On the occasion of a visit to Old Fort Snelling and the agency near by, the authorities were careful to see that there was a due amount of ceremony. Probably a whole band of Indians would come down from the headwaters of the Minnesota River. Their chiefs and braves gathered in the log Council Hall, and there took place the scene so picturesquely described by the eccentric traveller, J. C. Beltrami. "The council-hall is, as it ought to be, a great room built of trunks of trees. The flag of the United States waves in the centre, surrounded by English colours, and medals hung to the walls. They are presented by the Indians to their _Father_, the agent, as a proof that they abjure all cabal or alliance with the English. Pipes, or calumets and other little Indian presents, offered by the various tribes as pledges of their friendship, decorate the walls and give a remarkable and characteristic air to the room." The dignitaries of the post are seated about a table and the braves recline upon the ground during the council. "The _seance_ opens with a speech of the chief, who rises and addresses the agent. He generally begins with the Great Spirit, or the sun, or the moon 'whose purity is equalled by that of his own heart,' &c. &c. always finishing with a petition for presents;--_whiskey_ is sure to find honourable mention: these are what English lawyers call the _common counts_."[281] After the reply of the agent the peace pipe was solemnly passed from one to another, and the council ended with the distribution of presents. These presents were of tobacco, gunpowder, vermilion, pipes, kettles, blankets, snuff-boxes, armbands, looking-glasses, horse bells, jews'-harps, ivory combs, and shawls.[282] Not the least popular of these were the jews'-harps, which had their uses--in spite of the sarcastic invective delivered against them by Senator Benton in 1822 when the abolition of the Factory System was being considered. "They were innocent", observed the Senator, "and on that account precisely adapted to the purposes of the superintendent, in reclaiming the savage from the hunter state. The first state after that, in the road to refined life, is the pastoral, and without music the tawny-colored Corydons and the red-skinned Amaryllises, '_recubans sub tegmine fagi_,' upon the banks of the Missouri and Mississippi, could make no progress in the delightful business of love and sentiment."[283]