218 PIONEER LIFE J CR, 



remaining eye was of the brightest and blackest hue. 

 Never have I seen one, in young or old, that equalled 

 it in brilliancy. Perhaps it had borrowed luster 

 from the eternal darkness of its neighboring orbit. 

 His ears had been dressed in the Indian mode : all 

 but the outside ring had been cut away. On one 

 ear this ring had been torn asunder near the top, 

 and hung down his neck like a useless rag. He had 

 a full head of hair, white as the driven snow, which 

 covered a head of ample dimensions and admirable 

 shape. His face was swarthy ; but this may be ac- 

 counted for from the fact that he was but half Indian. 

 He told me that he had been at Franklin more than 

 eighty years before the period of our conversation, 

 on his passage down the Mississippi, with the 

 warriors of his tribe, on some expedition against the 

 Creeks or Osages. He had long been a man of 

 peace, and I believe his great characteristics were 

 humanity and truth. It is said that Brant and Corn- 

 planter were never friends after the massacre of 

 Cherry Valley. Some have alleged, because the 

 Wyoming massacre was perpetrated by the Senecas, 

 that Cornplanter was there. Of the justice of this 

 suspicion there are many reasons for doubt. It is 

 certain that he was not the chief of the Senecas at 

 this time ; the name of the chief in that expedition 

 was Ge-en-quah-toh, or He-goes-in-the-Smoke. As 

 he stood before me — the aged chief in ruins — how 

 forcibly was I struck with the truth of the beautiful 

 figure of the old aboriginal chieftain, who, in descri- 

 bing himself, said he was 'like an aged hemlock, 



