698 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



I was here forcibly struck with the fitness of Jim's remarks about the hyenas, of 

 " their resemblance to Chcmoldmons or pale-faces," when I told him that they lived by 

 digging up and devouring bodies that had been consigned to the grave. 



I thought also of the distress of mind of the Little Wolf when he lost his child at 

 Dundee— of his objections to bury it in a foreign land ; and also of the double pang 

 with which the fine fellow suffered when dire necessity compelled him to leave the 

 body of his affectionate wife amidst the graves of the thousands whose limbs and 

 bones were no curiosity. And I could thus appreciate the earnestness with which, in 

 his last embrace of me in Paris, he desired me to drive every day in a cab, as he had 

 been in the habit of doing, to the cemetery of Montmartro, to see that no one disturbed 

 the grave of her whom he had loved, but was then to leave ; and that I should urge 

 his kind friend M. Vattemare to hasten the completion of the beautiful monument he 

 was getting made, that it might be sure to be erected over her grave before she might 

 be dug up. 



This party of Ojibbeways, after leaving Mr. Catlin, were exhibited 

 throughout England, and four more of them dying (one of the chiefs 

 had them in charge), they were returned home to the United States, 

 in 1846. Mr. Catlin devotes some ten pages to reflections as to the 

 effect of the visit to Europe on the Indians which had been under his 

 charge — three parties, thirty-five in all — and the results to follow such 

 visits. His speculations and reflections he concludes : 



"With this chapter [xxxi] I take leave of my Indian friends, and as the main sub- 

 ject of this work ends with their mission to Europe, the reader fiuds himself near the 

 end of his task. 



"In taking leave of my red friends, I will be pardoned for repeating what I have be- 

 fore said, that on this side of the Atlantic they invariably did the best they could do, 

 and that, loving them still as I have done, I shall continue to do for them and their 

 race all the justice that shall bo in the power of my future strength to do. 



"G. C." 



Mr. Catlin Eeturns to Paris from Brussels. 



Mr. Catlin returned from Brussels in the spring of 184G. He at once 

 began to paint the fifteen pictures ordered by the King of France. 



His collection was removed from the Louvre and stored in a warehouse. 

 With his four children about him, three girls often, eight, and six, and 

 a boy, George, three-and-a-half years of age.* Mr. Catlin writes: 



When I had completed the pictures ordered by the King, his majesty graciously 

 granted me an audience in the palace of the Tuileries to deliver them, on which oc- 

 casion he met me with great cheerfulness, and, having received from me a verbal 

 description of each picture, he complimented me on the spirit of their execution, and 

 expressed the highest satisfaction with them, and desired me to attach to the back of 

 each a full written description. The dimensions of these paintings were 30 by 36 

 inches, and the subjects as follows: 



No. 1. An Indian ball-play. 



2. A Sioux council of war. 



3. Buffalo-hunt on snow-shoes. 



4. Mah-to-toh-pa (the Four Bears), a Mandan chief, full length 



5. A Buffalo-hunt, Sioux. 



6. Eagle dance and view of Ioway village. 



* The son died shortly afterwards, and his remains were sent to New York, and are now in Green- 

 wood Cemetery, with his father and mother. Mr. Catlin's art work and family cares' kept him busily 

 employed. 



