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
I was received with great kindness in that town, and my collection for
the two months gained me great applause and some pecuniary benefit.
During its stay there I kept several men in Indian costumes constantly
in it, and twice a day gave a short lecture in the room, explaining the
costumes and many of the leading traits of the Indian character, sung
an Indian song, and gave the frightful war-whoop.
There were here, as in London, many pleasing incidents and events for
which I cannot venture a leaf in this book, with the exception of one,
which I cannot forbear to mention. During the last week of their noble
exhibition, the children from all the charitable and other schools were
admitted free, and in battalions and phalanxes they were passed through
my room, as many hundreds at a time as could stand upon the floor,
to hear the lectures (shaped to suit their infant minds), and then
the deafening war-whoop raised by my men in Indian paint and Indian
arms, which drove many of the little creatures with alarm under the
tables and benches, from which they were pulled out by their feet; and
the list that we kept showed us the number of 22,000 of these little
urchins, who, free of expense, saw my collection, and having heard me
lecture, went home, sounding the war-whoop in various parts of the town.
At the close of this exhibition I selected the necessary collection
of costumes, weapons, &c. for my lectures and tableaux, and calling
together my old disciplined troop from the City of London, I commenced
a tour to the provincial towns of the kingdom, leaving my collection
of paintings behind. My career was then rapid, and its changes sudden,
and all my industry and energies were called into action--with twenty
men on my hands, and an average expense of twelve pounds per day.
This scheme I pushed with all the energy I could, and in the space
of six months visited, with varied success, the towns of _Chester_,
_Manchester_, _Leamington_, _Rugby_, _Stratford-on-Avon_, _Cheltenham_,
_Sheffield_, _Leeds_, _York_, _Hull_, _Edinburgh_, _Glasgow_,
_Paisley_, _Greenock_, _Belfast_, and _Dublin_. In all these towns I
was received with kindness, and formed many attachments which I shall
endeavour to cherish all my days. The incidents of such a tour can
easily be imagined to have been varied and curious, and very many of
them were exceedingly entertaining, but must be omitted in this place.
On my return I was strongly urged by several friends in Manchester to
open my whole collection of paintings, &c. in that town a while before
leaving for the United States, for which I was then on the eve of
embarking. I consented to this invitation, and, a hall being prepared
for its reception, I removed it and my family there for a stay of two
or three months.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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