632 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



you don't understand English yet)." Chee-au-inauf/-ta-wan(/ish-kee t Bobasheela. " My 

 friends, will you allow me to move along towards that good old fellow? he knows me; " 

 at which the old chief (not of a hundred, but) of many battles, gave a yell and a leap 

 from the platform and took his faithful friend Bobasheela in his arms, and after a lapse 

 of thirty years, had the pleasure of warming his cheek against that of one of his oldest 

 and dearest friends — one whose heart, we have since found, had been tried and trusted, 

 and as often requited, in the midst of the dense and distant wildernesses of the banks of the 

 Mississippi and Missouri. Whilst this extraordinary interview was proceeding, all ideas of 

 the dance were for the time lost sight of, and whilst these veterans were rapidly and mutu- 

 ally reciting the evidences of their bygone days of attachment, there came a simultaneous 

 demand from all parts of the room for an interpretation of their conversation, which I 

 gave as far as I could understand it, and as far as it had then progressed, thus : The 

 old Sachem, in leading off his favorite war-dance, suddenly fixed his eye upon a face in 

 the crowd, which he instantly recognized, and gazing upon it a moment, decided that 

 it was the well-known face of an old friend, with whom he had spent many happy days 

 of his early life on the banks of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers in America. The 

 old chief, by appealing to this gentleman's familiar Indian cognomen of Bobasheela, 

 brought out an instant proof of the correctness of his recognition ; and as he held him 

 by both hands, to make proof doubly strong, he made much merriment amongst the 

 party of Indians by asking him if he ever ''floated down any part of the great Missis- 

 sippi River in the night, astride of two huge logs of wood, with his legs hanging in the 

 water." To which Bobasheela instantly replied in the affirmative. After which, and 

 several medicine phrases, and masonic grips and signs had passed between them, the 

 dance was resumed, and the rest of the story, as well as other anecdotes of the lives of 

 these extraordinary personages postponed to the proper time and place, when and where 

 the reader will be sure to hear them. 



BOBASHEELA AN ENGLISHMAN. 



The exhibition for the evening being over, Bobasheela was taken home with the Indians 

 to their lodgings, to smoke a pipe with them, and having had the curiosity to be of the 

 party, I was enabled to gather the following further information : This Bobasheela (Mr. 

 J. H., a native of Cornwall), who is now spending the latter part of a very independ- 

 ent bachelor's life amongst his friends in London, left his native country as long ago 

 as the year 1805, and making his way, like many other bold adventurers, across the 

 Alleghany Mountains in America, descended into the great and almost boundless val- 

 ley of the Mississippi, in hopes by his indefatigable industry and daring enterprise to 

 share hi the products that must find their way from that fertile wilderness valley to 

 the civilized world. 



BOBASHEELA'S TRAVELS IN THE FAR WEST. 



In this arduous and most perilous pursuit he repeatedly ascended and descended in 

 Ms bark canoe — his pirogue or his Mackinaw boat — the Ohio, the Muskingham. the Cum- 

 berland, the Tennessee, the Arkansas, the Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers; and amongst 

 the thousand and one droll and amusing incidents of thirty years spent in such a sort 

 of life, was the anecdote which the War-chief alluded to, in the unexpected meeting 

 with his old friend in my exhibition-room, and which the two parties more fully related 

 to me in this evening's interview. The good-natured Mr. H. told me that the tale was 

 a true one, and the awkward predicament spoken of by the War-chief was one that he 

 was actually placed in when his acquaintance first began with his good friend. 



Though the exhibition had kept us to a late hour, the greetings and pleasing reminis- 

 cences to be gone over by these two reclaimed friends and (as they called themselves) 

 '"brothers" of the "Far West," over repeatedly charged pipes of k'nick k'neck, were 

 pleasing, and held us to a most unreasonable hour at night. When the chief, amongst 



