AND CHARACTERISTICS. 9 



would tell me what kind of horse-cars to take to reach such 

 places. He said certainly, "please show me the letters," 

 which I handed to him ; and as he began to read Illinois, 

 Wisconsin, Minnesota, Texas, Missouri, and New Sweden, 

 Maine, he looked at me with a strange expression in his 

 eyes, and I began to fear I did not please him, so I asked 

 him what the matter was, and he said he thought I might 

 be tired after my long journey, and if I would pay him 

 three cents apiece for the letters, he would see to it that 

 they would reach their owners. I thought he was remark- 

 ably kind to offer. to run round for me at that price, and 

 it was not until some time afterwards that I found out 

 that he engaged Uncle Sam to deliver my letters, and that 

 the directions thereon were States situated thousands of 

 miles apart, instead of being suburbs of Boston. 



The Indians are ever an interesting subject for the 

 Swedes at home to enquire about, for they seem to have 

 an idea that Boston has about as many Indians as white 

 people among its population, and I was asked this summer 

 if I had had much trouble with the Indians, and if I was 

 not afraid of being scalped, and all such matters, to which 

 I replied that as far as my observation had been among 

 the Boston Indians, I had found them very orderly and 

 peaceable, and that, in fact, the most of them were very 

 well-behaved, being mostly employed as sentinels outside 

 cigar and tobacco shops. 



A bald-headed person coming from the United States 

 to Sweden excites a great deal of curiosity among the com- 

 mon people in that country, for it is hard to convince them 

 that he has not left his scalp suspended, as an ornamental 

 appendage, to the belt of one of the noble red Indians of 

 the Boston prairies. 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN, VOL. XV. 2 



