There is nothing more amusing to the traveller on the continent, than to observe the extraordinary variety of those head-appendages, many of them heirlooms for generations in some families, all more or less prized according to the richness of materials employed upon them, and the peculiarity of shape. There is no article of dress more important to the _Normande_, whatever may be her means, than the cap which so jauntily and triumphantly asserts the dignity of the wearer. The wives of fermieres who can afford such luxuries as expensive lace and trimmings, spend a little income in the decoration of their caps. Many cost upwards of three thousand francs for the materials and manufacture; and these, as we have before observed, are handed from mother to daughter through successive years, and are highly prized. [Illustration: [++] Norman Caps.] In the primitive villages of Normandy, on some holidays, it is a pleasing sight to see the dense army of caps, with flaps fanning the air, and following the gesticulatory movements of their talkative and volatile owners. When the weather is doubtful, the cap-wearers take care to be provided with a red umbrella of a clumsy construction, remarkably heavy, and somewhat similar, perhaps, to the original with which Jonas Hanway braved the jeers of a London populace in first introducing it. NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN WAR DESPATCH. The following is a _facsimile_ of a gazette of a tribe of North American Indians, who assisted the French forces in Canada, during the war between France and England:-- [Illustration: [++] Gazette of North American Indians.] _Explanation of the Gazette, giving an account of one of their expeditions. The following divisions explain those on the plate, as referred to by the numbers_:-- 1. Each of these figures represents the number ten. They all signify, that 18 times 10, or 180 American Indians, took up the hatchet, or declared war, in favour of the French, which is represented by the hatchet placed over the arms of France. 2. They departed from Montreal--represented by the bird just taking wing from the top of a mountain. The moon and the buck show the time to have been in the first quarter of the buck-moon, answering to July. 3. They went by water--signified by the canoe. The number of huts, such as they raise to pass the night in, shows they were 21 days on their passage. 4. Then they came on shore, and travelled seven days by land--represented by the foot and the seven huts. 5. When they arrived near the habitations of their enemies, at sunrise--shown by the sun being to the eastward of them, beginning, as they think, its daily course, there they lay in wait three days--represented by the hand pointing, and the three huts. 6. After which, they surprised their enemies, in number 12 times 10, or 120. The man asleep shows how they surprised them, and the hole in the top of the building is supposed to signify that they broke into some of their habitations in that manner.