CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 2 FROM CINCINNATI TO LOUISVILLE IN ANOTHER WESTERN STEAMBOAT; AND FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS IN ANOTHER. ST. LOUIS. LEAVING Cincinnati at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, we embarked for Louisville in the Pike steam-boat, which, carrying the mails, was a packet of a much better class than that in which we had come from Pittsburg. As this passage does not occupy more than twelve or thirteen hours, we arranged to go ashore that night: not coveting the distinction of sleeping in a state-room, when it was possible to sleep anywhere else. There chanced to be on board this boat, in addition to the usual dreary crowd of passengers, one Pitchlynn, a chief of the Choctaw tribe of Indians, who sent in his card to me, and whom I had the pleasure of a long conversatio He spoke English perfectly well, though he not begun to learn the language, he told me, he was a young man grown. He had read m books; and Scott's poetry appeared to have le strong impression on his mind: especially opening of The Lady of the Lake, and the battle scene in Marmion, in which, no doubt the congeniality of the subjects to his own pur and tastes, he had great interest and delight. appeared to understand correctly, all he had r and whatever fiction had enlisted his sympath its belief, had done so keenly and earnestl might almost say fiercely. He was dressed in ordinary every-day costume, which hung abou fine figure loosely, and with indifferent gr On my telling him that I regretted not to see in his own attire, he threw up his right arm, f moment, as though he were brandishing s heavy weapon, and answered, as he let it fall ag that his race were losing many things beside t with had ntil any ft a the Teat rom uits He ad; y in y, I our t his ace. him For a Some gain, their dress, and would soon be seen upon the earth no more: but he wore it at home, he added proudly. He told me that he had been away from his home, west of the Mississippi, seventeen months: and was now returning. He had been chiefly at Washington on some negociations pending between his Tribe and the Government: which were not settled yet (he said in a melancholy way), and he feared never would be: for what could a few poor Indians do, against such well-skilled men of business as the whites? He had no love for Washington; tired of towns and cities very soon; and longed for the Forest and the Prairie. I asked him what he thought of Congress? He answered, with a smile, that it wanted dignity, in an Indian's eyes. He would very much like, he said, to see England before he died; and spoke with much interest about the great things to be seen there. When I told him of that chamber in the British Museum wherein are preserved household memorials of a race that ceased to be, thousands of years |