vortex, at the distance of many leagues. When the weather is calm, and the adjacent sea scarcely heard on these picturesque shores, its sound, which is like the sound of innumerable chariots, creates a magni

ficent and fine effect.

Stanza 13.1. 4.

Of buskin❜d limb and swarthy lineament.

In the Indian tribes there is a great similarity in

their colour, stature, &c. They are all, except the Snake Indians, tall in stature, straight, and robust. It is very seldom they are deformed, which has given rise to the supposition that they put to death their deformed children. Their skin is of a copper colour; their eyes large, bright black, and sparkling, indicative of a subtile and discerning mind: their hair is

of the same colour, and prone to be long, seldom or never curled. Their teeth are large and white; I never observed any decayed among them, which makes their breath as sweet as the air they inhale.—

Travels through America by Capts. LEWIS and CLARKE, in 1804-5-6.

Stanza 14. 1. 6.

Peace be to thee-my words this belt approve.

The Indians of North America accompany every

formal address to strangers, with whom they form or recognize a treaty of amity, with a present of a string, or belt, of wampum. Wampum (says Cadwallader Colden) is made of the large whelk shell, Briccinum, and shaped like long beads: it is the

current money of the Indians.-History of the five

Indian Nations, page 34. New York Edition.

Stanza 14. 1. 7.

The paths of peace my steps have hither led.

In relating an interview of Mohawk Indians with

the Governor of New York, Colden quotes the fol

lowing passage as a specimen of their metaphorical "Where shall I seek the chair of peace?

manner:

Where shall I find it but upon our path? and whither

doth our path lead us but unto this house?"

Stanza 15. 1. 2.

Our wampum league thy brethren did embrace.

When they solicit the alliance, offensive or defen

sive, of a whole nation, they send an embassy with a

large belt of wampum and a bloody hatchet, inviting them to come and drink the blood of their enemies. The wampum made use of on these and other occasions before their acquaintance with the Europeans, was nothing but small shells which they picked up by the sea-coasts, and on the banks of the lakes; and now it is nothing but a kind of cylindrical beads, made of shells, white and black, which are esteemed among them as silver and gold are among us. The black they call the most valuable, and both together are their greatest riches and ornaments; these among them answering all the end that money does amongst us. They have the art of stringing, twisting, and interweaving them into their belts, collars, blankets, and mocazins, &c. in ten

thousand different sizes, forms, and figures, so as to be ornaments for every part of dress, and expressive to them of all their important transactions. They dye the wampum of various colours and shades, and mix and dispose them with great ingenuity and order, and so as to be significant among themselves of almost every thing they please; so that by these their words are kept, and their thoughts communicated to one another, as ours are by writing. The belts that pass from one nation to another in all treaties, declarations, and important transactions, are very carefully preserved in the cabins of their chiefs, and serve not only as a kind of record or history, but as a public treasure.-Major ROGERS's Account of North America.