THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 695 



While we were thus listening to the narrations of Kis Majesty, my kind and faith- 

 ful nurse was approaching from the other end of the room and leading up my little 

 .children (Plate 22), whom he immediately recognized as my little family, and in the 

 most kind and condescending manner took them by their hands and chatted with 

 them in language and sentences suited to their age. 



His next object was to designate the paintings he wished me to copy and somewhat 

 enlarge, and soon pointed out the number of fifteen, which I was commanded to paint 

 for the palace at Versailles. 



Mr. Catlin leaves Paris with the Indians for Brussels. 



Mr. Catlin, in the spring of 184G, left his gallery in the Louvre, 

 (having an idea that it was to be purchased by the King of France), 

 and took the Indians to Brussels for exhibition. 



They were received by the American minister, Mr. Glemson, and had 

 an audience with the King at the palace, who presented the Indians 

 with medals. While here the Ojibbeways were attacked with small- 

 pox, and three of them died. Mr. Catlin was necessarily under very 

 heavy expense during the two months that the Indians were isolated 

 from visitors. He sent the survivors to London and returned to Paris 

 with a loss of about $1,700. Mr. Catlin relates a curious circumstance 

 connected with the death of each of two of the Indians. 



WILLS OF THE TWO BRAVES. 



With the poor fellows who died there seemed to be a presentiment with each, the 

 moment he was broken out with the disease, that he was to die, and a very curious 

 circumstance attended this conviction in each case. 



The first one, when he found the disease Avas well identified on him, sat down upon 

 the floor with the next one, his faithful and confiding friend, and, having very de- 

 liberately told him he was going to die, unlocked his little trunk, and spreading all 

 his trinkets, money, &c., upon the floor, bequeathed them to his friends, making the 

 other the sole executor of his will, intrusting them all to him, directing him to take 

 them to his country and deliver them with his own hand. As he was intrusting these 

 precious gifts, with his commands, to an Indian, he was certain, poor fellow ! that 

 they would be sacredly preserved and delivered, and he then locked his little trunk, 

 and, having given to his friend the key, he turned to his bed, where he seemed com- 

 posed and ready to die, because, he said, it was the will of the Great Spirit, and he 

 didn't think that the Great Spirit would have selected him unless it was to better his 

 condition in some way. 



About the time of death of this young man his confiding and faithful friend was 

 discovered to bo breaking out with the disease also, and, seeming to be under a 

 similar conviction, he called Say-say-gon (the War-chief) to him, and like the other, 

 unlocked his little trunk, and taking out his medal from the king, and other presents 

 and money, he designated a similar distribution of them amongst his relatives; and 

 trusting to the War-chief to execute his will, he locked his trunk, having taken the 

 last look at his little hard-earned treasures, and unlocking that of his deceased com- 

 panion, and designating, as well as as he could, the manner in which tho verbal in- 

 structions had been left with him, gave the key to the War-chief, and begged of him 

 to take charge of the trunk and the presents, and to see them bestowed according to 

 the will of the testator. After this he turned away from his little worldly treasures, 

 and suddenly lost all knowledge of them in the distress of the awful disease that soon 

 terminated his existence. 



