Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 2 (of 2): being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian Collection — John Shaqi
Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 2 (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. 2 (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
An hour or so in the streets, in a pleasant day, enabled them to see
a great deal that was unlike the green prairies where they lived; and
the "old Doctor," wrapped in his robe, and ogling the pretty girls, and
everything else that he saw that was amusing as he passed along, raised
a new excitement in the streets, and gave an extensive notification
that "the wedding party had actually got back," or that another party
of _red skins_ had arrived. They returned to their lodgings in great
glee, and amused us at least for an hour with their "first impressions"
of London; the _leading_, _striking_ feature of which, and the one that
seemed to afford them the greatest satisfaction, was the _quantity of
fresh meat_ that they saw in every street hanging up at the doors and
windows--pigs, and calves, and sheep, and deer, and prairie hens, in
such profusion that they thought "there would be little doubt of their
getting as much fresh meat as they could eat." Besides this, they had
seen many things that amused them, and others that excited their pity.
They laughed much about the "black fellows with white eyes" who were
carrying bags of coal, and "every one of them had got their hats on the
wrong side before." They had seen many people who seemed to be very
poor, and looked as if they were hungry: for they held out their hands
to people passing by, as if they were asking for something to eat.
"They had passed two _Indians_, with brooms in their hands, sweeping
the dirt in the streets!"
This occurrence had excited their greatest anxieties to know "what
Indians they could be, that would be willing to take a broom in their
hands and sweep the dirt from under white men's feet, and then hold
out their hands to white people for money to buy food to eat." They
all agreed "that _Ioways_ would not do it, that _Sioux_ would not,
that _Pawnees_ would not;" and when they were just deciding that their
enemies, the _Ojibbeways_, _might_ be _slaves_ enough to do it, and
that these were possibly a part of the Ojibbeway party that had been
flourishing in London, I explained the mystery to them, by informing
them that their conjectures were wrong--that it was true they were
Indians, but not from North America. I agreed with them that no North
American Indian would use that mode of getting his living, but that
there were Indians in different parts of the world, and that these were
from the East Indies, a country many thousands of miles from here; that
these people were Indians from that country, and were of a tribe called
_Lascars_; that many of them were employed by the captains of English
ships to help to navigate their vessels from that country to this;
and that in London they often come to want, and are glad to sweep the
streets and beg, as the means of living, instead of starving to death.
It seemed still a mystery to them, but partly solved, and they made
many further remarks among themselves about them. The good landlady at
this moment announced to Mr.
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