¢ 
1822. ] 
by the commissioners appointed by 
these acts. 
It will be observed by these legal 
provisions, nothing in this case can be 
done clandestinely, and the trouble 
and expence of appeal is not great: the 
party aggrieved, on giving notice, may 
attend the sessions, give a counsel a 
guinea, shew his case, backed by suffi- 
cient evidence, and if it is reasonable 
no sessions will oppose it. I collect 
this from experience, because I never 
knew in the several altercations of this 
sort, but that the new paths or high- 
ways were nearer or more commodious, 
or it would not be carried. Your cor- 
respondent’s fear that paths may be 
stopped privately, may arise from his 
want of knowing that there are many 
paths leading only to private dwellings, 
which the public, by sufferance, may 
havea long time used as to think them 
public; those paths only that lead 
from town to town, or village to village, 
or what in the country are termed 
church paths, can be deemed cogni- 
zable as public paths. Pro Bono. 
Herts. Jan. 20, 1822. 
—— 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
LATELY received a letter from my 
respected relative Harry Toulmin, 
Esq. (who has for many years resided 
in the Alabama State, North America,) 
in which he gives a curious anecdote 
illustrative of the language of the Choc- 
taw Indians, and a voecabwary of about 
eighty of their words. I transcribe 
the whole of this part of his communi- 
cation, which 1 think will be interest- 
ing to many of your readers. Mr. 
Toulmin appears to have paid great 
attention to the subject of the language, 
manners, and origin of his Indian 
neighbours, and I think complete reli- 
ance may be placed on any fact which 
he details, as his letters ever bear the 
marks of diligent research, sound judg- 
ment, and a constant endeavour to as- 
certain the truth of every proposition. 
W. HAWKES SMITH. 
Birmingham, Feb. 10, 1822. 
MR. TOULMIN’S LETTER. 
I enclose a specimen of the language 
of my neighbours, the Choctaw and 
Chicasaw Indians. They are distinct 
tribes, but, no doubt, of a common ori- 
gin. Their dialects are somewhat dif- 
ferent, but not more so, I think, than 
those of adjacent English counties. I 
am well acquainted with them, and 
often have them living on my land. 
On the Language of the Choctaw Indians. 
205 
They kill deer on it, and catch fish in 
the waters by which it is bounded, and. 
I prefer paying them to hunting and 
fishing myself, or encouraging any of 
my family to do it, for [have generally 
found that great sportsmen are great 
in nothing else. 
I made out this list in the Choctaw 
nation, about nine years ago, and the 
occasion was this: I had, a short time 
before, received a letter from Judge 
Innes, of Frankfort, in Kentucky, in- 
forming me, that in the year 1784, as 
some Southern Indians were passing 
through Lexington, to join the Ameri- 
can army north of Ohiv,an African ne- 
gro was driving a waggon through the 
streets of Lexington, when, seeing some 
Indians, ard hearing them converse, he 
suddenly stopped his waggon, and ask- 
ed his master’s permission, (who was 
riding near him,) to go and speak to 
the Indians. They were probably the 
first hehad seen in America; they con- 
versed together with apparent ease, to 
the astonishment of Mr. Parker, his 
master. He enquired of the negro how 
he could converse with the Indians ? 
who told his master that he was a na- 
tive of the town of Goldean, in Africa 5 
that while he was a boy, the negroes 
brought in some prisoners, and detaiu- 
ed them there a long time, in conse- 
quence of which he learnt their lan- 
guage. He said that they were people 
of the same colour, with the same kind 
of long black hair, and spoke the same 
language with the Indians then present. 
For the purpose of examining more 
minutely into this affair, bemg on a 
journey into Kentucky, I made a list 
of the words inclosed, with the assist- 
ance of an intelligent half-breed. There 
is, however, great difficulty in catching 
the sound of the words so distinctly as 
to beable to spell them with accuracy. 
No two persons perhaps would spell 
them alike. On reaching Kentucky, I 
found to my mortification that the ne- 
gro was dead; Mr. Parker, however, 
confirmed the above account, and a 
neighbour of his, Preston Brown, Esq. 
informed me that there were other 
African negroes in the neighbourhood, 
who, though not previously acquainted 
with our Indians, could converse with 
them in their own language. 
These facts open an interesting field 
of enquiry, and seem to lead to a de- 
termination of the long agitated ques- 
tion, from what quarter of the world 
did the aborigines of America originally 
come? I suspect that they may pati 
ie 
