Difficulties resulting from a false impression of the Indian character--Treaty with the Saginaws--Ottawas of Grand River establish themselves in a colony in Barry County--Payments to the Ottawas of Maumee, Ohio--Temperance--Assassination of young Aitkin by an Indian at Leech Lake--Mackinack mission abandoned--Wyandots complain of a trespass from a mill-dam--Mohegans of Green Bay apply for aid on their way to visit Stockbridge, Mass.--Mohegan traditions--Historical Society--Programme of a tour in the East--Parental disobedience--Indian treaties--Dr. Warren's Collection of Crania--Hebrew language--Geology--"Goods offer"--Mrs. Jameson--Mastodon's tooth in Michigan--Captain Marryatt--The Icelandic language--Munsees--Speech of Little Bear Skin chief, or Mu-kÓnsewyÁn.

OFFICE INDIAN AFFAIRS, DETROIT.

1837. Jan. 5th. Difficulties are reported as existing between a party of Indians (of about fifteen souls) of Bobish, and the settlers of Coldwater, Branch county, (township 8, S. range, 5 west.) About forty families have settled there within the last fall and summer. The Indians, who have been in the habit of making sugar and hunting on the public lands, are disposed not to relinquish these privileges, probably not understanding fully their right. Mutual threats have passed, which are repeated by Thomas G. Holden, who requests the interposition of the Department.

Settlers generally move into the new districts with strong prejudices against the Indians, whom they regard, mistakingly, as thirsting for blood and plunder. It only requires a little conciliation, and proper explanations, as in this case, to induce them at once to adopt the proper course.

14th. Articles of a new treaty were this day signed at my office, by the Saginaw chiefs, for the sale of all their reservations in Michigan. These reservations were made under the treaty of September 24th, 1819. They were ceded by them at Washington, in the spring of 1836, but the terms, and particularly the advance of money stipulated to be made, were deemed too liberal by the Senate, and, in consequence, the treaty was rejected. The object is now attained in a manner which, it is hoped, will prove satisfactory. By this, as the former treaty, this tribe are allowed the entire proceeds of the sale of their lands.

20th. Rev. Mr. Slater reports that the Ottawas of Grand River, who were parties to the treaty of 28th of March, have purchased lands in Barry county for the $6,400 allowed by the ninth article of the treaty, in trust for Chiminonoquet; and that a mission has been established on the lands purchased, which is called Ottawa Colony. Difficulties have occurred with pre-emption claimants in the same lands.

31st. Captain Simonton reports the payment of the annuity, amounting to $1,700, due to the Ottawas of Maumee, Ohio. The entire number of persons paid by him was four hundred and thirty-three, dividing a fraction under $4 per soul. In these payments old and young fare alike. Henry Connor, Esq., the interpreter present, confirms the report of the equal division, per capita, among the Indians, and the satisfaction which attended the payment, on their part.

Feb. 1st. Delivered an address at the Presbyterian Church, before a crowded audience, on the temperance movement, showing that the whole question to be decided was, in which class of moderate drinkers men elected themselves to be arranged, and that ardent spirits, as a beverage, were wholly unnecessary to a healthy constitution.

Transmitted to Mr. Palfrey a review of Mr. Gallatin's "Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of America."

Feb. 1st. Mr. William A. Aitkin writes from Sandy Lake: "Since I left you at St. Peter's I have had a severe trial to go through. I came up by Swan River, but heard nothing there of the melancholy event which had taken place during my absence at Upper Red Cedar Lake. My eldest son had been placed at that place last fall, in charge of that post. You saw him, I believe, last summer; he was in charge of Leech Lake when you were at that place. He was a young man of twenty-two years of age, of a very amiable temper, humane and brave, possessed of the most unbounded obedience to my will, and of the most filial affection for my person. This, my son, was murdered in the most atrocious manner by a bloody monster of an Indian. My poor boy had arrived the evening previous to the bloody act, from a voyage to Red Lake. Early the next morning he sent off all the men he had to Lake Winnipeck, excepting one Frenchman, to bring up some things which he had left there in the fall. A short time after his men had gone, he sent the remaining man to bring some water from the river; the man returned into the house immediately, and told him an Indian had broken open the store, and was in it. He went very deliberately to the store, took hold of the villain, who tried to strike him with his tomahawk, dragged him out of the store and disarmed him of his axe, threw him on the ground, and then let him go--and was turned round in the act of locking the store-door. The villain stepped behind the door, where he had hid his gun, came on him unawares and shot him dead, without the least previous provocation whatever on the part of my poor lost boy. When arrived, I found the feelings of every one prepared for vengeance. I immediately, without one moment's loss of time, proceeded to Leech Lake. In a moment there were twenty half-breeds gathered round, with Francis Brunette at their head, full-armed, ready to execute any commands that I should give them. We went immediately to the camp where the villain was, beyond Red Cedar Lake, determined to cut off the whole band if they should raise a finger in his defence. Our mutual friend, Mr. Boutwell, joined the party, with his musket on his shoulder, as a man and a Christian, for he knew it was a righteous cause, and that the arm of God was with him. We arrived on the wretches unawares, disarmed the band, and dragged the monster from his lodge. I would have put the villain to death in the midst of his relations, but Mr. Boutwell advised it would be better to take him where he might be made an example of. The monster escaped from us two days after we had taken him, but my half-breeds pursued him for six days and brought him back, and he is now on his way to St. Peter's in irons, under a strong guard. My dear friend, I cannot express to you the anguish of my heart at this present moment.

