i636 THE GEOEGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



the Indian bus, with four horses, was a traveling music-box as it passed rapidly through 

 the streets; and the clouds of smoke issuing from it at times often spread the alarm that 

 "she was all on fire within " as she went by. At the brewery, where they had been 

 invited by the proprietors, servants in abundance were in readiness to turn upon their 

 giant hinges the great gates and pass the carriage into the.court; and at the entrance to 

 the grand fountain of chickabobho there were servants to receive them and announce 

 their arrival, when they were met, and with the greatest politeness and kindness led by 

 one of the proprietors, and an escort of ladies, through the vast labyrinths and maizes, 

 through the immense halls and courts, and under and over the dry -land bridges and 

 arches of this smoking, steeping, and steaming wonder of the world, as they were sure 

 to call it when they got home. The vastness and completeness of this huge manufactory, 

 or, in fact, village of manufactures, illustrated and explained in all its parts and all its 

 mysterious modes of operation, formed a subject of amazement in our own as well as 

 the Indians' minds — diflficult to be described and never to be forgotten. 



WAE-DANCE 1^ A VAT. 



When the poor untutored Indians, from the soft and simple prairies of the Missouri, 

 seated themselves upon a beam, and were lookyag into and contemplating the immen- 

 sity of a smoking steeping-vat, containing more than three thousand barrels, and were 

 told that there were one hundred and thirty others of various dimensions in the estab- 

 lishment; that the whole edifice covered twelve acres of ground, and that there were 

 necessarily constantly on hand in their cellars two hundred and thirty-two thousand 

 barrels of ale, and also that this was only one of a great number of breweries in London, 

 and that similar manufactories were in every town in the Kingdom, though on a less 

 scale, they began, almost for the first time since their arrival, to envince profound as- 

 tonishment, and the fermentation in their minds as to the consistency of white man's 

 teachings of temperance and manufacturing and selling ale seemed not less than that 

 which was going on in the vast abyss below them. The pipe was lit and passed around 

 while they were in this contemplative mood, and as their ears were open, they got, in 

 the mean time, further information of the wonderful modes and operation of this vast 

 machine; and also, in round numbers, read from a report by one of the proprietors, the 

 quantity of ale consumed in the Kingdom annually. Upon hearing this, which seemed 

 to cap the climax of all their astonish :uent, they threw down the pipe, and leaping into 

 an empty vat, suddenly dissipated the pain of their mental calculations by joining in 

 the medicine (or mystery) dance. Their yells and screaming, ec hoing through the vast 

 and vaporing halls, soon brought some hundreds of maltsmen, grinders, firers, mash- 

 ers, ostlers, painters, coopers, &c., peeping through and amongst the blackened timbers 

 and casks, and curling and hissing fumes completing the scene as the richest model for 



the infernal regions. 



INDIANS VISIT THE TOWER. 



The mood in which these good-natured fellows had left the brewery was a very merry 

 one; they had got just ale enough for the present emergency, and seen an abundant and 

 infallible source at the great fountain of chickabobboo to insure them a constant supply, 

 and seemed, as they passed along the streets, to be pleased with everything they saw. 

 They met the man again with the big nose, and succeeded in stopping the bus to take a 

 good look at his wonderful proboscis. As the bus stopped, he, like many others, came 

 up to catch a glimpse of the red-skins, and they all declared, on close examination, that 

 Ms nose at least must have been begot by a potato; for, as the women had before ^id, 

 they could distinctly see the sprouts, and Jim and the Doctor both insisted that "if it 

 were planted it would sprout and'grow." 



They stopped the bus again to speak with some poor Lascars sweeping the streets ; it 

 was difficult to get any interpretation from them, though the Indians tried their own 

 language on both sides, but in vain; they gave them 15 shillings, and passed on. 



