Never did an actor more thoroughly identify and merge himself with his part than Forrest did in Metamora. He was completely transformed from what he appeared in other characters, and seemed Indian in every particular, all through and all over, from the crown of his scalp to the sole of his foot. The carriage of his body, the inflections of his voice, his facial expressions, the very pose of his head and neck on his shoulders, were new. For he had recalled all his observations while on his visit with Push-ma-ta-ha among the Choctaws, when he had adopted their habits, eaten their food, slept in their tents, echoed the crack of his rifle over the surface of their lakes, and left the print of his moccasins on their hunting-grounds. He had also patiently studied their characteristics from all other available sources. Accordingly, when he came to impersonate Metamora, or the Last of the Wampanoags, modelled by the author of the play after that celebrated New England Sachem, the son of Massasoit, known in history as King Philip of Pokanoket, it was the genuine Indian who was brought upon the stage, merely idealized a little in some of his moral features. The attributes unnoticed by careless observers were distinctly shown,--the sudden muscular movements, the repressed emotion, the peculiar mode of breathing, the deep and vigorous gutturals flung out from the muscular base of the abdomen, and the straight or slightly inward-pointing line of the footfall. With a profound truth to fact, the general bearing of Metamora on ordinary occasions was marked by a dull monotony of manner, broken with awkward abruptness, and his grand poses were limited to those times of great excitement when the human organism, if in a state of dynamic surcharge, is spontaneously electrified with heroic lines, and becomes an instrument with which impersonal passions or the laws of nature gesticulate. With the single and very proper exception of this partially heightened moral refinement, the counterfeit was so cunningly copied that it might have deceived nature herself. Many a time delegations of Indian tribes who chanced to be visiting the cities where he acted this character--Boston, New York, Washington, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans--attended the performance, adding a most picturesque feature by their presence, and their pleasure and approval were unqualified. A large delegation of Western Indians, seated in the boxes of the old Tremont Theatre on such an occasion, were so excited by the performance that in the closing scene they rose and chanted a dirge in honor of the death of the great chief.