478 WARFARE OF SAVAGES.— LETTER TO ENGLAND. 26-28 July, 
In the evening one of these natives related to us some particu- 
lars respecting the murder of the English travellers before mentioned, 
and described various European articles which he said he had seen 
among the more northern tribes ; and asserted that they were part of 
the plunder. He exhibited two long scars which had been purposely 
made down his thighs, and told us that they were marks of honor 
which he was allowed to bear in consequence of having killed two 
men in war. He showed us something hanging at his neck, 
resembling a piece of shrivelled leather, which he said was part of 
one of them. He assured us, in a manner which appeared serious, 
that when an enemy is killed in battle, they cut out the liver, or the 
lungs, and broil and eat part of it. On my questioning him closely 
whether this were literally a fact, he did not seem to persist in the 
truth of it : but I shall not assert that his reason for relinquishing 
the story and for not attempting to vindicate the custom, did not 
proceed from some sense of shame occasioned by the horror and 
and disgust which he must have seen expressed in my countenance. 
That which he wore at his neck, appeared to be what he represented 
it for : and it is not improbable that this and the practice of swallow- 
ing some small part of the body of an enemy, may be the result rather 
of superstition or some absurd belief, than of a desire of eating 
human flesh, a crime of which I fully acquit the Bachapins ; and 
consider that to apply to them the name of cannibal, would be 
extreme injustice. 
27^/i. I rose at an early hour in the morning to perform the 
pleasing task of writing a letter to England, to describe to my family, 
as far as it could be foreseen, the prospects of the following part of 
my journey. While thus employed, in the midst of a scene so 
different from that in which this letter would be opened, a thou- 
sand animating reflections mingled with warm hopes, passed rapidly 
over my mind; and I confess that some agitation disturbed me, 
while for an instant I thought of the possibility of this being the last 
letter which they might ever receive, and admitted a momentary 
idea, that it might be my destiny never again to behold the land of 
