proves unhappy, the parties are allowed to separate, and each is at liberty to marry again. But the mother has the sole right to the disposal of the children. She keeps them all if she chooses, and to their father they are ever mere strangers. In regard to property, too, the wife retains whatever belonged to her before marriage, distinct from her husband, and can dispose of it as she pleases without his consent, and if she separates from him, takes it with her, and at her death, either before or after separation, her children inherit all she possessed. A white man was once remonstrating with an Indian upon allowing the matrimonial bond to be so lightly broken, when the Indian replied: “You marry squaw, she know you always keep her, so she scold, scold, scold, and not cook your venison. I marry squaw, and she know I leave her if she not good. So she not scold, but cook my venison, and always pleasant, we live long together.” There were few penalties for any species of crime. To call a thing bad was usually sufficient in Indian communities to deter from all that they considered evil. That which we denounce as criminal, was not called so by them. The staid and burly Englishman, never mingled with the Indians in a way to gain their confidence or learn their true character. Their way of life was repulsive to him, but the Frenchman could become a hunter and roam for years in the forests, or live in a wigwam, and conform in all things to Indian customs with the same nonchalance as he could walk upon tapestry and recline upon divans. This is the reason we usually have so much more pleasing pictures of Indian life from French than English traders. Englishmen would not be very likely to become the confidants of hunters or warriors, or to have an opportunity to listen to the love songs of Indian maidens. It is certainly wonderful that a people who knew nothing of physiology, and had no learned treatises upon physical degeneracy, should have so thoroughly provided against deterioration by laws concerning intermarriage. Their wigwams were built for the convenience of several families. A lodge was constructed, and when it became necessary, additions were made till it became one or two hundred feet in length, and the abode of a little multitude, but all who occupied it were within the degrees of consanguinity which forbade marriage—they were brothers and sisters, and treated each other as such. But disputing and wrangling form no part of the nurseries of an Indian cabin. It is quite amazing how many will live together in harmony and love.