ngthening
their intercourse with the Americans, who can do so much to advance
them, and probably long before half another period of sixty-three years
is repeated, the Indians of the region will be as firmly attached to us
as they ever were to the French or the English.

Never to doubt, and never to despair,
Is to make acts what once but wishes were. ALGON.

_26th. Allegorical and Mythological Tales_.--"I shall be rejoiced,"
observed Governor C., in a letter of this day, in reply to my
announcement of having detected fanciful traditionary stories among the
Chippewas, "to receive any mythological stories to which you allude,
even if they are enough to rival old Tooke in his Pantheon." He had put
into my hands, at Detroit, a list of printed queries respecting the
Indians, and calls me to remember them, during my winter seclusion here,
with the knowledge of the advantages I possess in the well-informed
circle of the Johnston family.

_25th. Chippewa Language_.--There is clearly a polite and a vulgar way
of speaking the language. Tradition says that great changes have taken
place, and that these changes keep pace with the decline of the tribe
from their ancient standard of forest morals and their departure from
their ancient customs. However this may be, their actual vocabulary is
pretty full. Difficulties exist in writing it, from the want of an exact
and uniform system of notation. The vowels assume their short and
slender as well as broad sounds. The language appears to want entirely
the consonant sounds of f, l, r, v, and x. In conjugating their verbs,
the three primary tenses are well made out, but it is doubtful how much
exactitude exists in the forms given for the oblique and conditional
tenses. If it be true that the language is more corrupt now than at a
former age, it is important to inquire in what this corruption consists,
and how it came about. "To rescue it," I observe at the close of a
letter now on my table to his Excellency Governor C., transmitting him a
vocabulary of one hundred and fifty words, "To rescue it from that
oblivion to which the tribe itself is rapidly hastening, while yet it
may be attempted, with a prospect of success, will constitute a novel
and pleasing species of amusement during the long evenings of that
dreary cold winter of which we have already had a foretaste."

_31st. Public Worship_.--As Colonel Brady is about to leave the post for
the season, some conversation has bee