Indians’ remarks on the Zoological Gardens—Their pity for the poor buffalo and other animals imprisoned—Jim’s talk with a clergyman about Hell and the hyÆnas—Indians’ ideas of astronomy—Jim and the Doctor hear of the hells of London—Desire to go into them—Promised to go—Indians counting the gin-palaces (chickabobboo-ags)in a ride to Blackwall and back—The result—Exhibition in the Egyptian Hall—A sudden excitement—The War-chief recognises in the crowd his old friend “Bobasheela”—Their former lives on the Mississippi and Missouri—Bobasheela an Englishman—His travels in the “Far West” of America—Story of their first acquaintance—The doomed wedding-party—Lieut. Pike—Daniel Boone and Son—Indians visit a great brewery—Kind reception by the proprietors—Great surprise of the Indians—Immense quantities of chickabobboo—War-dance in an empty vat—Daniel commences Jim’s book of the statistics of England—Indians visit the Tunnel—Visit to the Tower—The Horse Armoury—The Royal Regalia—Indians’ ideas of the crowns and jewels—“Totems” (arms) on the fronts of noblemen’s houses—Royal arms over the shops—Strange notions of the Doctor—They see the “man with the big nose” again—And the “great white War-chief (the Duke of Wellington) on horseback, near his wig-wam.”

Three or four of my particular friends had joined us in our visit to the Zoological Gardens this morning, and amongst them a reverend gentleman, whose professional character was not made known to the Indians. He kept close to Jeffrey and the Indians all the way, and his ears were open to the translation of everything they said. He was not only highly amused at their remarks, but told me he heard enough to convince him that lessons of morality, of devotion, and religion, as well as of philosophy, might be learned from those poor people, although they were the savages of the wilderness, and often despised as such. Mr. Melody and I accompanied them to their rooms, and as we came in when their dinner was coming up, we sat down and partook of it with them. The Indian’s mode is to eat exclusively while he eats, and to talk afterwards. We adhered to their rule on this occasion, and after the dinner was over, and a pipe was lit, there were remarks and comments enough ready, upon the strange things they had just seen.

As usual, the first thing was, to have a laugh at the Doctor for having frightened the parrots; and then to reflect and to comment upon the cruelty of keeping all those poor and unoffending animals prisoners in such a place, merely to be looked at. They spoke of the doleful looks they all wore in their imprisoned cells, walking to and fro, and looking through the iron bars at every person who came along, as if they wished them to let them out. I was forcibly struck with the truth and fitness of their remarks, having never passed through a menagerie without coming out impressed, even to fatigue, with the sympathy I had felt for the distressed looks and actions of these poor creatures, imprisoned for life, for man’s amusement only.

Jim asked, “What have all those poor animals and birds done that they should be shut up to die? They never have murdered anybody—they have not been guilty of stealing, and they owe no money; why should they be kept so, and there to die?” He said it would afford him more pleasure to see one of them let loose and run away over the fields, than to see a hundred imprisoned as they were. The Doctor took up the gauntlet and reasoned the other way. He said they were altogether the happiest wild animals he ever saw; they were perfectly prevented from destroying each other, and had enough to eat as long as they lived, and plenty of white men to wait upon them. He did not see why they should not live as long there as anywhere else, and as happy. He admitted, however, that his heart was sad at the desolate look of the old buffalo bull, which he would like to have seen turned loose on the prairies.

The Roman-nose said he heard one of the parrots say “God dam.” “So he did,” said Jim; “and who could say otherwise, when the Doctor poked his ugly face so suddenly in amongst them? They know how to speak English, and I don’t wonder they say God dam.”[20]

I here diverted their attention from the jokes they were beginning upon the Doctor, by asking them how they liked the chickabobboo they got in the gardens, which they recollected with great pleasure, and which they pronounced to have been very good. Mr. Cross had invited the whole party to a private view, and after showing us, with great politeness, what he had curious, invited us into one of his delightful little refreshment rooms, and treated all to cold chickens, pork pies, pastries, and champagne, which the Indians called chickabobboo; and as he did not know the meaning of the word, I related the story of it, which pleased him very much.

