The Indians in general possess no small share of ingenuity. Their domestic wooden utensils, bows and arrows, and other weapons, &c. are made with the utmost neatness; and indeed the workmanship of them is frequently such as to excite astonishment, when it is considered that a knife and a hatchet are the only instruments they make use of. On the handles of their tomahawks, on their powder horns, on the bowls of their pipes, &c. you oftentimes meet with figures extremely well designed, and with specimens of carving far from contemptible. The embroidery upon their moccasins and other garments shews that the females are not less ingenious in their way than the men. Their porcupine quill work would command admiration in any country in Europe. The soft young quills of the porcupine are those which they use, and they dye them of the most beautiful and brilliant colours imaginable. Some of their dyes have been discovered, but many of them yet remain unknown, as do also many of the medicines with which they perform sometimes most miraculous cures. Their dyes and medicines are all procured from the vegetable world. But though the Indians prove by their performances, that they have some relish for the works of art, yet they are by no means ready to bestow commendations on every thing curious for its workmanship that is shewn to them. Trinkets or ornaments for dress, though ever so gaudy, or ever so neatly manufactured, they despise, unless somewhat similar in their kind to what they themselves are accustomed to wear, and fashioned exactly to their own taste, which has remained nearly the same since Europeans first came amongst them; nor will they praise any curious or wonderful piece of mechanism, unless they can see that it is intended to answer some useful purpose. Nothing that I could shew them attracted their attention, I observed, so much as a light double-barrelled gun, which I commonly carried in my hand when walking about their encampments. This was something in their own way; they at once perceived the benefit that must accrue to the sportsman from having two barrels on the one stock, and the contrivance pleased them; well acquainted also with the qualities of good locks, and the advantages attending them, they expressed great satisfaction at finding those upon my piece so superior to what they perhaps had before seen. It is not every new scene either, which to them, one would imagine, could not fail to appear wonderful, that will excite their admiration. [Sidenote: ANECDOTE.]