ce we
should lose all if we did not resist them. The wars that we carried on
against each other were long and cruel,--we were enraged when we saw the
white people put our friends and relatives, whom they had taken
prisoners, on board their ships, whether to drown or sell them as slaves
in the country from which they came, we know not; but certain it is,
that none of them have ever returned, or even been heard of.

"At last they got possession of the whole country, which the Great
Spirit had given us; one of our tribes was forced to wander far to the
north, others dispersed in small bodies, and sought refuge where they
could.

"How long we shall be permitted to remain in this asylum, the Great
Spirit only knows. The whites will not rest contented till they shall
have destroyed the last of us, and made us disappear entirely from the
face of the earth."

The old Indian said no more: he looked sad, and his two sons looked sad
also; and I shall never forget the impression his story made upon my
mind.

Thus, these good Indians, with a kind of melancholy pleasure, recite the
long history of their sufferings; and often have I listened to their
painful details, until I have felt ashamed of being a white man.

A few days after this we set out upon another hunting excursion, and
again climbed the mountains. We had proceeded some distance when we
heard the report of a gun, and coming round the point of a rock which
lay just before us, we saw a Delaware Indian hunter, who had just
discharged his carabine at a huge bear, and broken its backbone; the
animal fell, and set up a most plaintive cry; something like that of the
panther when he is hungry.

The Indian includes all savage beasts in the number of his enemies, and
when he has conquered one, he taunts him before he kills him, in the
same strain as he would a conquered enemy of a hostile tribe.

Instead of giving the bear another shot, the hunter stood close to him,
and addressed him in these words:--

[Illustration]

"Hark ye! bear; you are a coward, and no warrior, as you pretend to be.
Were you a warrior, you would show it by your firmness, and would not
cry and whimper, like an old woman. You know, bear, that our tribes are
at war with each other, and that yours were the aggressors." As you may
suppose, I was not a little surprised at the delivery of this curious
invective.

CHAPTER XV.

PARLEY TELLS ABOUT THE UNITED STATES.

The English settlements in