The Doctor made some laugh, by saying that “he was going over there again in a few days, if he could find some strings long enough, to measure the elephant and the bones of the whale, as he had got the dimensions of the giant man.” Jim told him “he had not got the measure of the giant man—he had only measured the giant woman, and getting scared, he only half measured her; and he was so much afraid of women, that he didn’t believe he could ever take the measure of one of them correct, if a hundred should stand ever so still for him.” The Doctor smiled, and looked at me as if to know if I was going to ask some question again. He was fortunately relieved at that moment, however, by Mr. Melody’s question to Jim, “how he liked the looks of the hyenas, and whether he would like him to buy one to carry home with him?” Jim rolled over on to his back, and drew his knees up (the only position in which he could “think fast,” as he expressed it; evidently a peculiarity with him, and a position, ungraceful as it was, which it was absolutely necessary for him to assume, if he was going to tell a story well, or to make a speech); and after thinking much more profoundly than it required to answer so simple a question, replied, “Very well, very well,” and kept thinking on. The Little Wolf, who was lying by his side, asked him “what he was troubled about?—he seemed to be thinking very strong.” Jim replied to this, that “he was thinking a great way, and he had to think hard.” He said, that when he was looking at the hyenas, he said to Jeffrey that he thought they were the wickedest looking animals he ever saw, and that he believed they would go to hell; but that the gentleman who came to the garden with Mr. Melody[21] said to him, “No, my friend, none but the animals that laugh and cry can go to heaven or to hell.” He said that this gentleman then wanted to know how he had heard of hell, and what idea he had of it. He said, he told Jeffrey to say to him that some white men (black coats) had told amongst his people, that there was such a place as hell, very low under the earth, where the wicked would all go, and for ever be in the fire. He said, the gentleman asked him if he believed it? and that he told him he thought there might be such a place for white people—he couldn’t tell—but he didn’t think the Indians would go to it. He said, the gentleman then asked him why he thought those poor ignorant animals the hyenas would go there? And he replied to him that Chippehola[22] said “the hyenas live by digging up the bodies of people after they are buried;” and he therefore thought they were as wicked as the white people, who also dig up the Indians’ graves, and scatter their bones about, all along our country;[23] and he thought such white people would go to hell, and ought to go there. He said he also told the gentleman he had heard there were some hells under the city of London, and that he had been invited to go and see them: this, he said, made the gentleman laugh, and there was no more said: that he had begun to think that this gentleman was a black coat, but when he saw him laugh, he found out that he was not. “Just the time you were mistaken,” said Mr. Melody; “for that gentleman was a clergyman, and you have made a very great fool of yourself.” “I will risk all that,” said Jim; “I have wanted all the time to make a speech to some of them, but the chiefs wouldn’t let me.”

The pipe, during these conversations, was being handed around, and Jim’s prolific mind, while he was “thinking fast” (as he had called it), was now running upon the elephant, and he was anxious to know where it came from. I told him it was from the opposite side of the globe: he could not understand me, and to be more explicit, I told him that the ground we stood upon was part of the surface of the earth, which was round like a ball, and many thousands of miles around; and that these huge animals came from the side exactly opposite to us. I never could exactly believe that Jim, at the moment, doubted my word; but in the richness of his imagination (particularly in his thinking position) he so clearly saw elephants walking underside of the globe, with their backs downwards, without falling, that he broke out into such a flood of laughter, that he was obliged to shut out his thoughts, and roll over upon his hands and knees until the spasms went gradually off. The rest of the group were as incredulous as Jim, but laughed less vehemently; and as it was not a time to lecture further on astronomy, I thought it best to omit it until a better opportunity: merely waiting for Jim’s pencil sketch (and no doubt according to his first impression), which he was then drawing, with considerable tact; and with equal wit, proposed I should adopt as my “arms” or totem, the globe with an inverted elephant.

Melody and I strolled off together, leaving the Indians in this amusing mood, while we were agreeing that they were a good-natured and well-disposed set of men, determining to take everything in the happiest way; and that they were well entitled to our protection, and our best energies to promote their welfare. We saw that they enjoyed every thing that we showed them, with a high relish; and in hopes that they might profit by it, and feel a stronger attachment to us, we resolved to spare no pains in showing them whatever we could, that they might wish to see, and which would be likely, in any way, to render them a benefit.

The reader will have seen, by this time, that they were a close observing and an amusing set of fellows: and knowing also that at this time nearly all the curious sights of London were still before us, he will be prepared to meet the most exciting and amusing parts of this book as he reads on.

We continued to give these curious and good fellows their daily drives in their bus, and by an hour spent in this way each day, for several months, they were enabled to form a tolerably correct idea of the general shapes and appearance of the city, and its modes, as seen in the streets. In these drives, as well as in institutions of various kinds, which they visited, they saw many curious things which amused them, and others which astonished them very much; but their private room was the place for their amusing debates, and remarks upon them, when they returned: and to that I generally repaired every night before they went to bed, to hear what they had to say and to think, of the sights they had seen during the day.

