e_; a
Riccaree, _wetah_; a Mandan, _esto menahka_; and a Tuscarora,
_autsunyehaw_.

_Brian._ I wish you joy of the languages you have to learn, Austin, if
you become a wood-ranger, or a trapper. Remember, you must learn them
all; and you will have quite enough to do, I warrant you.

_Austin._ Oh! I shall learn a little at a time. We cannot do every
thing at once. What do the red men call a buffalo?

_Hunter._ In Riccaree, it is _watash_; in Mandan, _ptemday_; in
Tuscarora, _hohats_; in Blackfoot, _eneuh_.

_Basil._ What different names they give them!

_Hunter._ Yes. In some instances they are alike, but generally they
differ. If you were to say "How do you do?" as is the custom with us;
you must say among the Indians, _How ke che wa?_ _Chee na e num?_
_Dati youthay its?_ or, _Tush hah thah mah kah hush?_ according to the
language in which you spoke. I hardly think these languages would suit
you so well as your own.

_Brian._ They would never suit me; but Austin must learn every word of
them.

_Austin._ Please to tell us how to count ten, and then we will ask you
no more about languages. Let it be in the language of the Riccarees.

_Hunter._ Very well. _Asco, pitco, tow wit, tchee tish, tchee hoo,
tcha pis, to tcha pis, to tcha pis won, nah e ne won, nah en._ I will
just add, that _weetah_, is twenty; _nahen tchee hoo_, is fifty; _nah
en te tcha pis won_, is eighty; _shok tan_, is a hundred; and _sho tan
tera hoo_, is a thousand.

_Austin._ Can the Indians write?

_Hunter._ Oh no; they have no use for pen and ink, excepting some of
the tribes near the whites. In many of the different treaties which
have been made between the white and the red man, the latter has put,
instead of his name, a rough drawing of the animal or thing after
which he had been called. If the Indian chief was named "War hatchet,"
he made a rough outline of a tomahawk. If his name was "The great
buffalo" then the outline of a buffalo was his signature.

_Basil._ How curious!

_Hunter._ The _Big turtle_, the _Fish_, the _Scalp_, the _Arrow_, and
the _Big canoe_, all draw the form represented by their names in the
same manner. If you were to see these signatures, you would not think
these Indian chiefs had ever taken lessons in drawing.

_Brian._ I dare say their fish, and arrows, and hatchets, and turtles,
and buffaloes, are comical figures enough.

_Hunter._ Yes: but the hands that make these feeble scrawls are
strong, when they w