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
My position then, as the reader will perceive, was one of a most
distressing and painful kind, with my natural sympathy for their race,
and now with the whole responsibility for the expenses, lives, and
welfare of these poor people on my shoulders, their only friend and
protector in a foreign country, as their conductor had left them and
returned to London, and my own life in imminent danger whilst I was
attending on them.
One of these poor fellows died in the course of a few days in their
rooms, another died in one of the hospitals to which he was removed,
and a third died a few days after they reached London, though he was in
good health when he travelled across the Channel.
Such were the melancholy results of this awful catastrophe, which the
reader will easily see broke up all their plans of exhibitions in
Belgium, and ended in the death of three of the finest men of the party.
Their sickness in Bruxelles detained me there near two months before
the survivors were well enough to travel, during which gloomy time I
had opportunity enough to test the fidelity of my man Daniel and his
attachment to the Indians, who stayed by them night and day, fearless
of his own danger, as he lifted them about in his arms in their
loathsome condition both when dead and alive.
When the party were well enough to travel I went to Antwerp with
them, and placed them on a steamer for London, having paid their fare
and given them a little money to cover their first expenses when they
should arrive there. I then took leave of them, and returned to my
little family in Paris, having been absent near three months, with an
expenditure of 350_l._
With the poor fellows who died there seemed to be a presentiment with
each, the moment he was broken out with the disease, that he was to
die, and a very curious circumstance attended this conviction in each
case.
The first one, when he found the disease was well identified on him,
sat down upon the floor with the next one, his faithful and confiding
friend, and, having very deliberately told him he was going to die,
unlocked his little trunk, and spreading all his trinkets, money, &c.,
upon the floor, bequeathed them to his friends, making the other the
sole executor of his will, intrusting them all to him, directing him
to take them to his country and deliver them with his own hand. As he
was intrusting these precious gifts, with his commands, to an Indian,
he was certain, poor fellow! that they would be sacredly preserved and
delivered, and he then locked his little trunk, and, having given to
his friend the key, he turned to his bed, where he seemed composed and
ready to die, because, he said, it was the will of the Great Spirit,
and he didn't think that the Great Spirit would have selected him
unless it was to better his condition in some way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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