Chickabobboo, though an Ojibbeway word, had now become a frequent and favourite theme with them, inasmuch as it was at this time an essential part of their dinners and suppers, and as, in all their drives about town, they were looking into the “gin palaces” which they were every moment passing, and at the pretty maids who were hopping about, and across the streets, in all directions, both night and day, with pitchers of ale in their hands. The elevated positions of the Doctor and Jim, as they were alongside of the driver of the bus, enabling them, in the narrow streets, to peep into the splendid interior of many of these, as they were brilliantly illumined, and generally gay with bonnets and ribbons, and imagining a great deal of happiness and fun to reign in them, they had several times ventured, very modestly, to suggest to me a wish to look into some of them—“not to drink,” as they said, “for they could get enough to drink at home, but to see how they looked, and how the people acted there.”

I had told them that if they had the least curiosity, there should be no objection to their going with me on some proper occasion, when they again got on their frock coats and beaver hats; and also that if there were any other curious places they wished to see in London, Mr. Melody or I would take them there. Upon hearing this the big-mouthed and quizzical Jim at once took me at my word, and told me that “some gentleman with Daniel had been telling him and the Doctor that there were several ‘hells’ under the city of London, and that they ought some time to go down and see them.” He didn’t think from what Daniel and that man said that they were hells of “fire,” but he thought as Daniel had been to them, there could not be much danger, and he thought they would be very curious to see; he knew these were not the hells which the black coats spoke of, for Daniel told him there were many beautiful ladies, and fine music, and chickabobboo there; that they did not wish to drink the chickabobboo, but merely to look and see, and then come away; and they had no objections to put on the black coats for that purpose; he said, in fact, that Daniel had invited them to go, and that Jeffrey had agreed to go with them. Jim had me thus “upon the hip” for this enterprise, and when I mentioned it to poor Melody, he smiled as he seemed to shrink from it, and said, “Ah, Catlin, that never will do: we are going to spoil these Indians, as sure as the world; there will be in a little time nothing but what they will want to see, and we shall have no peace of our lives with them. They have all gone now, and Daniel and Jeffrey with them, in their bus, all the way to Blackwall, merely to see how many chickabobbooags (gin palaces) they can count in the way, going by one route and returning by another. Their minds are running on chickabobboo and such things already, and they are in the midst of such a scene of gin-drinking and drunkenness as they see every day, that I am almost sorry we ever undertook to drive them out at all. I am daily more and more afraid that they will all become drunkards, in spite of all I can do, and I sometimes wish I had them safe home, where we started from. You have no idea what a charge I have on my hands, and the annoyance I have about the front of their apartments every night, from women who are beckoning them down from their windows to the door, and even into the passages and streets. They seem daily to be losing their respect for me, and I find it every day more and more difficult to control them.” “And so you will continue to find it,” said I, “unless privileges and freedom to a reasonable extent are granted to them, while they are strictly adhering to the solemn promises and restraints we have laid them under. These people have come here under your promises to show them everything you can, and to teach them how the civilized world live and act. They have reposed the highest confidence in you to take care of and protect them, and in return they have solemnly promised to conduct themselves properly and soberly; and as long as they adhere to that, you should not let them doubt your confidence in them, by fearing to show them some parts of the shades as well as the lights of civilization. They are here to learn the ways of civilization, and I should deem it wrong to deny them the privilege, if they ask for it, of seeing such parts of it as you and myself would go to see. I have been to see the ‘hells of London’ myself, and would much sooner take my son there, and there give him the most impressive lesson in morality, than forbid him to go, expressing to him my fears of his contamination. These people are like children in some respects, and they are men in others; and while I fully appreciate all your noble attachment to them, and your anxieties for them, with the knowledge I have gained of the Indian character, I feel assured that as they are brought here to be shown everything of civilization, to restrict them in seeing the parts of it they desire to see, will be to exhibit to them a want of confidence which would be apt to lead to worse and more injurious results before you get home with them. I should have been very far from mentioning such places to them, or the many other dens of iniquity which exist in the great city of London and the cities of our own country, and which I hope they may remain strangers to; but they having heard of the hells of London, and expressed a desire to see them, I should feel no hesitation in giving Jim and the Doctor a peep into them, instead of representing them (as the means of keeping them away from them) as being a much greater degradation of human nature than they actually are.”

