190 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



Though perhaps cultivated now with more taste and care, 

 yet its products then were as sweet to the occupants as 

 now. Here, "fifteen miles from neighbors," with such 

 comforts as a "log cabin," in such a situation affords, and 

 with but few luxuries of life, not even a mug of "hard 

 cider," past an eventful and pleasant winter. Not far 

 away from my cabin, was one of those clear and beauti- 

 ful little lakes, which are interspersed through all the 

 country, and upon its borders were several of the wig- 

 wams of the late owners of the soil. During one of my 

 peregrinations around its banks, which were several 

 miles in extent, I discovered upon a most beautiful knoll, 

 shaded with a thick cluster of red cedars, an "Indian 

 grave," upon which it seemed as though unusual care and 

 attention had been bestowed — stones to form a mound 

 around the sleeper of the last long sleep, had been brought 

 from the foot of the hill, the rocks of which were con- 

 stantly washed by the serge of the lake, and made fit 

 music for so mournful and solemn a place. Well knowing 

 the habits of the Indians to be like the whites, to congre- 

 gate their dead together, my curiosity was excited at this 

 lone grave. While I sat deeply musing on many matters 

 that this grave brought to mind, I discovered a canoe 

 upon the lake, and in it an old squaw, paddling directly 

 for the spot where I was seated. When she came ashore, 

 she knelt down and devoutly crossed herself, as if she 

 stood upon holy ground. I may here remark that the 

 relics of the early religious instruction, so extensively 

 bestowed upon the Indians, by the French Catholics, in 

 the first exploration of the West by that people, are still 

 distinctly visible. After thus performing her devotions, 

 she approached the grave where I stood. At first she 

 seemed terrified at finding the sacredness of that spot 

 intruded upon by the feet of a stranger, and him, too, a 

 white man. To quiet her fears, and I must own, also, to 

 gratify my own curiosity, for once in my life I played the 

 hypocrite. Quick as thought, I knelt down by the side 

 of the grave, uncovered my head and left the long grey 



