ypographical
character the word has been utilized with its subtleties of
signification to express spirit or angel. In this story, however, the
scene of which is laid in a period long previous to the conversion of
the tribe, or even the accepted date of the invention of the Cherokee
alphabet, the word is used in its early and original sense to denote a
magician of special and expansive gifts of sorcery.

7. _Page_ 186. Although this officer's name was regularly incorporated
into the Cherokee vocabulary as a synonym of disaster, he seemed to
revolt at the unhappy plight of the people whom in the discharge of his
duty he had succeeded in reducing to so abject a condition of despair
and woe, and has left on record expressions of compassion incongruous
with his deeds and his position as a professed soldier of long
experience. He had served in Flanders and Ireland in his youth as
captain in the Royal Scots before he first came to America as major in
Montgomerie's regiment of Highlanders.

Some adequate idea of the desolation and destitution of the Indians may
be gleaned from the reports to the British government: "The Cherokees
must certainly starve or come into terms, and even in that case Colonel
Grant thinks it is hardly in the power of the provincials to save them.
He proposed in a few days to send for The Great Warrior (Oconostota) and
The Little Carpenter (Atta-Kulla-Kulla) to come and treat for peace, if
they choose to save their nation from destruction. Till he receives
their answer he will endeavor to save the small remains of the Lower
Towns. In the mean time Colonel Grant intends to put Fort Prince George
into repair, and to wait there or at Ninety-Six till he receives orders
from Sir Jeffrey Amherst."

The idea of the pangs of hunger and the sight of starvation and
deprivation may have been the more repugnant to Colonel Grant since he
was himself famous as a _bon vivant_ and gourmet. Indeed, even yet, in
turning old pages we come upon records of his dinners. Bartram, the
Philadelphia botanist, whom the Muscogee Indians quaintly called
_Puc-Puggy_ (the Flower Hunter) details the great size of a rattlesnake,
"six feet long and as thick as the leg of an ordinary man" which he
chanced to kill in his bosky researches near Fort Picolata in Florida,
and not the least surprising feature of the incident was a message from
the commandant inviting both combatants to dinner, "Governor Grant being
very fond of rattlesnake f