Good, kind Melody looked so much distressed, that I finished my arguments here, and told him to “rest quite easy; there was a way by which we could get over it, and I not break my promise with Jim and the Doctor. That a friend of mine who had been into them recently and narrowly escaped with his life, would have a talk with them on the subject in a few days, and all would be right.[24] As for the joke they are on to-day, about the gin-shops, I don’t see the least harm in it. They must have something to laugh at, and while they are getting their usual daily ride in the open air, they are passing one of the best comments that ever was made upon one of the greatest vices of the greatest city in the world.”

The simple old Doctor, in his curious cogitations amidst the din of civilised excitements, while he had been ogling the thousands of ladies and gin-palaces, and other curious things all together, from the pinnacle of his bus, had brought home one day in round numbers the total amount of chickabobbooags that he had seen during the hour’s drive on one morning. The enormous amount of these, when added up, seemed too great for the most credulous; and Jim, seeming to think that the Doctor had counted the ladies instead of the grog-shops, disputed the correctness of his report, which had led to the result that was being carried out to-day, by some pretty spirited betting between the Doctor, Jim, Daniel, and Jeffrey, as to the number of gin palaces (chickabobbooags) they should pass on their way from St. James’s Street to Blackwall (where they had curiosity to taste “white bait”), and back again by a different route, taking Euston Station in their way as they returned. For this purpose it was arranged that the Doctor and Jim should take their customary seats with the driver; and Roman Nose and the Little Wolf inside of the bus, where there was less to attract their attention, should each take his side of the street, counting as they passed them, while the old War-chief should notch them on a stick which they had prepared for the purpose, having Daniel and Jeffrey by their sides to see that there was no mistake.

The amusements of this gigantic undertaking were not to be even anticipated until they got back, nor its difficulties exactly appreciated until they appeared in the prosecution of the design. At starting off, the Roman Nose and Little Wolf took their positions on opposite seats, each one appropriating a pane of glass for his observations, and the old War-chief with his deal stick in one hand and a knife in the other; and in this way they were ready for, and commenced operations. Each one as he passed a gin-shop, called out “chickabobbooag!” and the old chief cut a notch. This at first seemed to be quite an easy thing, and even allowed the old man an occasional moment to look around and observe the direction in which they were going, while the two amusing chubs who were outside could pass an occasional remark or two upon the ladies as they were commencing to keep an oral account, to corroborate or correct the records that were making inside. As they gradually receded from the temperate region of St. James’s (having by an ignorant oversight overlooked the numerous club-houses), their labours began to increase, and the old War-chief had to ply his knife with precision and quickness; the two companions outside stopped all further conversation, holding on to their fingers for tens, hundreds, &c. The word chickabobbooag was now so rapidly repeated at times inside (and oftentimes by both parties at once), that the old chief found the greatest difficulty in keeping his record correct. The parties all kept at their posts, and attended strictly to their reckonings, until they arrived at Blackwall. They cast up none of their accounts there, but the old chief’s record was full—there was no room for another notch. He procured another stick for the returning memorandums, and the route back, being much more prolific and much longer, filled each of the four corners of his new stick, and when it was full he set down the rest of his sum in black marks, with a pencil and paper which Daniel took from his pocket.

The reckoning, when they got back, and their curious remarks upon the incidents of their ride, were altogether very amusing, and so numerous and discordant were their accounts, that there was no final decision agreed upon as to the bets.

Their results were brought in thus:

What route they took I never was able to learn, but such were their accounts as they brought them in; and as it was ascertained that the Doctor had been adding to his account all the shops where he saw bottles in the windows, it was decided to be a reasonable calculation that he had brought into the account erroneously:

So ended (after the half-hour’s jokes they had about it) this novel enterprise, which had been carried out with great pains and much fatigue, and in which, it was suggested by them, and admitted by me, they had well earned a jug of chickabobboo.

The settlement of this important affair was not calculated by any means to lessen the Doctor’s curiosity in another respect, and which has been alluded to before—his desire to visit some of those places, to see the manner in which the chickabobboo was made. I put him at rest on that subject, however, by telling him that there was none of it made at those shops where it was sold, but that I had procured an order to admit the whole party to one of the greatest breweries in the city, where the chickabobboo was made, and that we were all to go the next day and see the manner in which it was done. This information seemed to give great pleasure to all, and to finish for the present the subject of chickabobboo.

