n that
was not a grin, but ivory sunshine. Such was the outward man of Big
Black Burl.

Brave as a lion, deliberate as a bear, patient as an ox, faithful as a
mastiff, affectionate as a Newfoundland dog, sagacious as a crow,
talkative as a magpie, and withal as cheery and full of song as a
sky-lark. Such was the inward man of Big Black Burl.

Built up and limbed as just described, our hero, as you may well
imagine, must have been a man of prodigious bodily strength. To be sure,
a tall, supple, well-knit, athletic white man like Simon Kenton, for
example, might, in a wrestling-match and by some unexpected sleight of
foot, have kicked his heels from under him and brought him flat on his
back with ease. But keeping him there would have been an altogether
different matter. That would have taken Simon Kenton, Daniel Boone, and
Benjamin Logan, all men of uncommon bone and muscle, and all upon him at
once; and even then he would have tumbled and tousled them so lustily as
at last to force them from sheer loss of breath to yield the point and
let him up.

The station, in and around which our colored hero was wont to figure,
was one of the most exposed points along the northern border, and, being
the rendezvous of many of Kentucky's boldest hunters, was looked upon by
the more interior settlements as their bulwark of defense against
incursions of the Indians. Now, be it known that in the numerous
skirmishes which took place in that quarter between the Reds and the
Whites, Big Black Burl played a rather conspicuous part; proving himself
for deeds of warlike prowess a signal illustration of African valor--a
worthy representative, indeed, of his great countryman Mumbo Jumbo, the
far-famed giant-king of Congo. In testimony whereof, there were the
scalps of his enemies taken by his own hand in secret ambush and in open
fight, and which, strung together like pods of red pepper, or cuttings
of dried pumpkin, hung blackening in the smoke of his cabin.

Scalps! Your pardon, Christian reader; but the truth must be confessed,
bald as it is, and worse than bald. It was the fashion of the day: the
Reds took scalps and the Whites took scalps. It were, then, hardly fair
in us to find fault with the Blacks for doing the same, especially as
they could neither read nor write nor cipher, nor had been taught the
absolute truths of any creed whence, as a natural consequence, proceeds
that profound fixedness of belief which needs must make itself