ght that day are still in your possession, I will not lose much time
telling of them. How those half-savage people could make things so well
contrived and ornamented with such brilliant colors is still a problem to
us. Papa bought for mamma thirty-two little baskets fitting into one
another, the largest about as tall as a child of five years, and the
smallest just large enough to receive a thimble. When he asked the price I
expected to hear the seller say at least thirty dollars, but his humble
reply was five dollars. For a deer he asked one dollar; for a wild turkey,
twenty-five cents. Despite the advice of papa, who asked us how we were
going to carry our purchases home, Suzanne and I bought, between us, more
than forty baskets, great and small. To papa's question, Suzanne replied
with an arch smile:

"God will provide."

Maggie and Alix also bought several; and Alix, who never forgot any one,
bought two charming little baskets that she carried to Celeste. Each of
us, even Maggie, secured a broad parti-colored mat to use on the deck as
a couch _a la Turque_. Our last purchases were two Indian bows painted red
and blue and adorned with feathers; the first bought by Celestino Carlo,
and the other by Suzanne for her chevalier, Patrick Gordon.

An Indian woman who spoke a little French asked if we would not like to
visit the queen. We assented, and in a few moments she led us into a hut
thatched with palmetto leaves and in all respects like the others. Its
interior was disgustingly unclean. The queen was a woman quite or nearly a
hundred years old. She sat on a mat upon the earth, her arms crossed on
her breast, her eyes half closed, muttering between her teeth something
resembling a prayer. She paid no attention to us, and after a moment we
went out. We entered two or three other huts and found the same poverty
and squalor. The men did not follow us about, but the women--the whole
tribe, I think--marched step by step behind us, touching our dresses, our
_capuches_, our jewelry, and asking for everything; and I felt well
content when, standing on our deck, I could make them our last signs of
adieu.

Our flatboat moved ever onward. Day by day, hour by hour, every minute it
advanced--slowly it is true, in the diminished current, but it advanced. I
no longer knew where I was. We came at times where I thought we were lost;
and then I thought of mamma and my dear sisters and my two pretty little
brothers, whom I might never