not tell, when opening my eyes I saw a tall man,
dressed in skins, but his face was fairer than that of any Indian I had
ever beheld; his hair light and long; and on his head he wore a covering
of straw. He cast a kind look at me, but I saw that he was as much
astonished as I was at seeing him. Stooping down, he spoke some words
which I did not understand; he then addressed me in Indian, and asked me
who I was, and whence I had come. I told him at once that I was the
grand-daughter of Oncagua, and that I was following some girls of the
tribe who had run away, begging him to tell me if he knew where they
were gone. He replied that they were safe with those by whom they would
be better treated than they were by their own people. My foot paining
me while he was speaking, I groaned, and he stooped down and pulled out
the thorn, when he bound up the wound with some leaves, fastening them
on with the fibres of a tree; then, seeing that I could not walk, he
took me up in his arms and carried me to a dwelling larger than any I
had ever before seen. It was on the borders of the forest, surrounded
by a garden and corn-field; close to it, at a little distance was a
large Indian village.
"He asked me if I would be content to remain there till the wound in my
foot was healed. I felt sure that he would treat me kindly, though I
wanted to go back to Oncagua, who would be mourning for me.
"To this the white man did not object, though he said that he should
have wished me to remain with him. He watched over me with the greatest
care, and in three days my foot was well; and though I did not learn
that which I wanted to know--what had become of my companions--I wished
to go back to my grandfather. I told the strange white man this, and he
would not stop me, he said, though he was loth to part with me. I, too,
was grieved to part with him, for he had been very kind, and told me
wonderful things about the great God who rules the world, and One who
was punished instead of man, that man's sins might be forgiven, and that
he might be made friends with God, and go to live with him in the sky.
And he told me much more, but I could not understand it.
"When he found how much I wished to go back he said that he would go
with me as far as the river, where I had left my canoe; that he should
like to see me safely to my grandfather, but that he was bound by an
oath to the chief with whom he lived not to go beyond the river, and
that he
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