DIES PISCATORI^. 541 



Nes. If you profess to love angling for its associations, and 

 cannot appreciate such rhymes as those, I give you up ; there 

 are some lines on the back of that old letter that don't rhyme. 

 I copied them from Hiawatha when I first read the book. 

 Lake Superior, you know, was the " Gitchie-Gumee" of the 

 Ojibwas, or, as they are called now, Chippewas, and according 

 to their wild tradition, the Red Swan, after it was wounded 

 by the magic arrow of Ojibwa, went slowly flapping its 

 wings across its broad surface towards the setting sun : you 

 had better not read the extract though, after saying, as you 

 did the other day, that " Hiawatha" had the same jingle as the 

 '^Nigger Gin'ral." 



Nor. I did not mean to disparage Longfellow, by com- 

 paring his "Hiawatha" with the "Nigger Gin'ral," I only 

 implied that they were both of the same metre, and very 

 " particular metre" it is. I'll give you a few lines of the 

 "Nigger Gin'ral," as Old Dick Cooper used to sing it, and 

 you can judge for yourself. I leave out the chorus, and as I 

 have no banjo, the accompaniment also. 



" Now, my beys, I'm bound to tell you, 

 listen a while and I will tell you ; 

 rU tell you 'bout de Nigger Gin'ral, 

 I'll tell you 'bout de Gin'ral Gable. 

 A leetle boy betrayed his gin'ral, 

 A leetle boy, by de name o' Dan'el ; 

 Betrayed him down to Norfo'k landin', 

 Becase he called him Uncle Gable. 



" * how dy do, my Uncle Gable ?' 



* no I ain't your Uncle Gable !' 

 ' yes you is my Uncle Gable.* 



* no I aint your Uncle Gable, 

 For I do know your Uncle Gable, 

 A man belong to Major Prosser.' " 