"The Indians of all this department have behaved like villains during my absence, particularly the Indians of Leech Lake, committing the greatest depredations on our people, and would surely have murdered them if they had shown the least disposition to resist their aggravations. You will excuse me from giving you any other news at present. I'm not in a state of mind to do it."

Feb. 3d. Rev. David Green, of Boston, communicates the determination of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to break up and abandon the school and mission at Mackinack. This decision I have long feared, and cannot but deplore. The school is large, and the education of many of the pupils is such that in a few years they would make useful practicable men and women, and carry a Christian influence over a wide circle. By dispersing them now the labor is to some extent lost.

6th. Received, a vote of thanks of the Detroit Total Abstinence Society, for my temperance address of the 1st instant, which is courteously called "elegant and appropriate." So, ho!

22d. A party of Wyandots from the River Huron, of Michigan, visited the office. They complain that trespasses are committed by settlers on the lands reserved to them. The trespasses arise from the construction of mill-dams, by which their grounds are overflowed. They asked whether they hold the reservation for fifty years or otherwise. I replied that they hold them, by the terms of the treaty, as long as they shall have any posterity to live on the lands. They only escheat to the United States in failure of this. But that I would send an agent to inquire into the justice of their complaint, and to redress it.

24th. Robert Kankapot presents himself with about twenty followers. He is a Stockbridge Indian of Green Bay, Wisconsin, on his way to the East. He is short of funds, and asks for relief. No annuity or other funds are payable, at this office, to this tribe. I deemed his plea, however, a reasonable one, and loaned him personally one hundred dollars.

I detained him with some historical questions. He says he is sixty-four years of age, that he was born in Stockbridge, on the head of the Housatonic River, in Massachusetts. From this town they take their present name. They are, however, the descendants of the ancient Mohegans, who lived on the sea coast and in the Hudson Valley. They were instructed by the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the eminent theologian, who was afterwards president of Princeton College. Their first migration was into New Stockbridge, in Oneida County, New York, where the Oneida tribe assigned them lands. This was about the era of the American Revolution. They next went, about 1822, to Fox River of Green Bay, where they now reside. Their oldest chief, at that point, is Metoxon, who is now sixty-nine.

He says his remote ancestry were from Long Island (Metoacs), and that Montauk means great sea island. (This does not appear probable philologically.) He says the opposite coast, across the East River, was called Monhautonuk. He afterwards, the next day, said that Long Island was called Paum-nuk-kah-huk.

March 1st. To a friend abroad I wrote: "I have written during the winter an article on Mr. Gallatin's recently published paper on the Indian languages, entitled A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes, which is published by the American Antiquarian Society. It was with great reluctance that I took up the subject, and when I did, I have been so complete a fact hunter all my life, that I found it as difficult to lay it down. The result is probably an article too long for ninety-nine readers out of a hundred, and too short for the hundredth man."

8th. Mr. Palfrey acknowledges the safe arrival of my article for the North American Review.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions decline $6000 for the abandoned missionary house at Mackinack, offered under the view of its being converted into a dormitory for receiving Indian visitors at that point under the provisions of the treaty of 1836.

17th. Received a letter of thanks from old Zachariah Chusco, the converted Jos-sa-keed, for kindness.

23d Received a commission from Gov. Mason, appointing me a regent of the University of Michigan.

