SKETCH OF HORATIO HALE. 403 



years in foreign travel and in the study of law, and in 1855 was 

 admitted to the bar of Illinois at Chicago. In the following year 

 he removed with his family to Canada West, taking up his abode 

 in the then newly formed town of Clinton, on an estate which 

 had descended to his wife, a lady of Anglo-Canadian birth. Here 

 he has since devoted his time partly to professional pursuits and 

 to local undertakings of public utility, and partly to scientific 

 researches. For the latter, an ample field was found among the 

 Indians inhabiting the many "reserves" which the considerate 

 legislation of the various provinces has set apart for them. One 

 of the most important of these is the " Six Nations' Reserve," 

 near Brantford, occupied by about three thousand Indians, mostly 

 Iroquois, but with several groups belonging to other stocks. Here 

 he had the good fortune of discovering two native manuscripts in 

 different Iroquoian dialects Canienga (or Mohawk) and Onon- 

 daga one of them dating from about the middle of the last 

 century (soon after the language was reduced to writing by the 

 missionaries), which proved to be of much historical and ethno- 

 logical interest. They gave an account of the renowned confed- 

 eration of the Five (afterward Six) Nations, or Iroquois tribes, 

 which was formed about four hundred years ago, under the cele- 

 brated Onondaga chief Hiawatha. This great chief and law- 

 giver, whom Longfellow, following Schoolcraft's lead (though 

 well aware of the absurd misapplication of the name), has trans- 

 ported to the shores of Lake Superior and converted into an 

 Ojibway hero of romance, was a genuine historical personage, 

 as authentic as Alfred or Washington. At the request of the. 

 distinguished ethnologist. Dr. D. G. Brinton, Mr. Hale prepared 

 a translation of these manuscripts, which was published in 1883 

 in Dr. Brinton's well-known Library of American Aboriginal 

 Literature, with several introductory chapters on the history, 

 customs, and character of the Iroquois people, the whole forming 

 an octavo volume of about 220 pages. Of this work, which is 

 entitled The Iroquois Book of Rites, the eminent historian and 

 philologist. Dr. J. G. Shea, has said : " It is a philosophical and 

 masterly treatise on the Iroquois league and the cognate tribes, 

 their relations, language, mental characteristics, and policy, such 

 as we have never before had of any nation of this continent." 

 The American Journal of Philology adds : " Mr. Hale's book is 

 likely to make an epoch in North American Indian history, 

 giving as it does a clearer insight than we have had before 

 into the political constitution and fortunes and the personal 

 character of the famous ' Six Nations,' who played so prominent 

 a part in the land before and during the. Revolutionary War." 



On the same reserve Mr. Hale made another notable discovery. 

 He had heard that there was living on the reserve an Indian of 



