694 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



their way amongst snags, and sawyers, and sand-bars to the mouth of the Ohio, GOO 

 miles, and from that down the still more wild and dangerous current of the Missis- 

 sippi, 1,000 miles to New Orleans, fifty-two years ago, when nearly the whole shores 

 of these rivers, with their heavy forests, were in their native state, inhabited only by 

 Indians and wild beasts. They lived upon the game and fish they could hill or pur- 

 chase from the various tribes of Indians they visited along the banks, and slept some- 

 times in their leaking and rickety boat, or amongst the canebrake, and mosquitos, 

 and alligators, and rattlesnakes on the shores. 



I took the liberty to ask His Majesty on this occasion whether the story that has 

 been current in the American prints "of an Indian bleeding him" was correct; to 

 which he replied, "No, not exactly ; it had been misunderstood. He had bled himself 

 on one occasion in presence of some Indians and a number of country people, when 

 ho had been thrown out of his wagon, and carried, much injured, to a country inn ; 

 and the people around him, seeing the ease and success with which he did it, supposed 

 him, of course, to be a physician; and when he had sufficiently recovered from his 

 fall to be able to start on his tour again, the neighbors assembled around hirn and pro- 

 posed that he should abandon his plan of going farther west; that if he would re- 

 main amongst them they would show him much better laud than he would find by 

 proceeding on, and they would also elect him county physician, which they stood 

 much in need of, and in which capacity he would meet no opposition. He thanked 

 them for their kindness, assuring them that he was not a physician, and also that he 

 was not in search of lands, and, taking leave, drove off." 



He also gave an account of their visit to General Washington at Mount Vernon, 

 where they remained several days. General Washington gave them directions about 

 the route to follow in the journey they were about to make across the Alleghany 

 Mountains on horseback, and gave them also several letters of introduction to be 

 made use of on their way. 



with veneration, and gave them many letters of introduction to friends in the West. They were to go 

 to New Orleans and to tako ship for Europe. The King sat down and we formed a group about him. 



" The incident related by Mr. Catlin (page 292 in his Eight Years in Europe, Vol. II) of the King 

 being bled by an Indian— in fact the King bled himself— occurred at Carlisle, Pa. The King gave us 

 substantially this account of it. 



"'Myself and two brothers were journeying from Philadelphia to the West in 1797, on a map made 

 for us by President Washington in 1797, who at Mount Vernon made us up an itinerary and furnished 

 us with letters of introduction to friends in the West. While on this journey to New Orleans, La., 

 with a wagon, we passed through Carlisle, Pa. We arrived at Carlisle on a Saturday, when the 

 town was full of the neighboring yeomen. We drove up to a public house, in front of which was 

 a feeding-trough for the use of travelers who might not choose to have their horses put up in the 

 stable. The bits were removed, and while the horses were feeding they became frightened by a 

 passing squad of volunteer soldiers and dashed off at full speed. For a while they kept on well 

 enough, and we began to to congratulate ourselves, when they came to a tree which remained standing 

 in tho center of the road, with a path on either side of it. One of the horses chose to pass on one side, 

 and his fellow on tho other, so the pole camo in violent contact with the tree, and we, as the occupants 

 of the wagon, were thrown out with great violence. Stunned by the fall I lay for some time insensible, 

 but on coming to bound up my arm and bled myself. Quite a crowd of the farmers and citizens had 

 gathered around in the meantime to watch the operation. At that time many emigrants from New 

 England were passing this place to Ohio and the West. I was taken for a Yankee doctor going West 

 to establish myself. A squire and other gentlemen of Carlisle, after witnessing my surgical effort, 

 began to persuade me to remain in their village and begin practice — in fact, to settle amongst them. 

 They offered mo a quantity of land and a guarantee of a livelihood, saying that a man who could doctor 

 himself so well was well-calculated to cure and heal others. They were quite disappointed when I 

 declined to remaiu with them. Ah, gentlemen, perhaps I should have lived happier as the doctor of 

 Carlisle than as tho King of France.' 



"While not an admirer of Louis Philippe I made a life of him in 1846, published by Ticknor, of 

 Boston. In it I gave the details of his journey in America as well as the main facts of his adven- 

 turous life. 



"Mr. Catlin and myself were good friends. I have amongst my papers several letters from him; 

 two I recall. The first was after the death of his wife, and the other after the death of his son George, 

 an infant. I lost sight of him after 181G and untd his return here to Washington in 1871. His deaf- 

 ness, however, at this time made it difficult to converse with him and made him averse to society." 



