ty. And this is the way you return my treatment to you. I had thought
you were a man and a chief, but you are not, you are nothing but an old
woman. Leave this house, and never enter it again." Mr. B. said he
expected the Indian would attempt his life when he said this, but that
he had placed himself in a position so that he could defend himself, and
he looked straight into the Indian's eye, and like other wild beasts he
quailed before the glance of mental and moral courage. He calmed down at
once, and soon began to make apologies. Mr. B. then told him kindly, but
firmly, that, if he wished to walk in the same path with him, he must
walk as straight as the crack on the floor before them; adding that he
would not walk with anybody who would jostle him by walking so crooked
as he had done. He was perfectly tamed, and Mr. B. said he never had any
more trouble with him."

The conviction here livingly enforced of the superiority on the side of
the white man, was thus expressed by the Indian orator at Mackinaw while
we were there. After the customary compliments about sun, dew, &c.,
"This," said he, "is the difference between the white and the red man;
the white man looks to the future and paves the way for posterity." This
is a statement uncommonly refined for an Indian; but one of the
gentlemen present, who understood the Chippeway, vouched for it as a
literal rendering of his phrases; and he did indeed touch the vital
point of difference. But the Indian, if he understands, cannot make use
of his intelligence. The fate of his people is against it, and Pontiac
and Philip have no more chance, than Julian in the times of old.

Now that I am engaged on this subject, let me give some notices of
writings upon it, read either at Mackinaw or since my return.

Mrs. Jameson made such good use of her brief visit to these regions, as
leaves great cause to regret she did not stay longer and go farther;
also, that she did not make more use of her acquaintance with, indeed,
adoption by, the Johnson family. Mr. Johnson seems to have been almost
the only white man who knew how to regard with due intelligence and
nobleness, his connexion with the race. Neither French or English, of
any powers of sympathy, or poetical apprehension, have lived among the
Indians without high feelings of enjoyment. Perhaps no luxury has been
greater, than that experienced by the persons, who, sent either by trade
or war, during the last century, into these maje