112 THE MATTOAL. 
from the wrath of the Big Man, lest, because of this impious thing that was 
done, he should come down quick out of heaven, and with his red right hand 
rend a tree to splinters and smite them both dead to the ground. He ran 
one day and two nights, and turned not his face back to look behind him, 
neither did he rest. Then he climbed up a redwood tree to the top of it ; 
but the tree was hollow, and he broke through at the top, and fell down on 
the inside to the bottom and died there. 
Like most wild peoples, the Mattoal are exceeding generous upon the 
spur of the moment—generous with that thriftless disregard of to-morrow 
characteristic of savages—but they are sometimes heartlessly indifferent to 
their parents. They will divide the last shred of dried salmon with any 
casual comer who has not a shadow of claim upon them, except the claim 
of that exaggerated and supererogatory hospitality that savages use; but 
when their elders grow too decrepit to contribute anything more to the 
household stock, and are only a burden on their seant larder, they often 
turn them adrift. They are made to understand that any assistance which 
will enable them to shuffle off this mortal coil with dispatch will be cheer- 
fully rendered. Mr. Burleigh, a long time resident among them, says they 
were sufficiently affectionate toward their parents before the arrival of the 
whites; but their sadly dwindled resources, and the hard necessities that 
have griped them since, have stunted their piety. 
As an instance of black filial ingratitude, I saw an old squaw who had 
been abandoned by her children because she was blind, and who was wan- 
dering alone in the Eel River Mountains. Day was night and night was 
eternal to her sightless eyes, and through all hours of the twenty-four alike 
she groped her way about with a staff in each hand, going everywhere and 
uowhere, turning her head quickly toward any noise with that piteous, 
appealing movement so pathetic in the blind, and uttering every few min- 
utes a wild, mournful, and haunting wail, which sounded like the cry of a 
hare when it is pierced by the fangs of the hounds. It is hardly possible 
to imagine any spectacle more melancholy than that of this poor blind 
savage, deserted by all her natural protectors, and left to wander in a dark- 
ness which knew no day through those forests and among those wild 
canons. By the merest chance she had happened upon the bivouac of a 
