small apukwa mats were spread for each guest. I observed the dish of hard bread, which came opportunely, as there was no other representative form of bread. The chief sat down at the head of his breakfast, in the oriental fashion. Imitating his example, I sat down with a degree of repose and nonchalance, as if this had been the position I had practised from childhood. His empress-Equa, sat on one side, near him, to pour out the tea, but neither ate nor drank anything herself. Her position was also that of the oriental custom for females; that is, both feet were thrown to one side, and doubled beside her. The chief helped us to fish and to tea, taking the cups from his wife. He was dignified, grave, yet easy, and conversed freely, and the meal passed off agreeably and without a pause, or the slightest embarrassment. This was, perhaps, owing in part to my having been acquainted with him before, he having visited me at my agency at Sault Ste. Marie in 1828, and sat as a guest at my own table. Nor, in a people so loath to give their confidence as the Indian, is the fact undeserving of mention, of general affiliation to the tribe, caused by my marriage with a granddaughter of the ruling chief of Lake Superior, a lady of refinement and intelligence, who was the child of a gentleman of Antrim, Ireland, where she was educated.

On rising to leave, I invited him to a council, at my tent, which was ordered to assemble at the firing of the military. It is not unimportant to observe, that, in preparing to set out on this expedition into the Indian country, at a time when the Blackhawk had raised the standard of revolt on Rock River, and the tribes of the Upper Mississippi were believed to be extensively in his views, I had caused my canoe, after it had been finished in most perfect style of art known to this kind of vessel, to be painted with Chinese vermilion, from stem to stern. Ten years' residence among the tribes, in an official capacity, had convinced me that fear is the controlling principle of the Indian mind, and that the persuasions to a life of peace, are most effectively made under the symbols of war. To beg, to solicit, to creep and cringe

* Equa, a female; it is not, appropriately, the term of wife, for which the vocabulary has a peculiar term, but is generally employed in the sense of woman.

I have observed this to be the universal custom among all the aboriginal females of America. They never part the feet.

to this race, whether in public or private, is a delusive, if not a fatal course; and though I was told by one or two of my neighbors that it was not well, on this occasion, to put my canoe in the symbolic garb of war, I did not think so. I carried, indeed, emphatically, messages of peace from the executive head of the Government, and had the means of insuring respect for these messages, by displaying the symbol of authority at the stern of each vessel, by an escort of soldiery, and by presents, and the services of a physician to arrest one of the most fatal of diseases which have ever afflicted the Indian race. But I carried them fearlessly and openly, with the avowed purpose of peace. The canoe, itself, was an emblem of this authority, and, like the oriflamme of the Medieval Ages, cast an auspicious influence on my mission over these bleak and wide summits, lakes, and forests, inhabited alone by fierce and predatory tribes, who acknowledged no power but force. Long before I had reached the sources of the Mississippi, St. Vrain, my fellow agent, had been most cruelly murdered at his agency, and General Scott, with the whole disposable army of the United States, had taken the field at Chicago.

Lieut. Allen paraded his men that morning with burnished arms. We could not, jointly, in an emergency, muster over forty men, of whom a part were not reliable in a melée, but arranged our camp in the best manner to produce effect. Effect, indeed, it required, when the hour of the council came. Not less than one thousand souls, men, women, and children, surrounded my tent, including a special deputation from the American borders of Rainy Lake. Of these, two hundred were active young warriors, who strode by with a bold and lofty air, and glistening eyes, often lifting the wings of my tent, to scan the preparations going forward. Aishkebuggekozh entered the council area, having in his train Majegabowi, the man who had led the revolt in the Red River settlement of Lord Selkirk, and who had tomahawked Gov. Semple, after he fell wounded from his horse. This association did not smack of peaceful designs. The chief, Aishkebuggekozh, himself, has the countenance of a very ogre. He is over six feet high, very brawny, and stout. That feature of his countenance from which he is named Flat-mouth, consisting of a broad expansion and protrusion of the front jaws, between the long incision of the mouth, reminds one much of a bull-dog's jaw. He held in

his hand, suspended by ribbons, five silver medals, smeared with vermilion, to symbolize blood.

