74 
whose quills are much shorter than those of the African species, 
and of wild cats. Besides these, Mr. Harney has procured 
pieces of Indian habiliments, coats and leggings made of deer 
skin. The warriors among these Indians wear the mark of their 
dignity—the scalps—on the leggings, those of the inferior grade 
on one leg, those higher, on both. The coats are made with 
a checkered sewing, ornamented partly with glass beads, and 
partly with split porcupine quills. The Indian women* who are 
designated by the universal name of squaw, work these ornaments 
very ingeniously. Mr. Harney showed me also a quiver made 
of cougar’s skin with different sorts of arrows, a bow of elk’s 
horn, strung with tendons drawn from the elk; several tobacco 
pipes, with heads of serpentine stone, of which I had seen some 
on Lake Ontario already, hunting pouches, a head dress of 
eagle’s feathers for the great chief of the Crow nation, a set of the 
claws of the grizzled bear, which also were worn for ornament, 
and a tomahawk of flint with a variety of bunches of human hair: 
for every time a warrior has killed his enemy with his toma¬ 
hawk, he fastens a bunch of his hair, with a piece of the scalp 
on his weapon. He farther showed me a pipe made of a sheep’s 
rib, adorned with glass beads, upon which the Indians blow all 
the time they are engaged in a fight, so as not to loose themselves 
in the woods; a spoon made of the horn of a wild mountain ram; 
various minerals, and among them petrified wood, which is 
found in great quantities in that western region; serpentine, and 
other curiosities. The coats of the squaws are trimmed with 
long thin strips of leather, on one of these a bunch of yellow 
moss and grass was tied, which the Indians regard as a sort of 
amulet or talisman. 
On the 28th of February, in the forenoon, I went with Mr. 
Huygens to pay General Villaret a visit at his country-house. A 
pretty strong west wind moderated the great heat outside of the 
city; within it, the thermometer of Fahrenheit had stood at eighty- 
one degrees in the shade. Most of the fruit trees were in 
blossom. Every where we saw fresh green and bloom; all was 
fresh and lively. In a sugar-cane field, there were oats a foot 
and a half high, cut as green fodder. The general and his son 
were occupied in managing the labours of the field. We went 
with them to walk in the garden. The soil is very fruitful, that, 
however, is the most so, which is reclaimed from the swamp of 
the Mississippi, or the Bayou. In this soil, nevertheless the 
germ of a real land plague, the coco, as it is called, shows itself, 
the same which was made use of on the continent of Europe, as 
a substitute for coffee, during the existence of the vexatious 
continental system. This knotty growth is principally found 
in the mud; and one lump or knot of it multiplies itself so ex- 
