nation who are most distinguished for eloquence or wisdom, have an opportunity of displaying their talents in the public discussion. The Indian orator, flowery, figurative, strong, but unrefined in his expression, accompanies his words with corresponding gestures. When the business is dispatched, they appoint a feast on the occasion, and almost the whole nation partakes of what stores they possess. Every feast is enlivened with a song, in which the real or fabulous exploits of their heroes are recorded. They have dances too, partaking of the military character, and these are the constant accompaniment of a feast.

War and hunting are the only occupations of the men. Their wars are either undertaken by private adventurers, or at the instance of the whole community. In the latter case, all the youths, who are disposed to go to battle, for no one is compelled, give the chief a bit of wood, as a pledge that they will stand by him. Nothing is undertaken or transacted without many forms and ceremonies. These are deemed sacred and essential, and are regarded as binding when once passed.

The destined leader fasts for several days, during which he is sequestered from company, and indulges in the visionary belief of dreams, which the heated imagination is apt to produce correspondent to the wish excited. A variety of other superstitions are practised. One of the most terrible we shall particularize: It is setting the war-kettle on the fire, as a symbol of the destruction that awaits their foes. Among some nations it is certain that this symbol had a precise meaning. They actually devoured those whom they took prisoners; and now, when this inhuman practice is by no means very frequent, they preserve the emblem to rouse their indignant passions. They then dispatch a porcelain, or large shell, to their allies, inviting them to unite and drink the blood of their enemies. Having finished the previous ceremonies of war, they black their faces with charcoal, intermixed with streaks of red, which gives them a most ferocious and horrid appearance. They then exchange their clothes with their friends, and dispose of whatever articles they value most among the

women, who accompany them to a distance, to receive those pledges of love, should their separation be eternal.

War being commenced, the grand qualities are vigilance to prevent surprise, and attention to give one: and in these respects the Indians are superior to all other nations. They can trace out their enemies at an immense distance by the smell of their fires, and by the tracks of their feet, imperceptible to an European eye; but which they can count and distinguish with the utmost precision. They can even discriminate the different nations with which they are acquainted, and can determine the exact time when they passed, where no European, with the assistance of glasses, could distinguish a trace. These advantages, however, are of small importance, because their enemies no less possess them.

But should the enemy be apprized of their design, and advance to the combat in arms, they throw themselves flat on the ground among the withered herbs and leaves; and starting all at once from their ambush, with a tremendous shout, assail their foes. The party attacked returns the same cry. Where trees can be used as a shelter, each retires behind one, till prepared to repeat the blow; and thus does the battle continue till one party is so far weakened, as to be incapable of farther resistance. But should the force on both sides remain nearly the same, the fierce spirits of the savages, inflamed by the loss of their friends, can no longer submit to regular attack or ordinary precautions. They abandon the distant war; they rush on each other with clubs and hatchets, and magnifying their own courage, and insulting the foe with the most bitter invectives. Death now appears in a thousand hideous forms. Heedless of any thing but revenge, they trample on the wounded; they insult even the dead; they scalp; they wallow in blood; and even devour the flesh with a mad ferocity. The flame rages on till resistance dies away. The prisoners are then secured. Unhappy men! the fate of their slaughtered companions was mild to theirs. The conquerors, as they approach their own villages, set up a hideous howl, to bewail the friends they have lost: they approach in a melancholy and stern gloom. A messenger precedes them: and the

women, with frightful shrieks, come out to mourn their pri vate losses. When they reach their abodes, the chief in a low tone relates to the elders a circumstantial account of the expe dition, with all its turns. The orator then proclaims this intelligence to the people; and as he recounts the names of those who have fallen, the cries of the females increase. The men too join in the expression of sorrow, according as each is connected with the deceased by the ties of blood or friendship. The last ceremony is the proclamation of victory. Each individual then endeavours to forget his private misfortunes, and joins to celebrate the triumphs of his tribe. The shrieks are suspended, the tears wiped away; and, and by a wonderful transition, they pass from the bitterness of grief to the extravagance of exultation. But the treatment of the prisoners yet remains to be detailed; it is that which chiefly characterizes the savages; it is that which shocks the civilized, and shews the advantages of refinement.

