OF THE POLAR SEA. 



61 



miserable fare was exhausted, and they walked several days without 

 eating, yet exerting themselves far beyond their strength that they 

 might save the life of the infant. It died almost within sight of the 

 house. Mr. Connolly, who was then in charge of the post, received 

 them with the utmost humanity, and instantly placed food before 

 them ; but no language can describe the manner in which the miser- 

 able father dashed the morsel from his lips and deplored the loss of 

 his child. Misery may harden a disposition naturally bad, but it 

 never fails to soften the heart of a good man. 



The origin of the Crees, to which nation the Cumberland House 

 Indians belong, is, like that of the other Aborigines of America, in- 

 volved in obscurity. Perhaps the researches, now making into the 

 nature and affinities of the languages spoken by the different Indian 

 tribes, may eventually throw some light on the subject. Indeed the 

 American philologists seem to have succeeded already in classing the 

 known dialects into three languages :— 1 st. The Floridean, spoken 

 by the Creeks, Chickesaws, Choctaws, Cherokees, Pascagoulas, and 

 some other tribes, who inhabit the southern parts of the United 

 States. 2d. The Iroquois, spoken by the Mengwe, or Six Nations, 

 the Wyandots, the Nadowessies, and Asseeneepoytuck. 3d. The 

 Lenni-lenape, spoken by a great family more widely spread than the 

 other two, and from which, together with a vast number of other tribes, 



our Crees. Mr. Heckewelder, a Missionary, who resided 

 long amongst these people, and from whose paper, (published in the 

 Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,) the above clas- 

 sification is taken, states that the Lenape have a tradition amongst 

 them, of their ancestors having come from the westward, and taking 

 possession of the whole country from the Missouri to the Atlantic, 

 after driving away or destroying the original inhabitants of the land, 

 whom they termed Alligewi. In this migration and contest, which 

 endured for a series of years, the Mengwe, or Iroquois, kept pace 

 with them, moving in a parallel but more northerly line, and finally 



sprung 