22d. The Historical Society of Michigan hold their annual meeting at my office. In the election for officers I was honored by being selected its President. A deep interest in historical letters had been manifested by this institution since its organization in 1828, particularly in the history of the aboriginal tribes, and means have been put on foot for the collection of facts. To these, the recent and extraordinary settlement of the country by emigration from the Bast, has added a new branch of inquiry, respecting town, county, and neighborhood settlements. Much of this is held in the memory of old persons, and will be lost if not gleaned up and preserved in the shape of narratives. Resolutions for this purpose were adopted, and an appeal made to the legislature to facilitate the collection of pamphlets and printed documents. Men live so rapidly now that few think of posterity; society hastens at a horse's pace, and we pass over so large a surface in so short a time, that the historian and antiquarian will stand aghast, in a few years, and exclaim "would that more minute facts were within our reach!"

23d. The Department at Washington instructs me to examine additional and unsatisfied claims arising under the 5th article of the treaty of March 28th, 1836, and, after submitting them to the Indians, to report them for payment.

28th. Very different are the diurnal scenes enacted from those which passed before my eyes at the ice-closed post of Mackinack last winter. Yet in one respect they are entitled to have a similar effect on my mind; it is in the craving that exists to fill the intervals of business with some moral and intellectual occupation that may tend to relieve it of the tedium of long periods of leisure. When a visitor is dismissed, or a transaction is settled, and the door closes on a man habituated to mental labor, the ever-ready inquiry is, What next? To sit still--to do nothing absolutely but to turn over the thoughts of other men, though this be a privilege, is not ultimate happiness. There is still a void, which the desire to be remembered, or something else, must fill.

31st. Gen. Cass writes from Paris that he is on the eve of setting out, with his family, for the Levant, to embark on a tour to the East, to visit the ancient seats of oriental power. "We proceed directly to Toulon, where we shall embark on board the frigate Constitution. From thence we touch at Leghorn, Civita Vecchia, Naples, and Sicily, and then proceed to Alexandria. After seeing Cairo, the Pyramids, Memphis, and, I hope, the Red Sea, we shall proceed to Palestine, look at Jerusalem, see the Dead Sea, and other interesting places of Holy Writ, pass by and touch at Tyre and Sidon, land at Beyrout, and visit Damascus and Baalbec, and probably Palmyra; touch at Smyrna, proceed to Constantinople and the Black Sea, and then to Greece, &c.; after that to the islands of the Archipelago, then up the Adriatic to Venice and Trieste, and thence return to this place. So, you see, here is the programme of a pretty good expedition, certainly a very interesting one."

April 6th. By letters received from Albany, a singular chapter of the inscrutable course and awards of Providence for parental disobedience and youthful deception is revealed. Alfredus, who departed from my office in Detroit early in March last, to receive a warrant as a cadet at West Point, has not appeared among his friends. He was a young man of good mind, figure, and address, and would doubtless have justified the judgment of his friends in giving him a military education. His father had been one of the patriots of 1776, and served on the memorable field of Saratoga. But the young man was smitten with the romance of going to Texas and joining the ranks of that country, striving for a rank among nations. This secret wish he carefully concealed from me, and, setting out with the view of returning to his father's roof, and solacing his age by entering the military academy, he secretly took the stage to Columbus, Ohio. Thence he pushed his way to New Orleans and Galveston. The next intelligence received of him, was a careful measurement of his length, by unknown hands, and the statement that, in ascending the Brazos, he had taken the fever and died.

10th. Issued notice to claimants for Indian debts, under the 5th article of the treaty of March 28th, 1886; that additional claims would be considered, and that such claims, with the evidence in support of them, must be produced previous to the first of June next.

26th. Received notice of my election as a corresponding member of the Hartford Natural History Society, Connecticut.

I have filled the pauses of official duty, during the season, by preparing for the press the oral legends which have been gleaned from the Indians since my residence at Sault St. Marie, in the basin of Lake Superior, and at Michilimackinack, under the name of Algic Researches, vol. i.

10th. By the treaty of 9th May, 1836, with the Swan Creek and Black River Chippewas, the United States agree to furnish them thirteen sections of land West, in lieu of the cessions relinquished in Michigan, besides accounting to them for the nett proceeds of the land ceded. Measures were now taken to induce them to send delegates to the Indian territory west of the Missouri, to locate this tract, and an agent was appointed to accompany them.

16th. Received a copy of my article on Indian languages.

17th. The Saginaws, by the cession of the 14th of January, agreed to leave Michigan, and accept a location elsewhere; and they were now urged to send delegates to the head waters of the Osage River, where they can be provided with fine lands, and placed in juxtaposition to cognate tribes.

