154 WILD 8P0ETS IN THE SOUTH. 



covered with this rich vegetation, and dotted by the rush- 

 thatched cottages of the people. He saw stockade forts 

 built of reeds frowning down in mimic pomp on the 

 waters that had never bristled with more dangerous arms 

 than the tomahawk and the arrow. He heard the shrill 

 sound of clarionets and horns, and saw waving standards 

 of gaudy feathers. The women that rowed the boat in 

 which he was bound were dressed in the simple robe that 

 befitted the summer land. Their linen, or sea-grass kilts, 

 were trimmed with feathers or furs, and sea-shells orna- 

 mented their hair and ankles. Their olive colored limbs, 

 unshackled by dress, were as graceful in form as the 

 children that played on the sand ; and the men in the 

 stern of the barge, though warriors, all had that gentle 

 manner and expression that belongs to the natives of 

 every southern clime. 



" On arriving at the village, the prisoner was led to 

 the Indian chief and his council, before the public lodge 

 of the village. There was short discussion as to the pun- 

 ishment, and no remarks were made by the prisoner at 

 the bar why sentence should not be passed, for, in sooth, 

 he could not say a word in any tongue they could under- 

 stand. An Indian communicated to him, by a symbolic 

 motion of shooting with an arrow, that his death was 

 appointed ; and then, pointing to the settmg sun, and 

 describing a semi-circle with his hand, assigned the time 

 for the morrow morning at sunrise. The prisoner was 

 led away, little noting the laugh of the Indian child that 

 pointed him out to his comrade at play, little heeding 



