this branch of Indian customs, I can only recommend a perusal of the one, and a stroll in the other, as the best means of gratifying their wishes. The social condition of the North American Aborigines is almost as much misrepresented and misunderstood as their general character; and we are so accustomed to look upon it as wretched in the extreme, that it is almost a hopeless task to endeavour to remove so general an impression. We are all accustomed to believe, and often and often has the assertion been reiterated by various writers, that among the Indian tribes, woman is looked upon only as a slave, a species of domestic animal, useful only as a labourer, and valued only for her activity and strength; while her more exalted duties, as the companion, the solace, the adviser of her husband, are entirely unknown. It is true, that she does not occupy so important a position in the social scale as is happily the case with us; but this is, in a great measure, owing to the mode of life which they pursue and is only what might have been expected among a predatory and roving race; but the condition of the Indian squaw is by no means worse than that of the wife of a settler in the yet uninhabited portion of the Western States; while the latter, from having left the comparative luxuries of even the humblest home in the east, feels far more acutely the privations to which she is exposed. The Indian wife shares her husband's daily toils, prepares his meal, and provides for every want and desire; while she is as ready to share his joy when victorious, or his sorrow at defeat, as the most exalted of her sex in more favoured lands, or under a more refined system of social existence. As a wife, she is deligent and devoted; as a mother, kind, indulgent, and assiduous; what more could be said in her praise, or what greater testimony could be brought forward of her virtue and worth? We may call the Indians bloody and revengeful; we may stigmatize them as cruel and unmerciful to their enemies; but we must remember, when we do this, how much of this they owe to American example-how much they have done to corrupt and destroy them. They have fearfully diminished their numbers, and are even at this moment proceeding with all good will in this noble work-the blotting out from the face of their soil those who are its rightful lords, and who have received in return for the lands they have relinquished, the bullet and the rum-bottle, both potent ministers of destruction and death. Nor can they urge in palliation that they have compensated for thus destroying the temporal happiness of the Indian by any amelioration of his moral condition, for they have deprived him of his pure and simple faith, without giving him any other in its stead; they have, to use the words of Governor Cass, an American writer, "neither taught him how to live nor how to die!" One of the most interesting scenes which it was my lot to witness in the United States, was a council of the Seneca Indians, at which I had the good fortune to be present in the Autumn of 183—; and which was held for the purpose of negotiating a treaty between the general government and the chiefs of the tribe,—once one of the most important in North America, and one of the Six Nations, which figure so largely in the early history of the Republic. The occasion was one of some little excitement and interest, for the opposition of the Indians to the treaty being very great, they were desirous of preventing, if possible, its consideration, and therefore burnt down the Council Lodge on the preceding day; but the U. S. commissioner, nothing daunted by this display of fecling, insisted that the meeting should be held in the open woods. Nothing could possibly be imagined more picturesque than the scene which was presented at the moment when he commenced his opening address. In the centre of a deep grove, deeply overshadowed, and almost shut out from the surrounding world by the thick and clustering foliage of the over-hanging trees, were the smouldering embers of a large fire, the universal accompaniment to Indian deliberation; around which were stretched, in every variety of graceful attitude, and attired in the most splendid style of native and savage finery, with pipe in mouth and tomahawk in hand, the principal chiefs, or sachems of the tribe, their eyes fixed on the commissioner, and their whole countenances betokening an earnestness and interest well befitting the occasion on which they were assembled. These occupied the circle immediately around the fire, while all around were scattered in groups the young men, the braves and warriors of the nation; the women and children skirting the background of the picture, and evincing, by their eager and watchful glances, almost as great an interest in the scene, as those who were more immediately concerned in it. It would be scarcely possible to imagine a more interesting or exciting occasion than this; even to those who were mere spectators, like myself. There, far removed from all sounds of civilized life, seemingly shut out, by the dark and impenetrable forest, from all communion with men, we were perfectly in the power of our savage friends, and in danger of being sacrificed, at any moment, to their rage, should the insults which were heaped upon them by the commissioner, goad them beyond endurance, and render them unable any longer to restrain their indignation and rage: such circumstances were well calculated to lend a zest of excitement and interest to the scene. me. And yet there was a great admixture of melancholy