again. No tears now; poor man! you cannot find them. Again home early. There is a smell of varnish in your house. A coffin is there; they have clothed the body in decent grave-clothes, and the undertaker is screwing down the lid, slipping round on tiptoe. Does he fear to waken her? He asks you a simple question about the inscription upon the plate, rubbing it with 10 his coat-cuff. You look him straight in the eye; you motion to the door; you dare not speak. He takes up his hat, and glides out stealthful as a cat. The man has done his work well for all. It is a nice coffin,, a very nice coffin. Pass your hand over it; how smooth! housekeeper has made comfortable with clean hearth and blaze of sticks. Sit down in your chair; there is another velvet-cushioned one, over against yours, 5 empty. You press your fingers on your eyeballs, as if you would press out something that hurt the brain; but you cannot. Your head leans upon your hand; your eye rests upon the flashing blaze. Ashes always come after blaze. Go now into the room where she was sick, softly, lest the prim housekeeper come after. They have put new dimity upon her 15 chair; they have hung new curtains over the bed. They have removed from the stand its phials, and silver bell, they have put a little vase of flowers in their place; the perfume will not offend the sick sense now. They have half opened the window, that the room so long closed may have air. It will not be too cold. Some sprigs of mignonette are lying carelessly in a little gilt-edged saucer. 20 She loved mignonette. It is a good stanch table the coffin rests on; it is your table; you are a housekeeper, a man of family. Aye, of family! keep down outcry, or 25 the nurse will be in. Look over at the pinched features; is this all that is left of her? And where is your heart now? No, don't thrust your nails into your hands, nor mangle your lip, nor grate your 30 teeth together. If you could only weep! Another day. The coffin is gone out. The stupid mourners have wept - what idle tears! She, with your crushed heart. has gone out. Will you have pleasant evenings at your home now? Go into your parlor that your prim She is not there. Oh, God! thou who dost temper the wind to the shorn lamb, be kind! The embers were dark: I stirred them; there was no sign of life. My dog was asleep. The clock in my tenant's chamber had struck one. I dashed a tear or two from my eyes; how they came there I know not. I half ejaculated a prayer of thanks that such desolation had not yet come nigh me, and 35 a prayer of hope that it might never come. In a half hour more I was sleeping soundly. My Reverie was ended. Harper's Magazine, October, 1850. FRANCIS PARKMAN (1823-1893) The early life of Parkman was much like Lowell's: he was born at Boston, the son of a minister, he completed his course at Harvard and entered upon the study of law, and he soon turned from it into occupations to him more congenial. A love of out-of-doors life seems to have directed him to his life-work. Even as a college student he had delighted in making excursions into the wilderness, especially to historic places like the northern battle-fields of the Revolution. Later he explored the historic places of New York and Pennsylvania, visiting all the remnants of Indian tribes, and collecting all possible material that might later be of value, and in one of his excursions he penetrated as far west as St. Louis. In 1846 he made his wellknown trip among the Indian tribes of the north-west, lived for a whole summer in Indian lodges, and on his return published an account of his adventures in the Knickerbocker Magazine, 1847, later collecting the papers for his first book: The California and Oregon Trail, 1849. He followed it in 1851 with The Conspiracy of Pontiac, and then began systematically upon his study of the period to which he was to devote his life, the period of the struggle of France and England for North America. The rest of Parkman's biography is chiefly a record of his heroic struggles with impaired eyesight and ill health, a list of his books. and an account of his excursions to regions that were to figure in his narrative. At times he found it impossible even to look at a newspaper. and for a long period he devoted himself solely to horticulture. There were years when he could do only a few moments of work each day, but with a tenacity and a courage rarely paralleled in the history of literature he kept on and the year before his death completed the work he had set out to do,- a history of France in America in seven volumes. As a historian he ranks high. To accuracy and fullness of material he added a narrative style as compelling and as fascinating as the best of Cooper's. His material is picturesque in the extreme chapter after chapter read like historical romance. He added to his narrative power another quality he worked more fully from first-hand observation than it will ever be possible to do again. The Indian that he studied so carefully in his remote fastnesses was the primitive Indian of the French wars, and to-day he has disappeared forever. THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC CHAPTER VIII 1763 INDIAN PREPARATION I interrupt the progress of the narrative to glance for a moment at the Indians in their military capacity, and observe how far they were qualified to prosecute the formidable war into which they were about to plunge. separate communities, was too feeble to deserve the name. There were, it is true, chiefs whose office was in a manner hereditary: but their authority was wholly of a 5 moral nature, and enforced by no compulsory law. Their province was to advise, and not to command. Their influence, such as it was, is chiefly to be ascribed to the principle of hero-worship, natural to the Indian character, and to the reverence for age, which belongs to a state of society where a patriarchal element largely prevails. It was their office to declare war and make peace; but when war was declared, they had no power to carry the declaration into effect. The warriors fought if they chose to do so; but if, on the contrary, they preferred to remain quiet, no man could force them to raise the hatchet. The war-chief, whose part it was to lead them to battle, was a mere partisan, whom his bravery and exploits had led to distinction. If he thought A people living chiefly by the chase, and therefore, of necessity, thinly and widely 