646 THE GEORGE CATLlN INDIAN GALLERY. 



sion being that we had brought them on to hostile ground, and that this was a "war- 

 party" in pursuit of their enemy. They were relieved and excessively amused when I 

 told them it was merely a fox-hunt, and that the gentlemen they saw riding were mostly 

 noblemen and men of great influence and wealth. They watched them intensely until 

 they were out of sight, and made many amusing remarks about them after we had ar- 

 rived at York. I told them they rode without guns, and the first one in at the death 

 pulled off the tail of the fox and rode into town with it under his hatband. Their 

 laughter was excessive at the idea of "such gentlemen hunting in open fields, and with 

 a whip instead of a gun ; and that great chiefs, as I had pronounced them, should be 

 risking their lives, and the limbs of their fine horses, for a poor fox, the flesh of which, 

 even if it were good to eat, was not wanted by such rich people, who had meat enough 

 at home ; and the skin of which could not be worth so much trouble, especially when, 

 as everybody knows, it is good for nothing when the tail is pulled off." 



VISIT TO YORK MIXSTER. 



On our arrival in York one of the fi rst and most often repeated questions which they 

 put was, whether there were any of the "good people," as they now called them, the 

 Friends, living there. I told them it was a place where a great many of them lived, 

 and no doubt man y would come to see them, which seemed to please and encourage 

 them very much. Mr. Melody having taken rooms for them near to the York Minster, 

 of which they had a partial view from their windows, their impatience became so great 

 that we sallied out the morning after our arrival to pay the first v isit to that grand and 

 venerable pile. The reader has doubtless seen or read of Ibis sublime edifice, audi 

 need not attempt to describe it here. Were it in my power to portray the feelings 

 which agitated the breasts of these rude people when they stood before this stupendous 

 fabric of human hands, and as they passed through its aisles, amid its huge columns, 

 and under its grand arches, I should be glad to do it ; but those feelings which they en- 

 ioyed in the awful silence, were for none but themselves to know. We all followed the 

 guide, who showed and ■ explain ed to us all that was worth seeing below, and then 

 showed us the way by which we were to reach the summit of the grand or middle tower, 

 where the whole party arrived after a laborious ascent of two hundred and seventy,- 

 three steps. We had luckily selected a clear day ; and the giddy height from which 

 we gazed upon the town under our feet, and the lovely landscape in the distance all 

 around us, afforded to the Indians a view far more wonderful than their eyes had pre- 

 viously beheld. 



Whilst we were all engaged in looking upon the various scenes that lay like the lines 

 upon a map beneath us, the old doctor, with his propensity which has been spoken of 

 before, had succeeded in getting a little higher than any of the rest of the party, by 

 climbing on to the little house erected over the gangway through which we entered upon 

 the roof; and, upon the pinnacle of this, for a while stood smiling down upon the thou- 

 sands of people who were gathering in the streets. He was at length, however, seen to 

 assume a more conspicuous attitude by raising his head and his eyes towards the sky, and 

 for some moments he devoutly addressed himself to the Great Spirit, whom the Indians 

 always contemplate as "in the heavens, above the clouds." When he had finished 

 this invocation, he slowly and carefully descended on to the ro.of, and as he joined his 

 friends he observed that when he was up there ' ' he was nearer to the Great Spirit than he 

 had ever been before." The War-chief excited much merriment by his sarcastic reply, 

 that " it was a pity he did not stay there, for he would never be so near the Great Spirit 

 again." The doctor had no way of answering this severe retort, except by a silent 

 smile, as, with his head turned away, he gazed on the beautiful landscape beneath him. 

 When we descended from the tower, the Indians desired to advance again to the center 

 of this grand edifice, where they stood for a few minutes with their hands covering their 

 mouths, as they gazed upon the huge columns around them and the stupendous arches 



