234 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [1764, Nov. 



lineaments of her child ; but the girl, who had 

 almost forgotten her native tongue, returned no 

 sign of recognition to her eager words, and the old 

 woman bitterly complained that the daughter, 

 whom she had so often sung to sleep on her knee, 

 had forgotten her in her old age. Bouquet sug- 

 gested an expedient which proves him a man of 

 feeling and perception. " Sing the song that you 

 used to sing to her when a child." The old 

 woman obeyed; and a sudden start, a look of 

 bewilderment, and a passionate flood of tears, 

 removed every doubt, and restored the long-lost 

 daughter to' her mother's arms.^ 



The tender afl'ections by no means form a salient 

 feature in the Indian character. They hold them 

 in contempt, and scorn every manifestation of them ; 

 yet, on this occasion, they would not be repressed, 

 and the human heart betrayed itself, though throb- 

 bing under a breastplate of ice. None of the 

 ordinary signs of emotion, neither tears, words, 

 nor looks, declared how greatly they were moved. 

 It was by their kindness and solicitude, by their 

 attention to the wants of the captives, by their 

 ofl'ers of furs, garments, the choicest articles of 

 food, and every thing which in their eyes seemed 

 luxury, that they displayed their sorrow at parting 

 from their adopted relatives and friends.^ Some 



1 Ordinances of the Borour/h of Carlisle, Appendix. Penn. Hist. Coll. 267. 



2 The author of The Expedition against the Ohio Indians speaks of the 

 Indians "shedding torrents of tears." This is either a flourish of rhet- 

 oric, or is meant to apj)ly solely to the squaws. A warrior, who, under 

 the circumstances, should have displayed such emotion, would have been 

 disgraced for ever. 



