ALEXANDER WILSON. 
XC1X 
Mocking Bird fluttering to the ground : one of the savages had 
marked his elevation, and barbarously shot him. I hastened over 
to the yard, and, walking up to him, told him that was bad, very 
bad, that this poor bird had come from a far distant country to sing 
to him, and that, in return, he had cruelly killed him. I told him 
the Great Spirit was offended at such cruelty, and that he would 
lose many a deer for so doing. The old Indian, father-in-law to 
the bird killer, understanding, by the negro intepreter, what I said, 
replied, that, when these birds come singing and making a noise all 
day near the house, somebody will surely die, which is exactly 
what an old superstitious German, near Hampton, in Virginia, told 
me. This fellow has married the two eldest daughters of the old 
Indian, and presented one of them with the bird he had killed. 
The next day I passed through the Chickasaw Bigtown , which 
stands on the high open plain that extends through the country, 
three or four miles in breadth, by fifteen in length. Here and 
there you perceive little groups of miserable huts, formed of 
saplings, and plastered with mud and clay. About these are 
generally a few peach and plum trees. Many ruins of others 
stand scattered about, and I question whether there were twenty 
inhabited huts within the whole range of view. The ground was 
red with strawberries, and the boatmen were seen, in straggling 
parties, feasting on them. Now and then a solitary Indian, wrapt 
in his blanket, passed sullen and silent. On this plain are beds of 
shells, of a large species of clam, some of which are almost entire. 
I this day stopped at the house of a white man, who had two 
Indian wives, and a hopeful string of young savages, all in their 
fig leaves. Not one of them could speak a word of English. This 
man was by birth a Virginian, and had been forty years among 
the Chickasaws. His countenance and manners were savage, and 
worse than Indian, I met many parties of boatmen to-day, 
and crossed a number of bad swamps. The woods continue to 
exhibit the same open luxuriant appearance ; and at night I lodged 
at a white man’s, who has also two wives, and a numerous progeny. 
Here I met with a lieutenant of the United States army, anxiously 
inquiring for General Hampton. On Friday, the same open woods 
continued. I met several parties of Indians, and passed two or 
three of their hamlets. At one of these there were two fires in 
