"That this was no crowd of Indian revellers come to a sun dance (as it might have been of yore) was soon manifest. The first morning after their arrival, a strange, chanting voice, like that of a herald, mingled with our day-break dreams. Had we been among the Mussulmans we should have thought it the muezzin's cry. Of course, all was Indian to us, but we learned afterward that it was indeed a call to prayer, with this English rendering:-- "'Morning is coming! Morning is coming! Wake up! Wake up! Come to sing! Come to pray!' "In a few minutes, for it does not take an Indian long to dress, the low cadence of many voices joining in one of our own familiar tunes rose sweetly on the air, telling us that the day of their glad solemnities had begun. This was entirely their own notion, and was repeated each of the four days we were together. "On this same morning another sharp contrast of the old and the new appeared. By invitation of the elder Williamson, we took a walk among the teepees of the natives who live on the ground. Passing, with due regard for Dakota etiquette, those which contained only women, we came to one which we might properly enter. The inmates were evidently of the heathen party. A man, apparently fifty, sat upon a skin, entirely nude save the inevitable blanket, which he occasionally drew up about his waist. A lad of sixteen, in the same state, lounged in an obscure corner. The mother, who, we learned, occasionally attended meeting, wore a drabbled dress, doubtless her only garment. Two or three others were present in different stages of undress, and all lazy, stolid, dirty. As we looked into these impassive faces we could understand the saying of one of the missionaries, that when you first speak to an audience of wild Indians you might as well preach to the back of their heads, so far as any responsive expression is concerned. And yet, now and then, the dull glow of a latent ferocity would light up the eye, like that of a beast of prey looking for his next meal. Alas! for the noble red man! In spite of what the poets say, we found him a filthy, stupid savage. All this we have time to see while Mr. Williamson talks to them in the unknown tongue. But now the little church bell calls us to the mission chapel. It is already filled--the men on one side, the women on the other. The audience numbers perhaps two hundred.