684 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



• 

 back and himself astride, the horse dashed off at his highest speed. Jim saw that the 

 animal was used to the track, and, the course being clear, he leaned forward and 

 brandished his lance, and every time he came round and passed us sounded a charge ' 

 in the shrill notes of the war-whoop. The riding was pleasing and surprised M. Fran- 

 coni exceedingly, and when he thought it was about time to stop he gave his signal 

 for Jim to pull up, but seeing no slack to the animal's pace, and Jim still brandish- 

 ing his weapons in the air and sounding the war-whoop as he passed, he became all at 

 once alarmed for the health of his horse. The Indians at this time were all in a roar 

 of laughter, and the old gentleman was placing himself and his men upon the track 

 as Jim came round, with uplifted arms, to try to stop the animal's speed, just finding 

 at that time that Jim had rode in the true prairie style, without using the bridle, 

 and which, by his neglect of it, had got out of his reach when he would have used it 

 to pull up with. Jim still dashed by them, brandishing his lance as they came in his 

 way ; when they retreated and ran to head him in another place he then passed them 

 also, and passed them and menaced them again and again as ho came around. The 

 alarm of the poor old gentleman for the life of his horse became very conspicuous, 

 and, with additional efforts with his men and a little pulling up by Jim, who had at 

 length found the rein, the poor affrighted and half-dead animal was stopped, and 

 Jim, leaping off, walked to the middle of the area, where we were in a group, laugh- 

 ing to the greatest excess at the fun. The poor horse was near done over, and led 

 away by the grooms. M. Franconi came and merely bade us good-bye, and was ex- 

 ceedingly obliged to us. Whether the poor animal died or not we never heard, but 

 Jim was laid up for several days. On asking him why he ran the horse so hard, he 

 said it was the horse's fault, that "it ran away with him the moment he was on its 

 back, that the creature was frightened nearly to death ; and he thought, if it pre- 

 ferred running, he resolved to give it running enough." The Doctor told him he acted 

 imprudently in getting on, which had caused all the trouble. " In what way?" in- 

 quired Jim. "Why, by letting the animal see that ugly face of yours; if you had 

 hid it till you were on there would have been no trouble." 



Few scenes in Paris, if any, had pleased them more than this, and in their subse- 

 quent drives they repeatedly paid their visits to the "woods of Boulogne." 



JIM'S STRICTURES ON THE BAL MASQUE. 



It was on Sunday evening, when the greatest crowds attend these places, and I 

 have no other account of what they did and what they saw than that they gave me 

 on their return home. They had first gone to the splendid ball in the popular garden, 

 where they were told that the thousand elegant women they saw there dancing were 

 all bad women, and that nearly all of them came to those places alone, as they had 

 nothing to pay, but were all let in free, so as to make the men come, who had to pay. 

 This idea had tickled Jim and the doctor very much, for, although they were from 

 the wilderness, they could look a good way into a thing which was perfectly clear. 

 It was a splendid sight for them, and, after strolling about a while and seeing all that 

 could be seen, they had turned their attention to the "bal masqu6" in the grand 

 opera. Here they had been overwhelmed with the splendor of the scene, and aston- 

 ished at its novelty and the modes of the women, who, Jim said, "were all ashamed 

 to show their faces," and whose strange maneuvers had added a vast deal to the fund 

 of his objections to Frenchwomen, and which he said had constantly been accumu- 

 lating ever since he first saw so many of them kissing the ends of little dogs' noses, 

 and pretty little children on their foreheads. His mind here ran uj)on kissing, of 

 which he had seen some the night before, and which he had often observed in the ex- 

 hibition rooms and in the streets. He had laughed, he said, to see Frenchmen kiss 

 each other on both cheeks ; and he had observed that when gentlemen kiss ladies 

 they kiss them on the forehead ; he was not quite sure that they would do so in the 

 dark, however. "In London always kiss 'em on the mouth ; ladies kiss 'em Indians 

 heap, and hug 'em, too; in France ladies no kiss 'em— no like 'em — no good." 



