256 REMARKABLE MEMORIAL HORN. 
line between the Creeks and the Choctaws. The Muscogees, who 
were the central tribe of the powerful Creek confederacy, cherished 
a tradition that their ancestors first issued out of a cave near the 
Alabama river. De Brahm reckoned the number of the Creeks at 
15,000, including women and children. They were brave and power- 
ful warriors, shrewd and politic in their relations with outsiders ; 
and intensely jealous of all, whether red or white men, who did not 
belong to their own confederacy. 
De Bry, in his “ Brevis Narratio,” 1591, presents a spirited 
description of the Mico, or chief, and his warrivrs, in convention. 
A council meeting was opened by the cup-bearer handing to him a 
shell filled with a decoction of the cassine or tex yupon. This is a 
powerful diuretic; and its medicinal influences were invoked to 
purge them from all hindrance to thoughtful deliberation. This 
done, all partook of it, drinking it from shells made of the large 
pynele of the Gulf. They next engaged in a solemn dance; and 
then, seated in the Council House, listened to the addresses of the 
orators and principal men among their tribes. When this was done, 
the Mico sprinkled them all with water, saying: ‘Thus may the 
blood of your enemies flow freely.” Then he poured water on the 
council fire and extinguished it, exclaiming: ‘“ Thus as I extinguish 
the flames so may your enemies be vanquished and exterminated.” 
The curious relic of this ancient Indian people, which has been 
recently acquired for the museum of the University of Toronto, was 
the property of Mr. J. A. R. White, of Walkerton, Ontario ; and, 
as will be seen, is not only an interesting memorial of colonial inter- 
course with one of the most powerful southern tribes upwards of a 
century ago; but has acquired altogether novel and romantic asso- 
ciations from the more recent incidents of its singular history. Its 
late owner served in the Royal Engineers, and, as a member of that 
corps, was during the terrible revolt of the Sepoys in British India. 
He was present, along with his company, at the siege of Lucknow, 
and took this horn from the body of a Sewor, or light dragoon of the 
Bengal mutineers, killed in a skirmish at the stone bridge at Luck- 
now, on the 17th March, 1857. The native Sewor, he presumes, 
had acquired it among the spoils of some English dwelling sacked 
by the mutineers. The inscription shows it to have originally 
belonged to a British officer; but the date carries us back upwards 
of a century ; and so adds to the singularity of the recovery of this 