The night of this memorable day I had announced as the last night of the Indians at the Egyptian Hall, arrangements having been effected for their exhibitions to be made a few days in Vauxhall Gardens before leaving London for some of the provincial towns. This announcement, of course, brought a dense crowd into the Hall, and in it, as usual, the “jolly fat dame,” and many of my old friends, to take their last gaze at the Indians.

The amusements were proceeding this evening, as on former occasions, when a sudden excitement was raised in the following manner. In the midst of one of their noisy dances, the War-chief threw himself, with a violent jump and a yell of the shrill war-whoop, to the corner of the platform, where he landed on his feet in a half-crouching position, with his eyes, and one of his forefingers, fixed upon something that attracted his whole attention in a distant part of the crowd. The dance stopped—the eyes of all the Indians, and of course those of most of the crowd, were attracted to the same point; the eyes of the old War-chief were standing open, and in a full blaze upon the object before him, which nobody could well imagine, from his expression, to be anything less exciting than a huge panther, or a grizly bear, in the act of springing upon him. After staring awhile, and then shifting his weight upon the other leg, and taking a moment to wink, for the relief of his eyes, he resumed the intensity of his gaze upon the object before him in the crowd, and was indulging during a minute or two in a dead silence, for the events of twenty or thirty years to run through his mind, when he slowly straightened up to a more confident position, with his eyes relaxed, but still fixed upon their object, when, in an emphatic and ejaculatory tone, he pronounced the bewildering word of Bobasheela! and repeated it, Bobasheela? “Yes, I’m Bobasheela, my good old fellow! I knew your voice as soon as you spoke (though you don’t understand English yet).” Chee-au-mung-ta-wangish-kee, Bobasheela. “My friends, will you allow me to move along towards that good old fellow? he knows me;” at which the old chief (not of a hundred, but) of many battles, gave a yell, and a leap from the platform, and took his faithful friend Bobasheela in his arms, and after a lapse of thirty years, had the pleasure of warming his cheek against that of one of his oldest and dearest friends—one whose heart, we have since found, had been tried and trusted, and as often requited, in the midst of the dense and distant wildernesses of the banks of the Mississippi and Missouri. Whilst this extraordinary interview was proceeding, all ideas of the dance were for the time lost sight of, and whilst these veterans were rapidly and mutually reciting the evidences of their bygone days of attachment, there came a simultaneous demand from all parts of the room, for an interpretation of their conversation, which I gave as far as I could understand it, and as far as it had then progressed, thus:—The old Sachem, in leading off his favourite war-dance, suddenly fixed his eye upon a face in the crowd, which he instantly recognized, and gazing upon it a moment, decided that it was the well-known face of an old friend, with whom he had spent many happy days of his early life on the banks of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in America. The old chief, by appealing to this gentleman’s familiar Indian cognomen of Bobasheela, brought out an instant proof of the correctness of his recognition; and as he held him by both hands, to make proof doubly strong, he made much merriment amongst the party of Indians, by asking him if he ever “floated down any part of the great Mississippi river in the night, astride of two huge logs of wood, with his legs hanging in the water?” To which Bobasheela instantly replied in the affirmative. After which, and several medicine phrases, and masonic grips and signs had passed between them, the dance was resumed, and the rest of the story, as well as other anecdotes of the lives of these extraordinary personages postponed to the proper time and place, when and where the reader will be sure to hear them.

The exhibition for the evening being over, Bobasheela was taken home with the Indians, to their lodgings, to smoke a pipe with them; and having had the curiosity to be of the party, I was enabled to gather the following further information. This Bobasheela (Mr. J. H., a native of Cornwall) (Plate No. 14), who is now spending the latter part of a very independent bachelor’s life amongst his friends in London, left his native country as long ago as the year 1805, and making his way, like many other bold adventurers, across the Alleghany Mountains in America, descended into the great and almost boundless valley of the Mississippi, in hopes by his indefatigable industry, and daring enterprise, to share in the products that must find their way from that fertile wilderness valley to the civilized world.

In this arduous and most perilous pursuit, he repeatedly ascended and descended in his bark canoe—his pirogue or his Mackinaw boat, the Ohio, the Muskingham, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, the Arkansas, the Missouri, and Mississippi rivers; and amongst the thousand and one droll and amusing incidents of thirty years spent in such a sort of life, was the anecdote which the War-chief alluded to, in the unexpected meeting with his old friend in my exhibition-room, and which the two parties more fully related to me in this evening’s interview. The good-natured Mr. H. told me that the tale was a true one, and the awkward predicament spoken of by the War-chief was one that he was actually placed in when his acquaintance first began with his good friend.

