And now, neath my folded wing I bear A spotless soul like the lily fair; The babe on its mother's bosom slept; Ere I bore it far, I paused and wept; 'T was an angel strayed from its fairer home: Peace to the mourner!--I come! I come! _Shelter-Island._ MARY GARDINER. MARY MAY: THE NEWFOUNDLAND INDIAN. BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR. The tribe of aborigines to which MARY MAY, the heroine of our little sketch, belonged, has been named by the Newfoundlanders, 'Red Indians;' for what reason, I could never learn. This tribe, or probably the miserable remnant of it, since the English have settled the island has been regarded as altogether remarkable and undefinable. They have never, in a single instance, been induced to visit the white settler since British subjects have resided there. Little is known of their numbers, habits, or general spirit, although the most sedulous exertions have been made to bring about an amicable understanding and a reciprocal intercourse. They have chosen to remain isolated and insolated; keeping their history, their wisdom, and their deeds to themselves. They will hold no communion with others of their own race. There are the Esquimaux, very near their northern boundary; a people disposed to extend the rites of hospitality in peace, and a trading tribe; but these have no more knowledge of the 'Red Indian' than the white man; and they remain wrapt up in a historical mantle as dark as the shades of their own impenetrable complexion. Much, of a marvellous character, has been said about the Red Indians. The fishermen of the island, as a mass, believe that these poor creatures are semi-human. They will tell you of their having been seen one moment cooking their venison, and composedly regaling themselves, and the next, upon learning the contiguity of the white man, they would vanish from sight, and not a trace could be found of their departure; that they descend far under ground in winter, and lead a kind of fairy life; that they have power to change themselves into birds and fishes, and to sustain life for hours together under water. But all this is of course unnatural and absurd. The Indians of Newfoundland are flesh and blood, and partake, in common with other races of rational beings, of properties holding them within 'delegated limits of power.' And in my opinion, they are as much entitled to a character of consistency as the generality of tribes on our continent. The secret of their shyness, and their unsocial and vindictive disposition, may better be accounted for, from the probable fact that they were inhumanly treated by the early discoverers of the island, the Portuguese and Spaniards. These monsters without doubt butchered and made havock of these poor natives as they did the South American Indians, and indeed wherever their lawless adventures led them, in this new world.