran red with blood; and so they call it the Bloody Run."

There certainly is much in a name, whatever Juliet may say, and how much in fame! Do you remember the brook Sanguinetto, which flows into Lake Thrasymene? The mean ng and the deriva. tion are the same, but what a difference in sound! The Sanguinetto! 'tis a word one might set to mu. sic. The Bloody Run! pah! the very utterance pollutes one's fancy!

And in associations, too, how different, though the

circumstances were not unlike! This Indian Fabius, this Pontiac, wary and brave, and unbroken by de. feat, fighting for his own land against a swarm of invaders, has had no poet, no historian to immortalize him, else all this ground over which I now tread had been as classical as the shores of Thrasymene.

As they have called Tecumseh the Indian Napoleon, they might style Pontiac the Indian Alexander-I do not mean him of Russia, but the Greek. Here, for instance, is a touch of magnanimity quite in the Alexander-the-great style. Pontiac, before the commencement of the war, had provided for the safety of a British officer, Major Rogers by name, who was afterwards employed to relieve Detroit, when besieged by the Indians. On this occasion he sent Pontiac a present of a bottle of brandy, to show he had not forgotten his former obligations to him. Those who were around the Indian warrior when the present arrived, particularly some Frenchmen, warned him not to taste it, as it might be poisoned. Pontiac instantly took a draught from it, saying, as he put the bottle to his lips, that "it was not in the power of Major Rogers to hurt him who had so lately saved his life." I think this story is no unworthy pendant to that of Alexander and his physician.

But what avails it all! who knows or cares about Pontiac and his Ottawas?

"Vain was the chief's, the warrior's pride!
He had no poet-and he died !"

If I dwell on these horrid and obscure conflicts, it is partly to amuse the languid idle hours of conva

lescence, partly to inspire you with some interest for the localities around me :-and I may as well, while pen is in my hand, give you the conclusion of the

the

story.

Pontiac carried on the war with so much talent, courage, and resources, that the British government found it necessary to send a considerable force a. gainst him. General Bradstreet came up here with three thousand men, wasting the lands of the Miami and Wyandot Indians, "burning their villages, and destroying their corn-fields;" and I pray you to ob serve that in all the accounts of our expeditions against the Indians, as well as those of the Americans under General Wayne and General Harrison, mention is made of the destruction of corn-fields (plantations of Indian corn) to a great extent, which show that some attention must have been paid to agricul. ture, even by these wild hunting tribes.* I find men. tion also of a very interesting and beautiful tradition

I believe it is a prevalent notion that the Indians of the north-west never cultivated grain to any extent until under the influence of the whites. This, apparently, is a mistake. When General Wayne (in 1794) destroyed the settlements of the Wyandots and Miamis along the Miami river, and on the south shores of Lake Erie, he wrote thus in his official despatch:"The very extensive and cultivated fields and gardens show the work of many hands. The margins of those beautiful rivers, the Miami of the Lake and Au Glaize, appear like one continued village for a number of miles, both above and below this place. Nor have I ever beheld such immense fields of corn in any part of America, from Canada to Florida." And all this fair scene was devastated and laid waste! and we complain that the Indians make no advance in civilization!

connected with these regions. To the east of the Detroit territory, there was settled from ancient times a band of Wyandots or Hurons, who were called the neutral nation; they never took part in the wars and conflicts of the other tribes. They had two principal villages, which were like the cities of refuge among the Israelites; whoever fled there from an enemy found a secure and inviolable sanctuary. If two enemies from tribes long at deadly varianco met there, they were friends while standing on that consecrated ground. To what circumstances this extraordinary institution owed its existence is not known. It was destroyed after the arrival of the French in the country-not by them, but by some national and internal feud.

But to return to Pontiac. With all his talents he could not maintain a standing or permanent army, such a thing being contrary to all the Indian usages, and quite incompatible with their mode of life. His warriors fell away from him every season, and de. parted to their hunting grounds to provide food for their families. The British pressed forward, took possession of their whole country, and the tribes were obliged to beg for peace. Pontiac disdained to take any part in these negociations, and retired to the Illinois, where he was murdered, from some motive of private animosity, by a Peoria Indian. The Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottowattomies, who had been allied under his command, thought it in. cumbent on them to avenge his death, and nearly exterminated the whole nation of the Peorias-and this was the life and the fall of Pontiac.

The name of this great chief is commemorated in that of a flourishing village, or rising town, about twenty miles west of Detroit, which is called Pontiac, as one of the townships in Upper Canada is styled Tecumseh: thus literally illustrating those beautiful lines in Mrs. Sigourney's poem on Indian

names:

"Their memory liveth on your hills,

Their baptism on your shore;
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore !"

For rivers, bearing their old Indian names, we have here the Miami, (or Maumee,) the Huron, the Sandusky but most of the points of land, rivers, islands, &c., bear the French appellations, as Point Pelée, River au Glaize, River des Canards, Gros. Isle, &c.

The mélange of proper names in this immediate neighbourhood is sufficiently curious. Here we have Pontiac, Romeo, Ypsilanti, and Byron, all within no great distance of each other.

Long after the time of Pontiac, Detroit and all the country round it became the scene of even more horrid and unnatural conflicts between the Americans and British, during the war of the Revolution, in which the Indians were engaged against the Ameri. cans. When peace was proclaimed, and the independence of the United States recognized by Great Britain, this savage war on the frontiers still con