Though the exhibition had kept us to a late hour, the greetings and pleasing reminiscences to be gone over by these two reclaimed friends, and (as they called themselves) “brothers” of the “Far West,” over repeatedly charged pipes of k'nick k'neck, were pleasing, and held us to a most unreasonable hour at night. When the chief, amongst his rapid interrogations to Bobasheela, asked him if he had preserved his she-she-quoin, he gave instant relief to the mind of his friend, from which the lapse of time and changes of society had erased the recollection of the chief’s familiar name, She-she-quoi-me-gon, by which his friend had christened him, from the circumstance of his having presented him a she-she-quoin(or mystery rattle), the customary badge bestowed when any one is initiated into the degree of “doctor” or “brother.”

From the forms and ceremonies which my good friend Bobasheela had gone through, it seems (as his name indicates) that he stood in the relationship of brother to the chief; and although the chief’s interrogations had produced him pleasure in one respect, one can easily imagine him much pained in another, inasmuch as he was obliged to acknowledge that his sacred badge, his she-she-quoin, had been lost many years since, by the sinking of one of his boats on the Cumberland river. For his standing in the tribe, such an event might have been of an irretrievable character; but for the renewed and continued good fellowship of his friend in this country, the accident proved to be one of little moment, as will be learned from various incidents recited in the following pages.

In this first evening’s interview over the pipe, my friend Mr. H., to the great amusement of the party of Indians, and of Daniel and the squaws, who had gathered around us, as well as several of my London friends, related the story of “floating down the Mississippi river on two logs of wood,” &c., as follows:—

There was a burst of laughter and mirth amongst the squaws and others of us who had listened to this curious tale, and, as the reader will easily decide, a great deal of pleasure produced by its relation. The supper-table by this time was ready, and Bobasheela took a seat by the side of his old friend. The author was also in the humour, and joined them at their beef-steak and chickabobboo, and so did Mr. Melody and Daniel, and all who had joined in the merriment of the occasion of Bobasheela’s relation of the story of his going to the wedding astride of the two logs of wood. After the supper was over, and while the pipe was passing around, a number of other recitals of adventures in the “Far-West” continued the amusements of the evening to a late hour, when the author retired and left them to their own jokes and their night’s rest.

The next morning after this was an exciting and bustling one, as all were preparing, at an early hour, to visit the great brewery on that day, as had been promised; and on their way back to see the Thames Tunnel, and the treasures of the Tower of London. One will easily see that here was a gigantic day’s work struck out, and that material enough was at hand for my note-book. Bobasheela must be of this party, and therefore was not left behind: with all in (except the two bucks, who habitually went outside), the Indian bus, with four horses, was a travelling music box as it passed rapidly through the streets; and the clouds of smoke issuing from it at times often spread the alarm that “she was all on fire within” as she went by. At the brewery, where they had been invited by the proprietors, servants in abundance were in readiness to turn upon their giant hinges the great gates, and pass the carriage into the court; and at the entrance to the grand fountain of chickabobboo there were servants to receive them and announce their arrival, when they were met, and with the greatest politeness and kindness led by one of the proprietors, and an escort of ladies, through the vast labyrinths and mazes, through the immense halls and courts, and under and over the dry-land bridges and arches of this smoking, steeping, and steaming wonder of the world, as they were sure to call it when they got home. The vastness and completeness of this huge manufactory, or, in fact, village of manufactures, illustrated and explained in all its parts and all its mysterious modes of operation, formed a subject of amazement in our own as well as the Indians’ minds—difficult to be described, and never to be forgotten.

When the poor untutored Indians, from the soft and simple prairies of the Missouri, seated themselves upon a beam, and were looking into and contemplating the immensity of a smoking steeping-vat, containing more than 3000 barrels, and were told that there were 130 others of various dimensions in the establishment—that the whole edifice covered twelve acres of ground, and that there were necessarily constantly on hand in their cellars 232,000 barrels of ale, and also that this was only one of a great number of breweries in London, and that similar manufactories were in every town in the kingdom, though on a less scale, they began, almost for the first time since their arrival, to evince profound astonishment; and the fermentation in their minds, as to the consistency of white man’s teachings of temperance and manufacturing and selling ale, seemed not less than that which was going on in the vast abyss below them. The pipe was lit and passed around while they were in this contemplative mood, and as their ears were open, they got, in the meantime, further information of the wonderful modes and operations of this vast machine; and also, in round numbers, read from a report by one of the proprietors, the quantity of ale consumed in the kingdom annually. Upon hearing this, which seemed to cap the climax of all their astonishment, they threw down the pipe, and leaping into an empty vat, suddenly dissipated the pain of their mental calculations by joining in the Medicine (or Mystery) Dance. Their yells and screaming echoing through the vast and vapouring halls, soon brought some hundreds of maltsmen, grinders, firers, mashers, ostlers, painters, coopers, &c., peeping through and amongst the blackened timbers and casks, and curling and hissing fumes, completing the scene as the richest model for the infernal regions.

