The room where the daggers and pistils and other weppins is kept is
interestin. Among this collection of choice cuttlery I notist the bow
and arrer which those hot-heded old chaps used to conduct battles with.
It is quite like the bow and arrer used at this day by certain tribes
of American Injuns, and they shoot 'em off with such a excellent
precision that I almost sigh'd to be an Injun when I was in the Rocky
Mountain regin. They are a pleasant lot them Injuns. Mr. Cooper and Dr.
Catlin have told us of the red man's wonerful eloquence, and I found it
so. Our party was stopt on the plains of Utah by a band of Shoshones,
whose chief said:
"Brothers! the pale-face is welcome. Brothers! the sun is sinking in the
west, and Wa-na-bucky-she will soon cease speakin. Brothers! the poor
red man belongs to a race which is fast becomin extink."
He then whooped in a shrill manner, stole all our blankets and whisky,
and fled to the primeval forest to conceal his emotions.
I will remark here, while on the subjeck of Injuns, that they are in the
main a very shaky set, with even less sense than the Fenians, and when I
hear philanthropists bewailin the fack that every year "carries the
noble red man nearer the settin sun," I simply have to say I'm glad of
it, tho' it is rough on the settin sun. They call you by the sweet name
of Brother one minit, and the next they scalp you with their
Thomas-hawks. But I wander. Let us return to the Tower.
At one end of the room where the weppins is kept, is a wax figger of
Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a fiery stuffed hoss, whose glass eye
flashes with pride, and whose red morocker nostril dilates hawtily, as
if conscious of the royal burden he bears. I have associated Elizabeth
with the Spanish Armady. She's mixed up with it at the Surrey Theatre,
where _Troo to the Core_ is bein acted, and in which a full bally core
is introjooced on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, giving the audiens
the idee that he intends openin a moosic-hall in Plymouth the moment he
conkers that town. But a very interesting drammer is _Troo to the Core_,
notwithstandin the eccentric conduct of the Spanish Admiral; and very
nice it is in Queen Elizabeth to make Martin Truegold a baronet.
The Warder shows us some instrooments of tortur, such as thumbscrews,
throat-collars, etc., statin that these was conkered from the Spanish
Armady, and addin what a crooil peple the Spaniards was in them
days--which elissited from a bright-eyed little girl of about twelve
summers the remark that she tho't it _was_ rich to talk about the
crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when he was in a Tower
where so many poor peple's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder
stammer and turn red.
I was so pleased with the little girl's brightness that I could have
kissed the dear child, and I would if she'd been six years older.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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