kin was swarthy, not black like a
Moor or Guinea-man, but of a color not unlike that of tarnished copper
coin. He spake but little, and that in his own tongue, very harsh and
strange-sounding to my ear. Robert Pike tells me that he is Chief of
the Agawams, once a great nation in these parts, but now quite small and
broken. As we rode on, and from the top of a hill got a fair view of
the great sea off at the east, Robert Pike bade me notice a little bay,
around which I could see four or five small, peaked huts or tents,
standing just where the white sands of the beach met the green line of
grass and bushes of the uplands.

"There," said he, "are their summer-houses, which they build near unto
their fishing-grounds and corn-fields. In the winter they go far back
into the wilderness, where game is plenty of all kinds, and there build
their wigwams in warm valleys thick with trees, which do serve to
shelter them from the winds."

"Let us look into them," said I to Cousin Rebecca; "it seems but a
stone's throw from our way."

She tried to dissuade me, by calling them a dirty, foul people; but
seeing I was not to be put off, she at last consented, and we rode aside
down the hill, the rest following. On our way we had the misfortune to
ride over their corn-field; at the which, two or three women and as many
boys set up a yell very hideous to hear; whereat Robert Pike came up,
and appeased them by giving them some money and a drink of Jamaica
spirits, with which they seemed vastly pleased. I looked into one of
their huts; it was made of poles like unto a tent, only it was covered
with the silver-colored bark of the birch, instead of hempen stuff. A
bark mat, braided of many exceeding brilliant colors, covered a goodly
part of the space inside; and from the poles we saw fishes hanging, and
strips of dried meat. On a pile of skins in the corner sat a young
woman with a child a-nursing; they both looked sadly wild and neglected;
yet had she withal a pleasant face, and as she bent over her little one,
her long, straight, and black hair falling over him, and murmuring a low
and very plaintive melody, I forgot everything save that she was a woman
and a mother, and I felt my heart greatly drawn towards her. So, giving
my horse in charge, I ventured in to her, speaking as kindly as I could,
and asking to see her child. She understood me, and with a smile held
up her little papoose, as she called him,--who, to say truth, I c