THE GEORGE CATL1N INDIAN GALLERY. 697 



For tlie amusement of the reader, however, I have made room for a couple of his 

 drawings, which will couvey some idea of their general character, and of the decided 

 cleverness of this good fellow at story-telling and design. The wood-cuts are traced 

 from the originals, and are therefore as near fac similes as I could make them. 

 Plate 23 represents Pane-ivay-ee-tung, the brother-in-law of Say-say-gon, crossing the 

 river Thomas in a bark canoe, who had the following curious and amusing encounter 

 with a bear which he met swimming in the middle of the river. Though the Indian 

 had no other weapon than a paddle, he pursued the bear, and, overtaking it, struck 

 it a blow, upon which ifc made an effort to climb into the canoe, by which the canoe 

 was upset and the Indian sank under it. He arose to the surface, however, just be- 

 hind the canoe, which in its progress had passed over him, and, being bottom up- 

 wards, the bear had climbed upon it, as seen in the sketch, and, having seen the man 

 sink under it, was feeling under the canoe with his paws in hopes of getting hold of 

 him. The bear, having made no calculation for the progress of the canoe, had not 

 thought of looking behind it for his enemy, but balanced himself with difficulty 

 without being able to look back; and whilst he was thus engaged feeling for his en- 

 emy under the canoe the Indian silently swam behind it, and cautiously pushing it 

 forward with his hand, succeeded in moving it near the shore, where he discovered 

 his friend Say-say-gon hunting with his rifle, who was in waiting for it, and when 

 near enough shot it in the head. 



Plate 24 is his illustration of the first interview between white men and the Ojib- 

 beway Indians ; his description of it is as follows : 



" Gitch-ee-gaw-ga-osh (the Point that Remains Forever), who died many snows since, 

 and who was so old that he had smoked with three generations, said that his grand- 

 father, On-daig, met the first white man who ever entered an Ojibbe way's wigwam. 

 That white man was a great chief, who wore a red coat. He had many warriors 

 with him, who all came in sight of the village of On-daig (the Crow), and, leaving 

 his warriors behind, he walked towards the wigwam of On-daig. who came out, with 

 his pipe of peace in one hand, and his war-club in the other. On-daig offered his pipe 

 to the white chief to smoke, who put his sword behind him in one hand, and raised 

 his hat with the other. On-daig never had seen a white man's hat before, and, think- 

 ing the white chief was going to strike him with it, drew his war-club. They 

 soon, however, understood each other, and smoked the pipe together." 



RIFLING GRAVES. 



But a few months after the death of this fine Indian I was on a visit to Loudon, 

 and while walking in Piccadilly was accosted by an old acquaintance, who in our 

 conversation informed me that the skeleton of my old friend the War-chief had been 

 preserved, and he seemed to think it might be an interesting thing for me to see. The 

 struggle between the ebullition of indignation and the quiescence of disgust rendered 

 me for the moment almost unfit for a reply ; and I withheld it for a moment, until the 

 poor Indian's ideas of hyenas before described had time to run through my mind, 

 and some other similar reflections, when I calmly replied, "I have no doubt but the 

 skeleton is a subject of interest, but I shall not have time to see it." 



My friend and I parted here, and I went on through Piccadilly, audi know not where 

 meditating on the virtues of scientific and mercenary man. I thought of the heroic 

 Osceola, who was captured when he was disarmed and was bearing a white flag in hie 

 hand ; who died a prisoner of war, and whose head was a few months afterwards offered 

 for sale in the city of New York. I thought also of the thousands of Indian graves I had 

 seen on the frontier thrown open by sacrilegious hands for the skulls and trinkets 

 they enclosed, to which the retiring relatives were lurking back to take the last glance 

 of, and to mingle their last tears over, with the horror of seeing the bOnes of their 

 fathers and children strewed over the ground by hands too averse to labor and too 

 ruthless to cover them again. 



