“Whilst the rich squaws rode, the poor followed their pack-horses on foot, eyeing the more fortunate as the mercer’s wife regards what she terms the carriage lady. The women’s dress not a little resembles their lords’--the unaccustomed eye often hesitates between the sexes. In the fair, however, the waistcoat is absent, the wide-sleeved skirt extends below the knees, and the leggings are of somewhat different cut; all wore coarse shawls, or white, blue, or scarlet cloth-blankets around their bodies. Upon the upper platte, we afterwards saw them dressed in cotton gowns after a semi-civilized fashion, and with bowie knives by their sides. The grandmothers were fearful to look upon; horrid excrescences of nature, teaching proud man a lesson of humility. The middle aged matrons were homely bodies, broad and squat like the African dame after she has become _mère de famille_; their hands and feet are notably larger from work than those of the men, and the burdens upon their back caused them to stoop painfully. The young squaws--pity it is that all our household Indian words, papoose for instance, tomahawk, wigwam, and powwow, should have been naturalised out of the Abenaki and other harsh dialects of New England--deserved a more euphonious appellation. The belle savage of the party had large and languishing eyes and teeth that glittered, with sleek long black hair like the ears of a Blenheim spaniel, justifying a natural instinct to stroke or pat it, drawn straight over a low broad quadroon-like brow. Her figure had none of the fragility which distinguishes the higher race, who are apparently too delicate for human nature’s daily food. Her ears and neck were laden with tinsel ornaments, brass wire rings adorned her wrists and fine arms, a bead-work sack encircled her waist, and scarlet leggings fringed and tasselled, ended in equally costly mocassins. When addressed by the driver in some terms to me unintelligible, she replied with a soft clear laugh--the principal charm of the Indian, as of the smooth-throated African woman--at the same time showing him the palm of her right hand as though it had been a looking-glass. The gesture I afterwards learned simply conveys a refusal. The maidens of the tribe, or those under six, were charming little creatures with the wildest and most piquant expression, and the prettiest doll-like features imaginable; the young coquettes already conferred their smiles as if they had been of any earthly value. The boys had black beady eyes like snakes, and the wide mouths of young caymans. Their only dress when they were not in birthday suit was the Indian laguti. None of the braves carried scalps, finger-bones, or notches on the lance, which serve like certain marks on saw-handled pistols further east, nor had any man lost a limb. They followed us for many a mile, peering into the hinder part of our travelling wigwam, and ejaculating “How, How,” the normal salutation.”