15 scattered; divided into numerous tribes. held together by no strong principles of cohesion, and with no central government to combine their strength, could act with little efficiency against such an enemy as 20 was now opposed to them. Loose and disjointed as a whole, the government even of individual tribes, and of their smallest proper, he sang his war-song and danced his war-dance; and as many of the young men as were disposed to follow him, gathered around and enlisted themselves under him. Over these volunteers he had no legal authority, and they could desert him at any moment, with no other penalty than disgrace. When several war parties, of different bands or tribes, were united in a common enterprise, their chiefs elected 10 a leader, who was nominally to command the whole; but unless this leader was a man of uncommon reputation and ability, his commands were disregarded, and his authority was a cipher. Among his fol- 15 lowers, every latent element of discord, pride, jealousy, and ancient half-smothered feuds, were ready at any moment to break out, and tear the whole asunder. warriors would often desert in bodies; and 20 many an Indian army, before reaching the enemy's country, has been known to dwindle away until it was reduced to a mere scalping party. His To twist a rope of sand would be as 25 easy a task as to form a permanent and effective army of such materials. The wild love of freedom, and impatience of all control, which mark the Indian race, render them utterly intolerant of military 30 discipline. Partly from their individual character, and partly from this absence of subordination, spring results highly unfavorable to continued and extended military operations. Indian warriors, when 35 acting in large masses, are to the last degree wayward, capricious, and unstable; infirm of purpose as a mob of children, and devoid of providence and foresight. To provide supplies for a campaign forms 40 no part of their system. Hence the blow must be struck at once, or not struck at all; and to postpone victory is to insure defeat. It is when acting in small, detached parties, that the Indian warrior puts forth 45 his energies, and displays his admirable address, endurance, and intrepidity. It is then that he becomes a truly formidable enemy. Fired with the hope of winning scalps, he is stanch as a bloodhound. No50 hardship can divert him from his purpose, and no danger subdue his patient and cautious courage. From their inveterate passion for war, the Indians are always prompt enough to 55 engage in it; and on the present occasion, the prevailing irritation gave ample assurance that they would not remain idle. While there was little risk that they would capture any strong and well-defended fort, or carry any important position, there was, on the other hand, every reason to apprehend wide-spread havoc, and a destructive war of detail. That the war might be carried on with effect, it was the part of the Indian leaders to work upon the passions of their people, and keep alive their irritation; to whet their native appetite for blood and glory, and cheer them on to the attack; to guard against all that might quench their ardor, or cool their fierceness; to avoid pitched battles; never to fight except under advantage; and to avail themselves of all the aid which craft and treachery could afford. The very circumstances which unfitted the Indians for continued and concentrated attack were, in another view, highly advantageous, by preventing the enemy from assailing them with vital effect. It was no easy task to penetrate tangled woods in search of a foe, alert and active as a lynx, who would seldom stand and fight, whose deadly shot and triumphant whoop were the first and often the last tokens of his presence, and who, at the approach of a hostile force, would vanish into the black recesses of forests and pine swamps, only to renew his attacks with unabated ardor. There were no forts to capture, no magazines to destroy, and little property to seize upon. No warfare could be more perilous and harassing in its prosecution, or less satisfactory in its results. The English colonies at this time were but ill-fitted to bear the brunt of the impending war. The army which had conquered Canada was broken up and dissolved the provincials were disbanded, and most of the regulars sent home. A few fragments of regiments, miserably wasted by war and sickness, had just arrived from the West Indies; and of these, several were already ordered to England, to be disbanded. There remained barely troops enough to furnish feeble garrisons for the various forts on the frontier and in the Indian country. At the head of this dilapidated army was Sir Jeffrey Amherst, who had achieved the reduction of Canada, and clinched the nail which Wolfe had driven. In some respects he was wellfitted for the emergency; but, on the other hand, he held the Indians in supreme contempt, and his arbitrary treatment of them and total want of every quality of con ciliation where they were concerned, had had no little share in exciting them to war. While the war was on the eve of breaking out, an event occurred which had afterwards an important effect upon its progress, the signing of the treaty of peace at Paris, on the tenth of February, 1763. By this treaty France resigned her claims to the territories east of the Missis- 10 sippi, and that great river now became the western boundary of the British colonial possessions. In portioning out her new acquisitions into separate governments, England left the valley of the Ohio and 15 the adjacent regions as an Indian domain, and by the proclamation of the seventh of October following, the intrusion of settlers upon these lands was strictly prohibited. Could these just and necessary 20 measures have been sooner adopted, it is probable that the Indian war might have been prevented, or, at all events, rendered less general and violent, for the treaty would have made it apparent that 25 the French could never repossess themselves of Canada, and would have proved the futility of every hope which the Indians entertained of assistance from that quarter, while, at the same time, the royal 30 proclamation would have tended to tranquilize their minds, by removing the chief cause of irritation. But the remedy came too late, and served only to inflame the evil. While the sovereigns of France, 35 England, and Spain, were signing the treaty