Every reader will paint (and must paint) this picture for himself, imagining the steeping vapour everywhere rising in curling clouds of white towards the blackened walls, and timbers, and wheels, and stairways, and arches, and bridges, and casks, and from amongst and between all of these, the blackened faces and glaring eyeballs piercing through the steam, upon the unusual, and to them as yet unaccountable, fermentation going on (to the admiration and amusement of those who were in the secret) in the empty vat! At the end of their dance, a foaming mug of the delicious was passed around, enabling them more easily and lightly to comprehend the wonders of this mighty scene; and after they had finished their round, and seen its varied mysteries, a huge and delicious beefsteak, and foaming mugs of the cream of chickabobboo, prepared for them by the kind lady of one of the proprietors of the establishment, soon smoothed off all the edges of their astonishment; and after the war-dance and the war-whoop, given to please the ladies, they again passed under the huge arches and gateways, and took their omnibus for a visit to the Tower.

The mood in which these good-natured fellows had left the brewery was a very merry one; they had got just ale enough for the present emergency, and seen an abundant and infallible source at the great fountain of chickabobboo to ensure them a constant supply, and seemed, as they passed along the streets, to be pleased with everything they saw. They met the man again with the “big nose,” and succeeded in stopping the bus to take a good look at his wonderful proboscis. As the bus stopped, he, like many others, came up to catch a glimpse of the red skins, and they all declared, on close examination, that his nose at least must have been begot by a potato; for, as the women had before said, they could distinctly see the sprouts, and Jim and the Doctor both insisted, that “if it were planted it would sprout and grow.”

They stopped the bus again to speak with some poor Lascars sweeping the streets; it was difficult to get any interpretation from them, though the Indians tried their own language on both sides, but in vain; they gave them fifteen shillings, and passed on.

The Tower, from its outward appearance, did not seem to excite in them any extravagant expectation of what they were to see within its gloomy walls. They remarked, when going in, that “they were going to prison;” and they were of opinion, no doubt, that it consisted of little else, as they had as yet heard no other description of it than that it was the “Tower of London” and they were going to see it. Poor fellows! they guessed right; they knew not of the illustrious prisoners who had pined within its gloomy walls, nor of the blood that had been shed within and around it. They went to see, and had enough to engage all their thoughts and attention without referring to the events of history. We were kindly conducted through the different rooms, and most of its curiosities explained to us. The “small-arms room,” containing 200,000 muskets, had been burned. The “horse armoury” seemed to afford them much delight; the thousands of various spears and lances, they thought, presented some beautiful models for Indian warfare, and hunting the buffaloes. The beheading block, on which Lords Balmerino, Kilmarnock, and Lovat were beheaded in the Tower in 1746, attracted their attention, and the axe that severed the head of Anne Boleyn.

In the Regalia Room, the crown of her Majesty and four other crowns, the sceptres and staffs, and orbs, swords of justice, swords of mercy, royal spurs, salts, baptismal fonts, &c., in massive gold and brilliant stones, seemed rather to disappoint than to astonish them; and to us, who knew better than they did the meaning and value of these magnificent treasures, there seemed a striking incongruity in the public exhibition of them in so confined and humble an apartment.

The Thames Tunnel was our next object, and a drive of a quarter of an hour brought us to the dismal neighbourhood of its entrance. Paying our fees, and descending some hundred or more steps by a spiral staircase, we were ready to enter the tunnel. Walking through its gloomy halls, and spending a few shillings for toys protruded under our faces at every rod we advanced, by young women sitting at their little stalls under each of its arches, we at length ascended an equal number of steps, and came to the light of day on the opposite side of the Thames; and in the midst of one of the most unintelligible, forlorn, and forsaken districts of London or the world, we waited half an hour or more for our omnibus to make its circuit across the bridge and take us up. We sauntered and loitered our way through, and as long as we were passing this monster speculation of the world, we met, to the best of our recollection, but four or five persons passing through, who had paid their penny a-head for the privilege.

