THE GEORGE CATLttf INDIAN GALLERY. 565 



• 

 Invitations from the other literary and scientific institutions of London afforded me 

 the opportunity of repeating my lectures in most of their halls, where I was uniformly 

 received with applause, which was also a source of much gratification to me. These 

 interviews suddenly and delightfully led me into the society of literary and scientific 

 men, and also into the nohle collections and libraries under their superintendence. 

 I was here at once ushered, as it were, into a new world, a new atmosphere, and in it 

 was met and welcomed everywhere with the utmost cordiality and kindness. Libra- 

 ries, museums, laboratories, and lectures were free to me; and not only the private 

 tables of the advocates of science, but their public tables in their banqueting hall3 

 prepared a seat for me. 



Thus were my labors being requited, and I was happy in the conviction that the 

 claims of the poor Indians were being heard in the right tribunal, and that I was 

 their advocate at the true source from which emanated most of the great and moral 

 influences that govern and improve the world. 



I was invited to the annual dinners of the Royal Geographical, Geological, and 

 Historical Societies, and in responding to the compliments paid me at all of them, 

 in proposing my health and the prosperity of my country, I was delighted to find 

 that my advocacy of the rights of the poor Indian, and my scheme for a museum of 

 mankind, were met and sanctioned with rounds of enthusiastic applause. — Pages 61- 

 62, vol. 1, Catlin's Notes in Europe. 



MR. CATLIN WITH THE ROYAL HIGHLAND SOCIETY. 



In 1842 Mr. Catlin dined with the Eoyal Highland Society, in London, 

 at their annual dinner. The Duke of Eichmond presided. Of this he 

 writes: 



Most of the guests at the table were in full Highland dress, with their kilts, and 

 with the badges and plaids of their peculiar clans. The scene was altogether a very 

 picturesque one, and I observed that their chiefs wore the eagle's quills for the same 

 purpose and in the same manner that the Indians do, but I did not see any of them 

 painted red, as the Indians paint them, to adorn their heads as symbols of war when 

 they are going to battle. 



The banqueting hall was beautifully arranged, and two of Her Majesty's pipers, 

 from the palace, in the most gorgeous Highland dress, were perambulating the table 

 "in full blast" whilst we were eating. The Duke of Eichmond, who is an easy, affa- 

 ble, and entirely unostentatious man, and the best president at a convivial table that 

 I ever saw, offered the customary healths of the Queen, the Prince, the Duke, &c, 

 which were drunk with the usual enthusiasm, and after that proceeded to pay his 

 ingenious and judicious compliments to individuals at the table, by alluding in the 

 most concise and amusing manner to their exploits or other merits, and then prcuposed 

 their healths. 



After we had all joined in the uproar of "hip, hip, hips," with one foot on our 

 chairs and the other on the table, in a number of such cases, he arose and said : 



lt Gentlemen, I now rise quite confident of your approbation of the sentiment I am 

 to propose and the sentiments I am to offer. The nations of the earth, like the indi- 

 viduals in the different branches of a great family, stand in certain degrees of rela- 

 tionship towards each other ; and as those degrees of consanguinity are more or less re- 

 mote, so are the friendships and attachments of those nations for each other. Now, 

 gentlemen, as an individual component part of one of the great nations of that great 

 national family, I feel proud to say that there are two of that family so closely re- 

 lated, not only in commercial interests, but by blood, as almost to identify them in a 

 unity of existence. The relationship that I speak of, gentlemen (and which I believe 

 will be familiar to many of you, as married men), is that of parent and child." 



At this period commenced a tremendous cheering, and all eyes seemed to be in a 



