THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 635 



had gone over the river that night to attend the wedding of a friend, and little dreamed 

 that amongst the Indians he had any enemies who would raise their hand3 against him. 



" 'My friend,' said he 'you have said enough; if you tell me that your friend, or the 

 friend or the enemy of any man, takes the hand of a fair daughter on that ground to- 

 night, an Ioway chief will not offend the Great Spirit by raising the war-cry there. No 

 Ioway can spill the blood of an enemy on the ground where the hands and the hearts of 

 man and woman are joined together. This is the command of the Great Spirit, and an 

 Ioway warrior cannot break it. My friend, these warriors you see around me with my- 

 self had sworn to kill the first human being we met on our war excursion; we shall not 

 harm you, so you see that I give you your life. You will therefore keep your lips shut, 

 and we will return in peace to our village which is far up the river, and we shall here- 

 after meet our friends, the white people, in the great city,* as we have heretofore done, 

 and we have many friends there. We shall do no harm to any one. My face is now 

 blackened, and the night is dark, therefore you cannot know me; but this arrow you will 

 keep — it matches with all the others in my quiver, and by it you can always recognize 

 me, but the meeting of this night is not to be known.' He gave me the arrow, and with 

 these words turned his canoe, and joining his companions was in a moment out of 

 sight. My arrow being passed under my hat-band, and finding that the current had by 

 this time drifted me down a mile or two below the place where I designed to land, and 

 beyond the power of reaching it with my two awkward logs of wood, I steered my course 

 onward toward Saint Louis, rapidly gliding over the surface of the broad river, and ar- 

 rived safely at the shore in front of the town at a late hour in the night, having drifted 

 a distance of more than thirty-five miles. My two logs were an ample price for a night's 

 lodging, and breakfast and dinner the next day; and I continued my voyage in a Mack- 

 inaw boat on the same day to Vide Pouche, a small French town about twenty miles below, 

 where my business required my presence. The wedding party proceeded undisturbed, 

 and the danger they had been in was never made known to them, as I promised the war- 

 chief, who gave me as the condition of my silence the solemn promise that he would 

 never carry his feelings of revenge upon innocent persons any further. 



"Thus ends the story of ' floating down the Mississi ppi River on the two logs of wood, r 

 which the war-chief alluded to in the question he put to me this evening. On a subse- 

 quent occasion, some two or three years afterward, while sitting in the office of Governor 

 Clark, the superintendent of Indian affairs in Saint Louis, where he was holding 'a talk ' 

 with a party of Indians, a tine-looking fellow, of six feet or more in stature, fixed his 

 eyes intently upon me, and after scanning me closely for a few moments, advanced, and 

 seating himself on the floor by the side of me, pronounced the word ' Bobasheela, 1 and 

 asked me if ever I had received an arrow from the quiver of an Indian warrior. The 

 mutual recognition took place by my acknowledging the fact, and a shake of the hand, 

 and an amusing conversation about the circumstances, and still the facts and the amuse- 

 ment all kept to ourselves. This step led to the future familiarities of our lives in the- 

 various places where the nature of my business led me into his society, and gained for 

 me the regular adoption as Bobasheela (or brother) and the badge (the she-she-quoin, or 

 mystery rattle) alluded to in the previous remarks, and which, it has been already stated, 

 was lost by the sinking of one of my boats on the Cumberland River." 



INDIANS VISIT A GREAT BEEWERY. 



The next morning after this was an exciting and bustling one, as all were preparing, 

 at an early hour, to visit the great brewery on that day, as had been promised; and on 

 their way back to see the Thames Tunnel and the treasures of the Tower of London. 

 One will easily see that here was a gigantic day's work struck out, and that material 

 enough was at hand for my note-book. Bobasheela must be of this party, and therefore 

 was not left behind; with all in (except the two bucks, who habitually went outside) , 



* Saint Louis. 



