tience was not exhausted, he turned to me and addressed me thus in his own language: "Tell this man," said he, "that while I have been waiting for his convenience to give me an order for a little salt, I have had time to think a great deal. I thought that when we Indians want any thing of one another, we serve each other on the spot, or if we cannot, we say so at once, but we never say to any one call again! call again! call again! three times call again!' Therefore when this man put me off in this manner, I thought that, to be sure, the white people were very ingenious, and probably he was able to do what no body else could. I thought that as it was afternoon when I first came, and he knew I had seven miles to walk to reach my camp, he had it in his power to stop the sun in its course, until it suited him to give me the order that I wanted for a little salt. So thought I, I shall still have day light enough, I shall reach my camp before night, and shall not be obliged to walk in the dark at the risk of falling and hurting my myself by the way. But when I saw that the sun did not wait for him, and I had at least to walk seven miles in an obscure night, I thought then, that it would be better if the white people were to learn something of the Indians."

I once asked an old Indian acquaintance of mine, who had come with his wife to pay me a visit, where he had been, that I had not seen him for a great while?"Don't you know," he answered," that the white people some time ago summoned us to a treaty, to buy land of them ?""That is true," replied I, "I had indeed forgotten it; I thought you was just returned from your fall hunt."-"No, no," replied the Indian, "my fall hunt has been lost to me this season; I had to go and get my share of the purchase money for the land we sold."- "Well then," said I, "I suppose you got enough to satisfy you ?”

Indian," I can show you all that I got. I have received such and such articles," (naming them and the quantity of each,) " do you think that is enough?" Heckew." That I cannot know, unless you tell me how much of the land which was sold came to your share."

Indian,-(after considering a little) "Well, you, my friend! know who I am, you know I am a kind of chief. I am, indeed, one, though none of the greatest. Neither am I one of the lowest grade, but I stand about in the middle rank. Now, as such, 1 think I was entitled to as much land in the tract we sold as would lie within a day's walk from this spot to a point due north, then a days's walk from that point to another due west, from thence another day's walk due south, then a day's walk to where we now Now you can tell me if what I have shown you is enough for all the land lying between these four marks ?"

are.

Heckew." If you have made your bargain so with the white people, it is all right, and you probably have received your share.”

Indian," Ah! but the white people made the bargain by themselves, without consulting us. They told us that they would give us so much, and no more."

Heckew." Well, and you consented thereto ?"

Indian,-"What could we do, when they told us that they must have the land, and for such a price? Was it not better to take something than nothing? for they would have the land, and so we took what they gave us."

Heckew." Perhaps the goods they gave you came high in price. The goods which come over the great salt-water lake sometimes vary in their prices."

Indian,The traders sell their goods for just the

pre

same prices that they did before, so that I rather think it is the land that has fallen in value. We, Indians, do not understand selling lands to the white people; for, when we sell, the price of land is always low; land is then cheap, but when the white people sell it out among themselves, it is always dear, and they are sure to get a high price for it. I had done much better if I had staid at home and minded my fall hunt. You know I am a pretty good hunter and might have killed a great many deer, sixty, eighty, perhaps a hundred, and besides caught many racoons, beavers, otters, wild cats, and other animals, while I was at this treatry. I have often killed five, six, and seven deer in one day. Now I have lost nine of the best hunting weeks in the season by going to get what you see! We were told the cise time when we must meet. We came at the very day, but the great white men did not do so, and without them nothing could be done. When after some weeks they at last came, we traded, we sold our lands and received goods in payment, and when that was over, I went to my hunting grounds, but the best time, the rutting time, being over, I killed but a few. Now, help me to count up what I have lost by going to the treaty. Put down eighty deer; say twenty of them were bucks, each buck-skin one dollar; then sixty does and young bucks at two skins for a dollar; thirty dollars, and twenty for the old bucks, make fifty dollars lost to me in deer skins. Add, then, twenty dollars more to this for racoon, beaver, wild cat, black fox, and otter skins, and what does the whole amount to ?"

Heckew." Seventy dollars."

Indian." Well, let it be only seventy dollars, but how much might I have bought of the traders for this money! How well we might have lived, I and my family in the woods during that time! How much

meat would my wife have dried! how much tallow saved and sold or exchanged for salt, flour, tea and chocolate! All this is now lost to us; and had I not such a good wife (stroking her under the chin) who planted so much corn, and so many beans, pumpkins, squashes, and potatoes last summer, my family would now live most wretchedly. I have learned to be wise by going to treaties, I shall never go there again to sell my land and lose my time."-HECKEWELDER.

USE OF THE BIBLE BY WHITE PEOPLE.

The Indians will not admit that the whites are superior beings. They say that the hair of their heads, their features, the various colours of their eyes, evince that they are not like themselves Lenni Lenape, an ORIGINAL PEOPLE, a race of men that has existed unchange from the beginning of time; but they are a mixed race, and therefore a troublesome one; wherever they may be, the Great Spirit, knowing the wickedness of their disposition, found it necessary to give them a great Book,* and taught them how to read it, that they might know and observe what he wished them to do and to abstain from. But they, the Indians, have no need of any such book to let them know the will of their Maker; they find it engraved on their own hearts; they have had sufficient discernment given to them to distinguish good from evil, and by following that guide, they are sure

not to err.

It is true, they confess, that when they first saw the whites, they took them for beings of a superior kind. They did not know but that they had been sent to them from the abode of the Great Spirit for

*The Bible.

some great and important purpose. They therefore, welcomed them, hoping to be made happier by their company. It was not long, however, before they discovered their mistake, having found them an ungratèful insatiable people, who, though the Indians had given them as much land as was necessary to raise provisions for themselves and their families, and pasture for their cattle, wanted still to have more, and at last would not be contented with less than the

whole country. "And yet," say those injured people, "these white men would always be telling us of their great Book which God had given to them ; they would persuade us that every man was good who believed in what the Book said, and every man was bad who did not believe in it. They told us a great many things, which they said were written in the good Book, and wanted us to believe it all. We would probably have done so, if we had seen them practise what they pretended to believe, and act according to the good words which they told us. But no! while they held their big Book in one hand, in the other they had murderous weapons, guns and swords, wherewith to kill us, poor Indians! Ah! and they did so too, they killed those who believed in their Book, as well as those who did not. They made no distinction!"-HECKEWELDER.

TREATIES.

The Indians in early times would never even permit any warlike weapons to remain within the limits of their council fire, when assembled together about the ordinary business of government. It might, they said, have a bad effect, and defeat the object for which they had met. It might be a check on sorme of the persons assembled, and perhaps, prevent those who had a just complaint or representation to make,