PAUL KANE, THE CANADIAN ARTIST. 71 



to jo'iQ him in the proposed expedition. On learning that the artist 

 was a great medicine-man, he agreed to exhibit to him the pipe-stems, 

 in the belief that his sketching them would greatly increase their 

 efficiency when opened on the war-path. A pipe-bowl was accor- 

 . dingly filled with tobacco and some aromatic weed ; the chief chaunted 

 a war-song; and then inserting one of the stems into the bowl, he 

 lighted it, inhaled the smoke, and blew a long cloud upwards. This 

 was his offering to the Grreat Spirit, whom he invoked to confer success 

 on their expedition. Another prolonged puff, directed earthward, was 

 followed by an appeal to the earth to produce an abundant supply of 

 roots and buffalo for the coming season. The third was directed to 

 Kane himself, with a request for his influence on their behalf. He 

 had then to smoke all the eleven pipes; and thus enlisted in the cause, 

 the portrait he then painted of the grim old chief, adorned with his 

 war-paint, and holding in his hand his own pipe-stem, decorated with 

 the head and plumage of an eagle, was esteemed a great medicine, 

 calculated to contribute materially to the success of the war-party. 



At length, after many wild adventures and hair-breadth escapes, 

 Mr. Kane returned to Toronto in 1848, with a valuable portfolio of 

 studies of Indians and scenery of the great North West. While still at 

 the Saskatchewan, he received from Sir George Simpson a commission 

 for a dozen paintings of "buffalo hunts, Indian camps, councils, feasts, 

 conjuring matches, dances, warlike exhibitions, or any other pieces of 

 savage life you may consider to be most attractive or interesting." 

 Other commissions followed; and in 1851, by a vote of the Legislature 

 of the Province of Canada, he was authorised to execute a series of 

 Indian pictures which now hang in the Parliamentary library at Ottawa. 

 But his most liberal patron was the Hon, Gr. W. Allan, to whom he 

 subsequently dedicated the narrative of his travels, " as a token of 

 gratitude for the kind and generous interest he has always taken in the 

 author's labours ; as well as a sincere expression of admiration of the 

 liberality with which, as a native Canadian, he is ever ready to foster 

 Canadian talent and enterprise." 



In 1853, Mr. Kane married Miss Harriet Clench, of Cobourg, a lady - 

 who, among other attractions, had a skill with her pencil and brush., 

 akin to his own. Thus happily domesticated, with a companion able • 

 to sympathise with him in his artistic labours, Mr. Kane- devoted 

 himself to the execution of an extensive series of oil paintings- 

 including one hundred pictures of Indian scenes, landscapes, portraits 