While waiting for the bus, some “on-the-spot” remarks were made by the Indians, which I thought had some sound sense in them. They thought it must have cost a great deal of money, and believed it was too far out of London ever to pay; and they did not see that it was any curiosity for them, as they had passed through several on the railway ten times as long. They did not think, however, that it need be time and money thrown away, as “they thought it might make a first-rate place to twist ropes.” These and other remarks they were making about the great tunnel as we were jogging along towards home, and evidently somewhat surprised that we should have excited their curiosity so high about it.

On our return, after this fatiguing day’s work was finished, their dinner was ready; and after that their pipe was smoked, a nap taken, and then their accustomed amusements in the Egyptian Hall. Their supper was the next thing, and with it their mug of chickabobboo, then their pipe, passing around as they all reclined on their buffalo robes on the floor, and then began the gossip about the sights they had seen and incidents they had witnessed during the day. This extraordinary day’s rambling had taken them across more bridges and through a greater number of crooked and narrow streets than they had passed on any former occasion, which brought the Doctor to one of the first and shrewdest remarks of the evening. He said “he thought from all that he had seen, sitting on top of the bus all day, that the English people had the best way in the world for crossing rivers, but he thought their paths were many of them too narrow and much too crooked.”

“The poor people, and those who seemed to be drunk, were much more numerous than they had seen them in any other of their drives;” and they were counting the money left in their pouches to see how much they had thrown out to the poor. They soon agreed that “they had given away something more than thirty shillings, which they thought would do a great deal of good, and the Great Spirit would reward them for it.”

The Doctor and Jim, the everlasting cronies, on the outside, were comparing their estimates of the numbers they had counted of the “Kon-to-too-ags (fighters with one horn)[26] that they had seen over the doors and shops as they had passed along, which they had been looking at every day since they came to London, but had never yet been able quite to learn the meaning of,” and also “the totems (arms, as they supposed) of great chiefs, so beautifully painted and put out between their chamber windows.”

The Doctor said “he believed the white people had got this custom from the Indians, as it was the habit of the great chiefs and warriors to put their ‘totems’ over their wig-wam doors, but when they did so, they always put out scalps on certain days, to show what they had done. He had watched these totems in London as he had been riding, in all sorts of weather, and as he had seen no scalps or anything hung out by the side of them, he couldn’t exactly see how all these people were entitled to them; still, it might all be right.” Daniel put the Doctor’s inquiries all at rest on the subject of totems and the “one-horn fighters,” by telling him that if he would wait a little until Mr. Catlin and Mr. Melody had gone, he would give him the whole history of white men’s totems, how they got them and the use they made of them; and he would also tell him all about the “Lion and the Unicorn fighting for the Crown,” &c.

The Doctor here made some comments on the great white war-chief (the Duke of Wellington) who had been pointed out to them on horseback as they passed him in the street, and his wig-wam was also shown to them (i.e. to the Doctor and Jim as they sat outside with the driver). He was disposed to learn something more of him, and Daniel silenced him by saying, “Let that alone too for awhile, and I will tell you all about him.”

Daniel and Jim I found at this time very busily engaged in a corner of the room, with a candle on the floor; whilst Daniel was entering in a little book the astonishing estimates given us at the brewery, of the quantity of ale on hand, the size and number of the vats, and the almost incredible quantity consumed in the kingdom each year. Jim, as I have before said, was the only one of the party who seemed ambitious to civilize; and as he was daily labouring to learn something of the English language, he had this day conceived the importance of instituting a little book of entries in which he could carry home, to enlighten his people, something like a brief statistical account of the marvellous things he was seeing, and was to see, amongst the white people.

Daniel had at this moment finished entering into it the estimates of the brewery and chickabobboo, which had opened their eyes wider, perhaps, than anything else they had seen; and he had very wisely left a few blank pages in the beginning of the book for other retrospective notes and estimates of things they had already seen since the day they left home. Jim’s Journal was thus established, and he was, with Daniel’s aid, to become a sort of historian to the party; and as the sequel will show, he became stimulated thereby to greater exertions to see and to understand what was curious and interesting, and to get estimates of the beauties and blessings of civilization to carry home. He laboured from that moment indefatigably, not to write or to read, but to speak; and made rapid progress, as will be seen hereafter, having known, as he said, but two English sentences when he came to England, which were, “How do do?” and “God dam.”