Letters of a Traveller; Or, Notes of Things Seen in Europe and AmericaBryant, William Cullen
General
Letters of a Traveller; Or, Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America
Bryant, William Cullen
Cuba -- Description and travel; Europe -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
I attended worship at the Fort, at the Sault, on Sunday. The services were
conducted by the chaplain, who is of the Methodist persuasion and a
missionary at the place, assisted by the Baptist missionary. I looked
about me for some evidence of the success of their labors, but among the
worshipers I saw not one male of Indian descent. Of the females, half a
dozen, perhaps, were of the half-caste; and as two of these walked away
from the church, I perceived that they wore a fringed clothing for the
ankles, as if they took a certain pride in this badge of their Indian
extraction.
In the afternoon we drove down the west bank of the river to attend
religious service at an Indian village, called the Little Rapids, about
two miles and a half from the Sault. Here the Methodists have built a
mission-house, maintain a missionary, and instruct a fragment of the
Chippewa tribe. We found the missionary, Mr. Speight, a Kentuckian, who
has wandered to this northern region, quite ill, and there was
consequently no service.
We walked through the village, which is prettily situated on a swift and
deep channel of the St. Mary, where the green waters rush between the
main-land and a wooded island. It stands on rich meadows of the river,
with a path running before it, parallel with the bank, along the velvet
sward, and backed at no great distance by the thick original forest,
which not far below closes upon the river on both sides. The inhabitants
at the doors and windows of their log-cabins had a demure and subdued
aspect; they were dressed in their clean Sunday clothes, and the peace and
quiet of the place formed a strong contrast to the debaucheries we had
witnessed at the village by the Falls. We fell in with an Indian, a quiet
little man, of very decent appearance, who answered our questions with
great civility. We asked to whom belonged the meadows lying back of the
cabins, on which we saw patches of rye, oats, and potatoes.
"Oh, they belong to the mission; the Indians work them."
"Are they good people, these Indians?"
"Oh yes, good people."
"Do they never drink too much whisky?"
"Well, I guess they drink too much whisky sometimes."
There was a single wigwam in the village, apparently a supplement to one
of the log-cabins. We looked in and saw two Indian looms, from which two
unfinished mats were depending. Mrs. Speight, the wife of the missionary,
told us that, a few days before, the village had been full of these
lodges; that the Indians delighted in them greatly, and always put them up
during the mosquito season; "for a mosquito," said the good lady, "will
never enter a wigwam;" and that lately, the mosquitoes having disappeared,
and the nights having grown cooler, they had taken down all but the one we
saw.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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