lephant. The inferior lineaments of his countenance
were coarse, extended and vacant; while the superior, or those nobler
parts which are thought to affect the intellectual being, were low,
receding and mean.

The dress of this individual was a mixture of the coarsest vestments of
a husbandman with the leathern garments, that fashion as well as use,
had in some degree rendered necessary to one engaged in his present
pursuits. There was, however, a singular and wild display of prodigal
and ill judged ornaments, blended with his motley attire. In place of
the usual deer-skin belt, he wore around his body a tarnished silken
sash of the most gaudy colours; the buck-horn haft of his knife was
profusely decorated with plates of silver; the marten's fur of his cap
was of a fineness and shadowing that a queen might covet; the buttons
of his rude and soiled blanket-coat were of the glittering coinage of
Mexico; the stock of his rifle was of beautiful mahogany, riveted and
banded with the same precious metal, and the trinkets of no less than
three worthless watches dangled from different parts of his person.
In addition to the pack and the rifle which were slung at his back,
together with the well filled, and carefully guarded pouch and horn,
he had carelessly cast a keen and bright wood-axe across his shoulder,
sustaining the weight of the whole with as much apparent ease, as if he
moved, unfettered in limb, and free from incumbrance.

A short distance in the rear of this man, came a group of youths very
similarly attired, and bearing sufficient resemblance to each other,
and to their leader, to distinguish them as the children of one family.
Though the youngest of their number could not much have passed the
period, that, in the nicer judgment of the law, is called the age of
discretion, he had proved himself so far worthy of his progenitors as
to have reared already his aspiring person to the standard height of
his race. There were one or two others, of different mould, whose
descriptions must however be referred to the regular course of the
narrative.

Of the females, there were but two who had arrived at womanhood; though
several white-headed, olive-skinned faces were peering out of the
foremost wagon of the train, with eyes of lively curiosity and
characteristic animation. The elder of the two adults, was the sallow
and wrinkled mother of most of the party, and the younger was a
sprightly, active, girl, of eighteen, who i