29th. Received a letter from the editor of the "Knickerbocker." [79]

[79] Birchen Canoe: Song of the Ship.

May 18th. Received notice of my election as one of the vice presidents of the American Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, at New York.

23d. William Ward, Esq., of the War Office, Washington, D.C., writes: "I have received two communications from Dr. Warren, of Boston, on the subject of a collection of crania and bones of the aborigines. He is desirous of procuring specimens from the different tribes, and from the mounds in the different sections of the country.

"Trusting, in a great measure, to your readiness to co-operate in every effort to advance the cause of science, I have promised him to use the means my connection with the office might give me to forward his views. His high reputation must be known to you, and I am sure you will aid him to complete a collection which, I understand, he has been occupied many years in making.

"I gather from his letters, that he wishes to procure a few complete skeletons, and a number of crania, and that it will be desirable to have as much as possible of the history of each head."

June 4th. Michilimackinack. Received a copy of Bush's Grammar of the Hebrew Language, and commenced comparing the Indian tongues with it. This language has twenty-two letters. In order to impress the elements upon my own mind, as well as improve theirs, I commenced teaching my children the language, just keeping ahead of them, and hearing their recitations every morning.

26th. Receive a letter of introduction from Governor Mason, by Mr. Massingberd, of England, an intelligent and estimable traveler in America.

27th. Dr. Edward Spring, son of the Rev. Gardiner Spring, of New York, visits the island with the view of a temporary practice.

July 1st. A copy of Stuart's Hebrew Grammar reached me this morning. I have a special motive in making myself acquainted with this ancient, and, as I find, simple tongue. The course of my investigation of the Algonquin language, has shown me the want of the means of enlarged comparison, which I could not institute without it.

6th. Major Whiting writes: "I have lately begun Buckland's Treatise, and a noble work it is; the subject he treats just in that way which will communicate the greatest amount of information to the reading public. That part which explains the bearing of the Scriptures on geology, will have a most salutary effect on the public mind. It was all important that such explanations should be given. Many good minds have been startled, and approached geology with averted eyes, apprehending that it ran counter to the great truths of the Bible. Viewed as the Bible generally has been, geological facts are likely to disturb the moral world. Either they must be disbelieved, or that literal interpretation of Genesis, so long received, must be abandoned. To make this abandonment, without having satisfactory reasons for it, would have risked much, that never should be put in jeopardy. It had come to this, geology must be sealed up and anathematized, or it must be reconciled with the Sacred Writ. Buckland has undoubtedly done the latter; and he has thus conferred an inestimable blessing on mankind."

12th. A remarkable land claim, upon the Indians, who are parties to the late treaty of 1836, came before me. This consisted of a grant given by the Chippewas in 1760, to Major Robert Rodgers, of anti-revolutionary fame, to a valuable part of the upper region on Lake Superior. The present heir is James Chaloner Alabaster, who says the deed, of which a copy is furnished, has been in the possession of his family in England about sixty years. It appears to have been executed in due form for a consideration. It is prior to the proclamation of George III. interdicting grants.

19th. A band of Chippewas, originally hailing from Grand Island, in Lake Superior, but now living on the extreme northern head of Green Bay, visited the office. It embraced the eldest son of the late Oshawn Epenaysee (South Bird), who died, in the first class of chiefs, at Grand Island last fall. His name is Ado-wa-wa-e-go (something of an inanimate kind beating about in the water on shore). They requested that he might be recognized as their chief. On examination this request was acceded to, and I invested him with a flag.

24th. The department submitted a proposition to the Indians, to take half their annuities under the treaty of 1836, at the approaching payments, in goods, and half in silver. If the goods were declined, they were requested to receive the half annuity in silver, with the other annuities provided by the treaty, in kind, and to wait for the other moiety till the next year.

I submitted the offer to a full council of the chiefs and warriors this day. They debated it fully. A delegation visited the goods, which were shown by an agent. They decline receiving them, but agree to receive the half annuity in coin, and wait, as requested, for the other half till the next payment. This proposition was called the "goods offer," and was much distorted by the public-press. I was blamed for having carried the offer into effect, whereas it was declined, and the half annuity in silver accepted, and the credit asked for, given for the rest.

25th. Two bands who had not united in this decision, namely, the bands of Point St. Ignace and Chenos, came in, by their chiefs, and yielded their assent to the arrangement of yesterday. Thus the consent became unanimous on the part of the Indians.