A person not familiar with Indian symbols, might deem such signs alarming. I knew him to be very fond of using these symbols, and, indeed, a man who never made a speech without them; and I had the fullest confidence that, while he aimed to produce the fullest effect upon his listening, but less shrewd tribe of folks, and upon all, indeed, he never dreamed of an act which should bring him into conflict with the United States. Like Blackhawk, who was now exciting and leading the tribes at lower points to war, he had, from his youth, been in the British interests. He displayed a British flag at his breakfast, and three of his medals were of British coinage, but he was a man of far more comprehensive mind and understanding than Blackhawk.

Having been, as a government agent, the medium of the agreement of the Chippewas and Sioux in fixing on a boundary line for their respective territories at the treaty of Prairie-du-Chien, in 1825, I made that agreement, on the present occasion, the basis of my remarks, for their preserving in good faith the stipulations of that treaty, and of renewing the principles of it in the points where they had since been broken and violated. I concluded by assuring them of the friendship of the United States, of which my visit to this remote region must be deemed proof, and of the sincerity with which I had communicated the words of the President. The presents were then delivered and distributed.

Aishkebuggekozh, or the Guelle Plat, replied, with much of the skill and force of Indian oratory. He began by calling the attention of the warriors to his words; he then turned to me, thanking me for the presents. He said that he had been present when Pike visited this lake in 1806. He pointed with his fingers across the lake, to the Ottertail Point, where the old trading-house of the British Northwest Company had stood. "You have come," he continued, "to remind us that the American flag is now flying over the country, and to offer us counsels of peace. I thank you. I have heard that voice before, but it was like a rushing wind. It was strong, but soon went. It did not remain long enough to choke up the path. At the treaty of Prairie-du-Chien, it had been. promised that whoever crossed the lines, the long arms of the President should pull them back; but, that very year, the Sioux

attacked us, and they have killed my people almost every year since. I was myself present when they fired on a peaceful delegation, and killed four Chippewas under the walls of Fort Snelling. My own son-my only son-has been killed. He was basely killed, without an opportunity to defend himself.” A subordinate here handed him, at his request, a bundle of small sticks. "This," handing them to me, "is the number of Leech Lake Chippewas killed by the Sioux since the treaty of Prairie-du-Chien." There were forty-three sticks.

He then lifted up a string of silver medals, smeared with vermilion. "Take notice, they are bloody. I wish you to wipe the blood off. I cannot do it. I find myself in a war with this people, and I believe it has been intended by the Creator that we should be at war with them. My warriors are brave [looking significantly at them]; it is to them that I owe success. But I have looked for help where I did not find it."*

*It is hoped, hereafter, to give further sketches of this interview, and of this chief's life and character.

17

CHAPTER XXVI.

Geographical account of Leech Lake-History of its Indians, the Mukundwas— The expedition proceeds to the source of the Crow-Wing River, and descends that stream, in its whole length, to the Mississippi.

LEECH LAKE is a large, deep, and very irregularly-shaped body of water. It cannot be less than twenty miles across its extreme points. I requested the chief to draw its outlines, furnishing a sheet of foolscap. He began by tracing a large ellipsis, and then projecting large points and bays, inwardly and outwardly, with seven or eight islands, and that peculiar feature, the Kapuka Sagotawa, which I apprehend to originate in gigantic springs. The following eccentric figure of the lake is the result.

This lake has been the seat of the Mukundwa, or Pillagers, from early days. The date of their occupancy is unknown. The French found them here early in the seventeenth century, when they began to push the fur trade from Montreal. They were the advance of the Algonquin group, who, when they had reached the head of Lake Superior, proceeded still towards the west and northwest. Two separate bodies assumed the advance in this migratory movement, one of which went from the north shore, at the old Grand Portage, north-northwest, by the way of the Rainy Lakes, and the other went northwest from Fond du Lac. The former soon earned for themselves the title of Killers, or Kenistenos,* and speak a distinct dialect; the other, whose language continued to be, with little variations, good Odjibwa, acquired in a short time the name of Takers, or Mukundwa. The Kenistenos advanced, through the Great Lake Winnepeck, and up its inflowing waters, to the Portage du Trait, of the great Churchill or Missi-nepi (much water) River, where they sent up

* Called by the French Crees.