ANECDOTE. 255' 
* . , \ 
the woods at the very place they did. Curio¬ 
sity led sortie of the horsemen to go on/ and to 
their astonishment,, for there was apparently 
no tracks they overtook the other Indians in 
the thickest part of the wood ; but what ap¬ 
peared most singular was, that the route Which 
they took Was found; on examining a map, to 
be: as direct for Philadelphia as if they had 
taken the bearings by a mariner’s compass. 
From, others of their 'nation; who had-been \at 
Philadelphia at a-former period, they had pro- • 
bably learned the exact direction of that- city 
from their-village; and had-never lost sight of 
it; although they had already -travel led three 
hundred miles through woods, and had up¬ 
wards of four hundred miles; more to ffo before' 
i_ ) 
they couldaeach the placemf their destination. 
Of the, exactness with .which they can find 
out a strange. place, that they have been once 
directed to by their own. people, a striking ex¬ 
ample is famished us, I think, by Mr. Jefibr- 
son, in his, account of the Indian graves -in 
Virginia. These graves 7 a re nothing more than 
large mounds of earth in -the woods, which, 
on being opened, are found to contain skele¬ 
tons in an erect posture : the Indian mode of 
sepulture has been too often described to re¬ 
main unknown to you. But to come to my 
story. A party of Indians that were passing 
on to some of the seaports on the * Atlantic/ 