in the feelings with which I regarded the picturesque group, as, leaning against an old patriarch of the forest, I surveyed the scene before There, scattered in dull and hopeless lethargy, upon that soil which was by right their own, I beheld one of the last remnants of a noble and powerful race, which, but little more than two centuries since, claimed the whole of this vast continent for their own, and ranged, free and unrestrained, through its wide and trackless woods. This very tribe, whose chief sachems reclined around the council fire, listening with patient submission to the recital of treaties which they knew would be broken, of conditions never to be fulfilled, might once, with one blow, have annihilated all that existed of the European race in the western world, and nipped in the bud the power which was, ere long, to destroy them; or even worse, to reduce them to an ignominious subjection. Could the red Indian of that day, have cast an anticipatory glance at the fate which awaited his descendants in a future age, he would scarcely have received and cherished with hospitality and kindness, the viper which waited only for increased strength to sting and destroy his preserver; he would scarcely have extended the hand of fellowship to that pale-faced race, which was, ere long, to scatter the council fires of his nation, to drive them from the graves of their forefathers, and banish them by sure, though gradual steps, to the furthest regions of the west. But, alas! the poor Indian did not learn the true character of the race he had sheltered till it was too late to resist, and he was then left to mourn in silent sadness over the departed glories of his race, to see the tall houses of the paleface rise on spots to him the most sacred, and the plough pass over the graves of his forefathers; to find the silent and shady grove, where he had first poured out his love-song to his mistress, profaned by the sound of the forge, and all the noise and turmoil of civilized life. And yet, because he dared to raise his hand in defence of these dear and hallowed scenes, we brand him as a murderer, a savage, a cruel and relentless foe. There are some, however, who would rather be inclined to admire the Indian for this, than to condemn him; and of these I am not unwilling to avow myself to be one. I confess that I can see no crime in standing up, as he has done, as long as strength would permit, in defence of his country and his honour; and I doubt whether we should not, many of us, have been inclined, under similar circumstances, to have acted in the same manner; and when we were torn from our dearly-loved homes, and cast upon the wide world, to wander where we might, have become as cruel and as revengeful as the Indian of the western world. Δ. THE PRIMROSE. WHEN the veil of night departing Beneath the spinous hawthorn shade, Peeps from amid the clustered leaves- Unmindful of the threat'ning wind, But when the burning summer beams, This nursling of the rural bank, Fanned by the breath of heaven, To bloom in innocency there By nature given, And folding up her gentle charms, With earth that may not war, In pristine purity thus fades The Primrose Star! E. P. TALES OF A SPANISH VETERAN. HASSAN THE LION-SLAYER. EVENING: from the marble minarets of Fezzan's distant capital, the solemn call was heard, at which the Moslem, bending earthward his face towards Mecca, aspirates his prayer to the great Disposer of events. The voice of the Imaum floated faintly on the breeze, that now waved the topmost branches of the palms, and sighed amid the clustered tamarisks: the balmy breeze, that cooled the fervid air, and bore upon its wings sweet scents, which told that it had passed through myrtle bowers, and where the almond scatters around its blossom, white as the snows of Atlas. In the distance arose itself the mountain monarch, tinged by the last beams of the setting sun, like a grim giant, clothed in panoply of mail, and girt with his scarf of gold and crimson. It was a valley, broad, and fair to look upon: the rocks that fenced it in rose precipitous on either hand, hiding from view the horrors of the howling wilderness, the dark Zahara, where many a weary traveller has sunk to rise no more. Green pastures stretched, interspersed with corn-fields, far as the eye could reach. A gliding stream, that widened as it went, flashed as a bright vein of molten ore, and seemed like some rejoicing creature, gladdened by the light and loveliness around; by its side the goats were browsing, and camels chewed the cud. The lotus, like Venus from the wave, there rose in the pride of beauty; and many a shrub lent its fragrance to the passing gale. Scattered over the scene were thickets of plantain, and groves of stately trees, of every tint and shade. The prickly aloe flourished there; the cactus hung forth its crimson banners; and the prolific fig cast its broad shadow: the apricot, the date, the life-sustaining date, often for months the only food of those who tread the arid wilderness, and those how various! The roving Arab shares with his steed the desert food, and ere he rests at night beneath his canopy of palm, he blesses Allah for the precious gift; the pilgrim, bound to the shrine of Mecca, eats of the date, though sparingly, and praises Him from whom the boon proceeds; the camel-driver of the caravan, that bends its toilsome course from where the tombs of India's warlike kings look down into the crystal waters of the Ganges, even to the gilded domes of Ispahan, or to the sluggish Caspian tide, he and his |