STUDIES OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 67 



tain Jonathan Carver did not hesitate to repeat a story told him 

 by a French trader of an Indian who had adopted a rattle-snake 

 and "' treated it as a Deity." One day in October the Indian 

 set his snake at liberty, and instructed him "to be sure . . . 

 and return ... in the month of May following." The snake 

 kept his unvoiced promise. " The French gentleman," Carver 

 concludes, " vouched for the truth of this story, and from the 

 accounts I have often received of the docility of those creatures, 

 I see no reason to doubt his veracity." ^^ It has been stated 

 before that Carver's book is now regarded, in the words of 

 Fairchild, "' not as an authentic personal narrative, but as a com- 

 pilation from various sources." " yet this fact does not lessen its 

 value for purposes of comparison with Bartram's work. If all 

 his stories came out of other travelers' books — which is unlikely 

 — his own book is still significant, if for no other reason than 

 that it went into twenty-three editions and translations.^^ One 

 other story, illustrative of Carver's material and his reaction to 

 it, may prove instructive. He was told, he relates, that in July, 

 1762, it rained an inky substance (which was later bottled and 

 used as writing ink) on the city of Detroit, and " Soon after, 

 the Indian wars . . . broke out in these parts." His apology 

 for coupling these two events together is that " it is well known 

 that innumerable well attested instances of extraordinary phe- 

 nemena happening before extraordinary events have been 

 recorded in almost every age by historians of veracity." ^^ 



It is a relief to turn from this naive type of traveler and 

 " observer " to Bartram. "All that I can say," he writes in reply 

 to a question as to whether government among the Indians was 

 elective or hereditary, " from my own observation, will amount 

 to little more than mere conjecture, . . . for, at best, it will be 

 but the apprehensions or conjectures of a traveller from cursory 

 and superficial views, perhaps aided and perhaps led astray by 



Journal of a Thousand Miles, Travel' d thro' several Nations of Indians. Giving 

 a particular Account of their Customs, Manners, &c. London, 1714. Reprint 

 of copy in the North Carolina State Library at Raleigh. Charlotte, 1903, p. 129. 



**0/'. cit., pp. 44-45. 



*'' Op. cit., pp. 97-98. 



*^ Cambridge History of American Literature, I, 192. *' O/'. cit., 152. 



6 