at Paris, countless Indian warriors in the American forests were singing the warsong, and whetting their scalping knives. Throughout the western wilderness, in 40 a hundred camps and villages, were celebrated the savage rites of war. Warriors, women, and children were alike eager and excited; magicians consulted their oracles, and prepared charms to in- 45 sure success; while the war-chief, his body painted black from head to foot, concealed himself in the solitude of rocks and caverns, or the dark recesses of the forest. Here, fasting and praying, he so calls day and night upon the Great Spirit, consulting his dreams, to draw from them auguries of good or evil; and if, perchance, a vision of the great war-eagle seems to hover over him with expanded wings, he exults in the full conviction of triumph. When a few days have elapsed, he emerges from his retreat, and the peo ple discover him descending from the woods, and approaching their camp, black as a demon of war, and shrunken with fasting and vigil. They flock around and 5 listen to his wild harangue. He calls on them to avenge the blood of their slaughtered relatives; he assures them that the Great Spirit is on their side, and that victory is certain. With exulting cries they disperse to their wigwams, to array themselves in the savage decorations of the war-dress. An old man now passes through the camp, and invites the warriors to a feast in the name of the chief. They gather from all quarters to his wigwam, where they find him seated, no longer covered with black, but adorned with the startling and fantastic blazonry of the war-paint. Those who join in the feast pledge themselves, by so doing, to follow him against the enemy. The guests seat themselves on the ground, in a circle around the wigwam, and the flesh of dogs is placed in wooden dishes before them, while the chief, though goaded by the pangs of his long, unbroken fast, sits smoking his pipe with unmoved countenance, and takes no part in the feast. Night has now closed in; and the rough clearing is illumined by the blaze of fires and burning pine-knots, casting their deep red glare upon the dusky boughs of the surrounding forest, and upon the wild multitude who, fluttering with feathers and bedaubed with paint, have gathered for the celebration of the war-dance. A painted post is driven into the ground, and the crowd form a wide circle around it. The chief leaps into the vacant space, brandishing his hatchet as if rushing upon an enemy, and, in a loud, vehement tone, chants his own exploits and those of his ancestors, enacting the deeds which he describes, yelling the war whoop, throwing himself into all the postures of actual fight, striking the post as if it were an enemy, and tearing the scalp from the head of the imaginary victim. Warrior after warrior follows his example, until the whole assembly, as if fired with sudden frenzy, rush together into the ring, leaping, stamping, and whooping, brandishing knives and hatchets in the fire-light, hacking and stabbing the air, and breaking at intervals into a burst of ferocious yells, which sounds for miles away over the lonely, midnight forest. 5 In the morning, the warriors prepare to depart. They leave the camp in single file, still decorated with all their finery of paint, feathers, and scalp-locks; and, as they enter the woods, the chief fires his gun, the warrior behind follows his example, and the discharges pass in slow succession from front to rear, the salute concluding with a general whoop. They encamp at no great distance from the vil- 10 lage, and divest themselves of their much prized ornaments, which are carried back by the women, who have followed them for this purpose. The warriors pursue their journey, clad in the rough attire of hard 15 service, and move silently and stealthily through the forest towards the hapless garrison, or defenseless settlement, which they have marked as their prey. The woods were now filled with war- 20 parties such as this, and soon the first tokens of the approaching tempest began to alarm the unhappy settlers of the frontier. At first, some trader or hunter, weak and emaciated, would come in from 25 the forest, and relate that his companions had been butchered in the Indian villages, and that he alone had escaped. Next succeeded vague and uncertain rumors of forts attacked and garrisons 30 slaughtered; and soon after, a report gained ground that every post throughout the Indian country had been taken, and every soldier killed. Close upon these tidings came the enemy himself. The 35 Indian war-parties broke out of the woods like gangs of wolves, murdering, burning, and laying waste; while hundreds of terror-stricken families, abandoning their homes, fled for refuge towards the older 40 settlements, and all was misery and ruin. arations were complete. His light-footed The great Roman historian observes of the ancient Germans, that when summoned to a public meeting, they would lag behind the appointed time in order to show their independence. The remark holds true, and perhaps with great emphasis, of the American Indians; and thus it happened, that several days elapsed before the assembly was complete. In such a motley concourse of barbarians, where different bands and different tribes were mustered on one common camp ground, it would need all the art of a prudent leader to prevent their dormant jealousies from starting into open strife. No people are more prompt to quarrel, and none more prone, in the fierce excitement of the present, to forget the purpose of the future; yet, through good fortune, or the wisdom of Pontiac, no rupture occurred; 50 and at length the last loiterer appeared, and farther delay was needless. Passing over, for the present, this portion of the war, we will penetrate at once into the heart of the Indian country, and observe those passages of the conflict 45 which took place under the auspices of Pontiac himself, the siege of Detroit, and the capture of the interior posts and garrisons. CHAPTER IX 1763 THE COUNCIL AT THE RIVER ECORCES To begin the war was reserved by Pontiac as his own peculiar privilege. With the first opening of spring his prep The council took place on the twentyseventh of April. On that morning, several old men, the heralds of the camp, 55 passed to and fro among the lodges, calling to the warriors, in a loud voice, to attend the meeting. In accordance with the summons, they |