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
Owing to the multiplicity of articles to be examined and inventoried
in the customs, and the great embarrassment of the clerics in writing
down their Indian names, my labours were protracted there to much
tediousness; but when all was brought to a close by their proposing,
most judiciously, to count the number of curiosities instead of wasting
paper and time and paralysing my jaws by pronouncing half a dozen times
over, and syllable by syllable, their Indian names, my collection of
eight tons weight was all on the road and soon at the Euston station in
London, where we again recognised the mournful cries of the grizlies,
who had arrived the night before.
On arriving at the station, I found Daniel at a small inn in the
vicinity, where he seemed highly excited by some unpleasant altercation
he had had with the landlord and inmates of the house, growing out of
national and political prejudices, which had most probably been too
strongly advanced on both sides. Daniel had suddenly raised a great
excitement in the neighbourhood by his arrival with the grizly bears,
whose occasional howlings had attracted crowds of people, curious to
know the nature of the strange arrival; and all inquirers about the
station being referred to their keeper, who was at the inn, brought
Daniel and his patience into notoriety at once.
Daniel (_Plate No. 2_) is an Irishman, who emigrated to the United
States some twenty years since, and, by dint of his industry and hard
labour, had met with success in acquiring an humble independence, and
had formed the most undoubted attachment to the Government and its
institutions; and, from his reading, and conversation with the world,
had informed himself tolerably well in political matters, which he was
always ready to discuss; and being rather of a hasty and irascible
temperament, he often got into debates of that nature, that led him
into danger of unpleasant results. It was in the midst of one of
these that I found him at the inn, surrounded by at least a hundred
labouring men and idlers from the streets, who had been drawn around
him at first, as I have said, to get some information of the bears,
but who had changed their theme, and were now besieging him on all
sides, to combat him on some political dogma he had advanced relative
to his favourite and adopted country, the United States; or to taunt
him with slaunts at his native country, all of which, with his native
wit, he was ready to meet with ability, until, as he afterwards told
me, "they were showered upon him so rapidly, and from so many quarters
at once, that it became quite impossible to answer them, and that the
stupid ignorance and impertinence of some of them had worn out all
his patience, and irritated him to that degree, that I must excuse
him for the excitement I had found him under when I arrived." With
much difficulty I rescued him from the crowd that had enclosed him,
and, retiring to a private room, after matters of business had been
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