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
When we returned we found the old Doctor and _Wa-ton-ye_ seated upon
their buffalo robes, and playing at cards, quite in good humour, and
their medals put away, as if nothing had happened to put them out. They
were much amused at the descriptions of what the others had seen, and
particularly so at Jim's description of an ugly woman he saw on top of
the Arc de Triomphe, and who followed him around, he said, and looked
him in the face until he was frightened. Here the Doctor, who had been
out of humour, and was disposed to be a little severe on Jim, replied
that "it was laughable for such an ill-looking, big-mouthed fellow as
him to be talking about any one's ill looks, and to be alarmed at any
one's ugliness, looking out over such a set of features as he had on
the lower part of his face." Jim, however, having two medals, took but
little notice of the Doctor's severity, but proceeded to tell about
the ugly woman he saw. He said, "her eyes had all the time two white
rings clear around them, and the end of her nose turning up, as if she
had always smelled something bad, had pulled her upper-lip up so high
that she could not shut her mouth or cover her teeth. She had two great
rows of teeth, and there was black all between them, as if a charge of
gunpowder had gone off in her mouth, and her skin was as white as snow,
excepting on her cheeks, and there it was quite red, like a rose."
"Stop, stop, Jim," said I, "let me write that down before you go any
further."
But this was all. He said he could not bear to look at her, and
therefore he did not examine her any further. He also made some fun
about two English ladies, who were up there when they were on the Arc
de Triomphe. He said, "he had sat down by the side of the railing with
his wife, where these ladies came to them. One of them asked if they
could speak English, to which he made no reply, but shook his head. He
said they had a great many things to say about him, and one of them
wanted to feel his face (his chin, he supposed), to see if he had any
beard; and when she did not find any, she said something which he did
not understand, but he said it tickled them very much, and then he said
she put her hand on his shoulder, which was naked, and took hold of
his arm, and said several things, about which they had a great deal of
laugh, which he understood, and which he would not like to mention, for
his wife did not understand them, and he did not wish her to know what
they were laughing about."
The hour having approached for their afternoon's exhibition, the
conversation was here broken off. I was, however, obliged to delay
a few minutes for some account they wished me to give them of the
guillotine, which I had spoken of while in the Place Concorde. I
briefly described it to them, and they all expressed a wish to go some
day and see it, and I promised to take them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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