THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GaLLERY. 637 



The tower, from its outward appearance, did not seem to excite in them any extrava- 

 gant expectation of what they were to see within its gloomy walls. They remarked, 

 when going in, that "they were going to prison;" and they were of opinion, no doubt, 

 that it consisted of little else, as they had as yet heard no other description of it than 

 that it was the ' ' Tower of London, ' ' and they were going to see it. Poor fellows ! they 

 guessed right; they knew not of the illustrious prisoners who had pined within its gloomy 

 walls, nor of the blood that had been shed within and around it. They went to see, and 

 had enough to engage all their thoughts and attention without referring to the events of 

 history. We were kindly conducted through the different rooms, and most of its curi- 

 osities explained to us. The "small-arms room," containing two hundred thousand 

 muskets, had been burned. The ' ' horse armoury ' ' seemed to afford them much delight; 

 the thousands of various spears and lances, they thought, presented some beautiful mod- 

 els for Indian warfare and hunting the buffaloes. The beheading block, on which Lords 

 Balmerino, Kilmarnock, and Lovat were beheaded in the tower in 1746, attracted their 

 attention, and the ax that severed the head of Anne Boleyn. 



In the regalia room, the crown of Her Majesty and four other crowns, the scepters and 

 staffs and orbs, swords of j ustice, swords of mercy, royal spurs, salts, baptismal fonts, 

 &c., in massive gold and brilliant stones, seemed rather to disappoint than to astonish 

 them; and to us, who knew better than they did the meaning and value of these mag- 

 nificent treasures, there seemed a striking incongruity in the public exhibition of them 

 in so confined and humble an apartment. 



INDIANS VISIT THE THAMES TUNNEL. 



The Thames Tunnel was our next object, and a drive of a quarter of an hour brought 

 us to the dismal neighborhood of its entrance.' Paying our fees, and descending some 

 hundred or more steps by a spiral staircase, we were ready to enter the tunnel. Walk- 

 ing through its gloomy halls, and spending a few shillings for toys protruded under our 

 faces at every rod we advanced, by young women sitting at their little stalls under each 

 of its arches, we at length ascended an equal number of steps, and came to the light of 

 day on the opposite side of the Thames; and in the midst of one of the most unintelli- 

 gible, forlorn, and forsaken districts of London, or the world, we waited half an hour or 

 more for our omnibus to make its circuit across the bridge and take us up. 



While waiting for the bus, some ' ' on-the-spot ' ' remarks were made by the Indians, 

 which I thought had some sound sense in them. They thought it must have cost a 

 great deal of money, and believed it was too far out of London ever to pay; and they 

 did not see that it was any curiosity for them, as they had passed through several on the 

 railway ten times as long. They did not think, however, that it need be time and money- 

 thrown away, as "they thought it might make a first-rate place to twist ropes." 



This extraordinary day's rambling had taken them across more bridges and through a 

 greater number of crooked and narrow streets than they had passed on any former occa- 

 sion, which brought the Doctor to one of the first and shrewdest remarks of the evening. 

 He said " he thought from all that he had seen, sitting on top of the bus all day, that 

 the English people had the best way in the world for crossing rivers, but he thought 

 their paths were many of them too narrow and much too crooked. ' ' 



"The poor people, and those who seemed to be drunk, were much more numerous 

 than they had seen them in any other of their drives;" and they were counting the money 

 left in their pouches to see how much they had thrown out to the poor. They soon 

 agreed that ' ' they had given away something more than 30 shillings, which they thought 

 would do a great deal of good, and the Great Spirit would reward them for it." 



AEMS ON NOBLEMEN'S HOUSES. 



The Doctor and Jim, the everlasting cronies, on the outside, were comparing their 

 estimates of the numbers they had counted of the "Kon-to-too-ags (fighters with one 

 horn)* that they had seen over the doors and shop3 as they had passed along, which they 



*The royal arms (the lion and the unicorn). 



