370 
REMOVAL OF THE WAGGONS TO 
13 July, 
ment was now much moderated. They could scarcely be quite 
ignorant of the nature and use of books and writing, as several 
white-persons, had at different times, visited their country. It seemed 
to afford them much pleasure, when I repeated that it was my in- 
tention to learn their language, that I might talk to them without 
an interpreter. Mattivi's manners, though still sedate and reserved, 
were now somewhat more familiar, and he had evidently laid aside 
that assumed apathy and silence, which he may have thought more 
becoming him in a public assembly composed of the principal men 
of property and influence, belonging to the town ; and even among 
the larger crowd, there were, perhaps, but few of the poorer class 
then present. 
He pointed to a large circular enclosure close by, surrounded by 
a fence or hedge of dry branches, where he wished my waggon to be 
stationed, as he remarked that I should find the open place where it 
now stood, to be very inconvenient on account of my being there 
too much exposed to the general crowd of the inhabitants. I there* 
fore ordered my men to move it thither : which they easily effected 
without the oxen, as the ground was level and even. We still re- 
mained sitting within, while they drew it along ; and it was ex- 
ceedingly amusing to behold this Chief of the Bachapins, who, a 
few minutes before, sat in the midst of a great assembly of his nation, 
with a gravity of deportment which would hardly permit him even 
to return an answer to my address, now, as pleased with the ride, as 
a child when drawn about by its nurse. All his dignity in my eyes, 
was at an end : he seemed now to be only a Bachapin named Mattivi. 
He regretted that the distance was so short ; and his uncle and his 
brother, not less than himself, were delighted with the motion of the 
vehicle, and betrayed their satisfaction by countenances exhibiting an 
intermediate expression between smiling and laughing. 
They descended from the waggon as soon as it was brought 
within the enclosure; and Mattivi showed me a hut on one side 
of the area, which he gave for the use of my men. The plan of 
it was circular; the sides, which extended round two thirds only 
of the circumference, were made with roughly-interwoven branches 