A notification, by a special messenger, to the Grand River Ottawas, is dispatched to attend the payments at this place on the 1st of September, and to signify their assent or dissent to the proposed arrangement. Rix Robinson and Louis Campeau, Esqrs., of that valley, and the Rev. Leonard Slater, of Barry, are requested to give this notice publicity.

26th. Mrs. Jameson embarks in an open boat for Sault Ste. Marie, accompanied by Mrs. Schoolcraft, after having spent a short time as a most intelligent and agreeable inmate under our roof. This lady, respecting whom I had received letters from my brother-in-law Mr. McMurray, a clergyman of Canada West, evinced a most familiar knowledge of artistic life and society in England and Germany. Her acquaintance with Goethe, and other distinguished writers, gave a life and piquancy to her conversation and anecdotes, which made us cherish her society the more. She is, herself, an eminent landscape painter, or rather sketcher in crayon, and had her portfolio ever in hand. She did not hesitate freely to walk out to prominent points, of which the island has many, to complete her sketches. This freedom from restraint in her motions, was an agreeable trait in a person of her literary tastes and abilities. She took a very lively interest in the Indian race, and their manners and customs, doubtless with views of benevolence for them as a peculiar race of man, but also as a fine subject of artistic observation. Notwithstanding her strong author-like traits and peculiarities, we thought her a woman of hearty and warm affections and attachments; the want of which, in her friends, we think she would exquisitely feel.

Mrs. Jameson several times came into the office and heard the Indians speaking. She also stepped out on the piazza and saw the wild Indians dancing; she evidently looked on with the eye of a Claude Lorraine or Michael Angelo.

27th. The term ego, added to an active Indian verb, renders it passive. I have given an example of this before in the case of a man's name. Here is another: The verb to carry is Be-moan in the Algonquin. By the pronominal prefix Nim, we have the sense I carry. By adding to the latter the suffix ego, the action is reflected and this sense is rendered passive.

29th. A treaty is concluded this day at Fort Snelling, St. Peter's, between Governor H. Dodge and the Chippewa Indians, by which they cede a large and important tract to the United States.

Aug. 1st. A discovery of a tooth of the Mastodon has lately been made in the bed of the Papaw River, in Berrian County, Michigan. It is about six inches long and three broad. The enamel is nearly perfect, and that part of the tooth which was covered by it nearly whole, while the portion which must have been inserted in the socket is mostly broken off. The diluvian soil of the Michigan Peninsula is thus added to the wide area of the mastodonic period.

2d. Capt. Marryatt came up in the steamer of last night. A friend writes: "He is one of Smollett's sea captains---much more of the Trunnion than one would have expected to find in a literary man. Stick Mackinack into him, with all its rock-osities. He is not much disposed to the admirari without the nil--affects little enthusiasm about anything, and perhaps feels as little." He turned out here a perfect sea urchin, ugly, rough, ill-mannered, and conceited beyond all bounds. Solomon says, "answer not a fool according to his folly," so I paid him all attention, drove him over the island in my carriage, and rigged him out with my canoe-elÈge to go to St. Mary's.

3d. George Tucker, Professor in the University of Virginia, came up in the last steamer. I hasted, while it stayed, to drive him out and show off the curiosities of the island to the best advantage.

5th. Mrs. Schoolcraft writes from the Sault, that Mrs. Jameson and the children suffered much on the trip to that place from mosquitoes, but by dint of a douceur of five dollars extra to the men, which Mrs. Jameson made to the crew, they rowed all night, from Sailor's encampment, and reached the Sault at 6 o'clock in the morning. "I feel delighted," she says, "at my having come with Mrs. Jameson, as I found that she did not know how to get along at all at all. Mr. McMurray and family and Mrs. Jameson started off on Tuesday morning for Manitouline with a fair wind and fair day, and I think they have had a fine voyage down. Poor Mrs. Jameson cried heartily when she parted with me and my children; she is indeed a woman in a thousand. While here, George came down the rapids with her in fine style and spirits. She insisted on being baptized and named in Indian, after her sail down the falls. We named her Was-sa-je-wun-e-qua (Woman of the Bright Stream), with which she was mightily pleased."

9th. Delegates from the Saginaws, from the Swan Creek and Black Chippewas of Lower Michigan, stop, on their way, to explore a new location west, in charge of a special exploring agent.

