Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 1 (of 2): being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian CollectionCatlin, George
History
Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 1 (of 2): being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian Collection
Catlin, George
England -- Description and travel; France -- Description and travel; Indians of North America
The announcement of the arrival of the Ojibbeways which had been made
in the public papers, and the notice also of their interview with the
Duke of Cambridge, were now gaining them a notoriety with the public;
and amongst my personal friends, was announcing that I had returned to
London, which altogether brought me a flood of applicants for private
interviews with them. We had resolved not to make any exhibition
of their modes to the public, until after they had seen the Queen,
and the month that we remained idle, and waiting for her Majesty's
command, was rendered tedious and troublesome from the above causes.
We were daily and hourly importuned for permissions to see them, which
were in part granted, until it became quite necessary that I should
absent myself from them, leaving instructions at the door that no
communication could be had with them at present. Mr. Rankin during this
time stayed constantly with them, and I occasionally spent an evening
of gossip and smoked a pipe with them. We made use of most of the time
in endeavouring to show them as much of the great city as possible,
driving them out in a bus during the day, and several times taking them
into the country to spend a day running over the fields for the benefit
of their health.
After one of their first drives about the City, when they had been
passed through Regent Street, the Strand, Cheapside, Oxford Street
and Holborn, I spent the evening in a talk with them in their rooms,
and was exceedingly amused with the shrewdness of their remarks upon
what they had seen. They had considered the "prairies still on fire,"
from the quantity of smoke they met; one of the women had undertaken
to count the number of carriages they passed, but was obliged to give
it up; "saw a great many fine houses, but nobody in the windows: saw
many men with a large board on the back, and another on the breast,
walking in the street--supposed it was some kind of punishment; saw men
carrying bags of coal, their hats on wrong side before; saw fine ladies
and gentlemen riding in the middle of the streets in carriages, but
a great many poor and ragged people on the sides of the roads; saw a
great many men and women drinking in shops where they saw great barrels
and hogsheads; saw several drunk in the streets. They had passed two
_Indians_ in the street with brooms, sweeping away the mud; they saw
them hold out their hands to people going by, as if they were begging
for money: they saw many other poor people begging, some with brooms
in their hands and others with little babies in their arms, who looked
as if they were hungry for food to eat." They had much to say about the
two Indians they had passed. "It could not be that white people would
dress and paint themselves like Indians in order to beg money, and
they could not see how Indians would consent to stand in the streets
and sweep the mud away in order to beg for money." They appealed to me
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