The person who has taken the captive attends him to the cottage; when, according to the distribution made by the elders, he is to be delivered up to supply the loss of a member of their community. If those who receive him think his services will be useful to them, he is immediately adopted into the family, and becomes one of its number in every respect. But if they have no occasion to augment their society, or if resentment for the loss of their friends stimulates them to seek revenge on all who were accessary to it, the sentence is inevitable death.

In this case, all who have received the same severe doom are collected; and the whole nation is assembled, as if to celebrate some distinguished festival. A scaffold is erected, where the prisoners, being tied to the stake, commence the death song, and prepare for their approaching fate with undaunted mind. Their ungenerous and savage enemies, on the other hand, are determined to put their courage to the proof, by the most exquisite tortures. They begin the work of death at the extremities of the body, and gradually approach the vitals. One plucks out the nails of the captive by a slow process, another tears off the flesh of a finger with his teeth, and VOL. I.

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a third thrusts the lacerated member into the bowl of a red-hot pipe, which he smokes like tobacco. Then they pound the toes and fingers to pieces between stones: they strip the flesh with their teeth, and trace circles about the joints, and gashes in the muscular parts, which they immediately sear with redhot irons, cutting, burning, and pinching alternately. The flesh, thus mangled and roasted, is sometimes devoured with greediness, morsel by morsel, while the blood serves to smear their faces, and to give the tormentors a look as infernal as their hearts.

Having torn off the flesh, they twist the bare nerves and tendons about an iron, tearing and snapping them; while others are employed in stretching the limbs every way that ingenuity can devise, to increase the torment. This process continues for five or six hours together; and such is the strength and fortitude of savages, that it has sometimes been extended to days.

To protract the work of death they sometimes unbind the captive, to give a respite to their fury, and to invent new inflictions. He is again fastened to the stake, and again they renew their cruelty. Even amid the temporary respite they sometimes give him, it has been known that a profound sleep has overtaken the victim, and that the application of fire was necessary to awake him. He is now stuck over with matches of wood, easily kindled, but slow in consuming; they pierce the body in every part with reeds, they pull out the teeth, they scoop out the eyes; and lastly, having mangled the frame in such a manner that it is only one continued wound, having mutilated the face so as to leave nothing human in it, and carried barbarity to its most exalted pitch, they again unbind the wretch. Now blind, faultering, falling, assailed with stones and clubs, and passive of the worst, one of the chiefs, perhaps, wearied of cruelty, rather than satiated with revenge, gives him a coup-de-grace with a dagger or a club. The body is then committed to the kettle, and a barbarous feast is the winding up of this dismal tragedy.

In most countries the female character is distinguished for a superior degree of softness and humanity; here the women,

if possible, outdo the men in this scene of horror, while the principal persons of the country form a circle round the stake, and smoke on without emotion. But what will most surprize is, that the sufferer himself, in the intervals of his torments, smokes too, and converses with indifference. Indeed, seldom does a groan escape him, amidst the most aggravated sufferings. He endures them all with a fortitude and a constancy more than human. He possesses his mind unmoved; not a distortion of face betrays the anguish he endures. He recounts his exploits; he boasts what cruelties he has inflicted on their countrymen, and menaces them with the revenge that will attend his death. Though exasperated to madness by his reproaches, he continues his insults, upbraids them with their ignorance in the science of tormenting; and points out more efficacious means. Even the women possess the same degree of resolution and torture; to suffer without emotion is the pride, the glory of an Indian. Such is the force of inbred habits, and a ferocious thirst of frame.

The history of human nature does not furnish a stronger contrast than this cruelty of the savages towards those with whom they are at war, and the warmth of their affection to their friends. When any member of the society is cut off, he is lamented by the whole with a thousand demonstrations of genuine sorrow. One of the most remarkable ceremonies used on this melancholy occasion, and which discovers both the intenseness and the continuance of their grief, is what they denominate the feast of souls. This day of awful form is appointed by public order; and no care is neglected to render the celebration magnificently solemn. The neighbouring tribes are invited to join in the solemnity. On this occasion, all who have died since the last commemoration (which is renewed every eight or ten years) are disinterred, and brought to the general rendezvous of corruption.

It is impossible to describe the horror of this scene in more lively terms than those which Lafitau has used. Unquestionably,' says he, the opening of these tombs displays one of the most striking scenes that can be conceived; this humbling portrait of human misery, in so many images of death, wherein