BY EDWARD DOUBLEDAY. 



9'-!?. 



mucli to the edification of about a dozen Indians, who were 

 seated on a pile of planks ; while one with a painted face, and 

 wrapped in a blanket, was listening with the most complete 

 calmness — he looked a perfect Stoic. In front of the landing 

 lay our steamer and two or three schooners ; and numbers of 

 light birch-bark canoes were paddled about by the Indians, 

 who were watching the ducks which swarmed in the bay. 



Along the shore were the huts of the Indians, built mostly 

 of birch bark, i. e. composed of poles covered with birch bark, 

 and occasionally repaired by a " panther's'" skin, Felis con- 

 color. Their canoes were lying on the shore, and their chil- 

 dren were rolling on the ground and playing with the dogs. 

 On the opposite shore stands Fort Howard, near which are 

 some very pretty houses. The shores of the bay are often 

 rocky, but not very high. The woods are most beautiful. 

 There were the dark green cedars near the shore ; there were 

 the tall towering pines ; the hemlocks, almost black ; and there 

 was every possible shade of yellow, brown, and red, in the 

 dying foliage of the oaks, birches, and other deciduous trees; 

 while the pale green of the larches, and sometimes of the 

 poplars, completed the varied colouring of an American forest 

 in autumn. Sometimes these colours are in masses; some- 

 times all intermixed. As, in descending the Ohio, the eye 

 never seems to tire of contemplating the landscape, although it 

 onsists of but two elementary parts, high bluffs and opposing 

 flats; so now, although you only see a variety of colouring — 

 red, yellow, brown, green, and nearly black, mingled, or col- 

 lected in larger or smaller masses — I was never tired of gazing 

 on them with admiration as we passed along the shore. 



In going out, we received a visit at the mouth of the bay 

 from the passengers of a schooner which lay becalmed there, 

 and two or three of them afterwards came on board ; among 

 these was General Brookes, who commanded the 23d American 

 regiment at Lundy-lane, and was employed along the frontier 

 during the greater part of that war ; he is a very pleasant man. 

 He gav€ me many particulars of that battle, and one remark- 

 able instance of the fury with which it was contested. On the 

 morning following the battle, thirty-seven Americans and as 

 many English were found dead in pairs, having bayoneted 

 one another. We had also on board five Indians, the best 



^ Better known in this country as \he puma. — Ed. 

 NO. III. VOL. V. N N 