Mr. Ord, recently appointed a sub-agent in this superintendency, reaches the island. He is the second person I have known who has made the names of his children an object of singularity. Mr. Stickney, who figured prominently in the Toledo War, called his male children One, Two, &c. Mr. Ord has not evidently differed in this respect from general custom, for the same reason, namely, an objection to Christian prejudice for John and James, or Aaron and Moses. He has simply given them Latin nominatives, from the mere love he has apparently for that tongue. I believe he was formerly a Georgetown professor.

Capt. Marryatt embarked on board the steamer Michigan, on his return from the island, after having spent several days in a social visit, including a trip to the Sault, in company with Mr. Lay, of Batavia. While here, I saw a good deal of the novelist. His manners and style of conversation appeared to be those of a sailor, and such as we should look for in his own Peter Simple. Temperance and religion, if not morality, were to him mere cant words, and whether he was observed, either before dinner or after dinner--in the parlor or out of it--his words and manners were anything but those of a quiet, modest, English gentleman.

I drove Mr. Lay and himself out one day after dinner to see the curiosities of the island. He would insist walking over the arched rock. "It is a fearful and dizzy height." When on the top he stumbled. My heart was in my throat; I thought he would have been hurled to the rocks below and dashed to a thousand pieces; but, like a true sailor, he crouched down, as if on a yardarm, and again arose and completed his perilous walk.

We spoke of railroads. He said they were not built permanently in this country, and attributed the fault to our excessive go-aheadiveness. Mr. Lay: "True; but if we expended the sums you do on such works, they could not be built at all. They answer a present purpose, and we can afford to renew them in a few years from their own profits."

The captain's knowledge of natural history was not precise. He aimed to be knowing when it was difficult to conceal ignorance. He called some well-characterized species of septaria in my cabinet pudding-stone, beautiful specimens of limpid hexagonal crystals of quartz, common quartz, &c.

Mr. George P. Marsh, of Vermont, brings me a letter of introduction. This gentleman has the quiet easy air of a man who has seen the world. His fine taste and acquirements have procured him a wide reputation. His translation of Rusk's Icelandic Grammar is a scholar-like performance, and every way indicative of the propensities of his mind for philological studies.

It is curious to observe, in this language, the roots of many English words, and it denotes through what lengths of mutations of history the stock words of a generic language may be traced. Lond, skip, flaska, sumar, hamar, ketill, dal, are clearly the radices respectively of land, ship, flask, summer, hammer, kettle, dale. This property of the endurance of orthographical forms gives one a definite illustration of the importance of language on history.

12th. A large party of Munsees and Delawares from the River Thames, in Upper Canada, reach the harbor in a vessel bound for Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Rev. Mr. Vogel, in whose charge they are, lands and visits the office with some of the principal men. He says that most of them have been known as "Christian Indians." That the number recognized by this title on the Thames is 282, of whom 50 have been excommunicated. Of these Christian Indians, 84 have been left on the Thames, in charge of the Rev. Abraham Lukenbach.

Mr. Vogel has in his company 202 persons, but says that others, rendering their number 260 souls inclusive, are on their way by land. Thirteen of this party, with White Eyes, son of White Eyes of frontier war celebrity, came on the 9th instant, and have been lodged in the public dormitory. They are on their way, in the first place, to the Stockbridges, at Green Bay, and, finally, to their kindred, the Delawares, on the Kanzas.

13th. Early one morning I was agreeably surprised by the arrival of Mrs. Jameson, whom I had previously expected to spend some time with me, and found her a most agreeable, refined and intelligent guest, with none of the supercilious and conceited airs, which I had noticed in some of her traveling countrywomen of the class of authors.

15th. Mukonsiwyan, a Chippewa chief of the first class, calls, on his way back from a visit to the British annual meeting of the Indians, to get their subsidies at the Manitouline Islands. He was evidently piqued in not having received as much as he expected. He attempted to throw dust in the agent's eyes by the following speech:--

"My father, I wish to warm myself by your fire. I have tried to warm myself by the British fire, but I could not, although I sat close by. They put on green poplar, which would throw out no heat. This is the place where hard wood grows,[80] and I expect to be warmed by its heat."

[80] The island of Mackinack was formerly covered with a forest of rock-maple, ironwood, &c., and much of it is still characterized by these species.

It was said that an inferior quality of blankets had been issued at Manitouline. This was the green poplar. No guns and no kettles were given. This is the coldness and want of heat, although sitting close by the fire. On the contrary, large and extraordinary presents, and of the best quality, were issued here last season at the execution of the treaty of 1836. This is the hard wood and good heat thrown out to all. The figure derived appositeness from the prevalence of such species on the island.