Christianity. While I spoke to her, she had sat down close by me, but as soon as she perceived that our curiosity was satisfied, she slipped away with a noiseless step.

I saw in and beyond that district many Indians, chiefly Tuscaroras, but none were equipped so fully in the ancient manner. This one adopted it, I suppose, as a flourishing signboard is used, to attract custom. Some who were travelling by rail near the beautiful village of Canandaigua, were dressed like other people, except that their clothing seemed more voluminous and clumsy. Some that we saw making purchases in the stores at the Niagara village, had caps without bonnets, and very long blue cloth cloaks. They are so like our Scotch border gipsies, who make horn spoons and sell crockery, that I felt as if I might have hailed Will Faa or Tibby Douglas, in our endeavours to educate whose wild-cat looking offspring we at one time expended some energy. Who can say if they are not of the same stock of the human family? The style of figure, the hair, eyes, and skin, give indication of relationship, while those who, like Simon in America, and Borrow in England, have penetrated into those rites and habits about which they are reserved with strangers, think they can trace ceremonies originating in the ceremonial law of Moses, and indications that they must both have descended from some one of the lost tribes of Israel. Who can solve these mysteries till the great day of revealing shall come?

The poor Indian! mon to the aborigines. As the civilised settler increases, he decreases. Many a deed of blood have their wrongs wrought them up to, and many a time have they been made the ignorant and savage tools of the wars of those civilised foes who ought to have known better. But now they are waning away— and wide as their continent is, and unpeopled as are millions of its acres, the time may yet come when the encroaching white man may wish again to remove them, or to limit the territory in which they are now located.

He shares the fate too com

Yet even in their reduced state, when they come to treat with Congress, they go through their ancient ceremonial of the council fire, the calumet, &c., and assume the dignified tone and figurative speech of their ancestors. I heard of a chief quite lately, whose presence at Washington, within the door of the hall of Congress, was indicated to the chairman. He stood leaning against the door-post as if not quite sure of his place and reception, but on receiving a courteous message from his "Great Father," inviting him to take a seat, he cast himself upon the floor, saying, "I will embrace the bosom of my mother earth."

Times are changed with them now, compared to their condition even a quarter of a century ago, fallen as they then were. My respected friend, Dr Sprague, with whom I gladly renewed my acquaintance at Albany, told me that, twenty-five years

since, as he travelled with two ladies on the way to Niagara, a large powerful Indian hailed their carriage and ordered him to carry his pack for him to Buffalo. He tried to escape from this burden, suggesting various difficulties, all of which the Indian put aside, reiterating his order, which, in view of the Indian's fowling-piece, was finally obeyed, we may guess with what emotions of satisfaction. The man

kept pace with, and sometimes got ahead of the carriage, so as to find time to stop and inspire himself with a fresh dose of fire-water by the way. At the end of the journey, he stood ready to recover his goods, which he did with small indication of thanks.

Buffalo has been waxing, while Indians have been waning. The solitary inn where Dr Sprague got rid of his imposed burden and dangerous fellow-traveller, is now lost amid a crowd of smart hotels, churches, banks, docks, and every appliance that commerce requires; while the Lake, which used to form the barrier to further progress, is thronged by huge steamers three stories high, which are crowded with emigrants and their goods, merchants and their merchandise, and with all the produce of the country.

CHAPTER XXVI.

RAILWAYS.

THE railway runs through the streets of

many cities in the United States, it being always taken for granted that the lieges can take care of them

Grand Dukes treat their keep them locked within ready to start, lest they

selves. In Germany, the subjects like infants, and palings till the train is should hurt themselves. In England, various officers are at hand to warn you off the rails and guide your erring feet, and yet ever and anon one hears of accidents. In America, a printed placard at all the crossings tells you, "Look out for the locomotive when the bell rings," and leaves you to be your own guardian, and that kind of care answers the purpose as well.

The superior comfort of an American railway carriage will hardly be believed by persons whose dignity or respectability demand first, second, and third class carriages. Nevertheless, it is perfectly true. Their construction, with a passage down the centre of each carriage, which is long enough to contain twenty-five or thirty persons on each side,

enables the conductor to pass up and down. They are so made that he or passengers can pass from one carriage to another while the train is in motion. A cord also passes along the roofs, attached to a bell, which will summon him from whatever car he may be in. Thus no unpleasant circumstance need be endured for a moment. It would be impossible for a gentleman to get himself pommelled by a flighty man waking and fancying that his single fellowtraveller wished to mesmerise him, as lately happened in one of our first-class carriages. In his case there was no remedy-he must either fight or be beaten black and blue till they reached a station. If he had had fifty companions, and the bell-rope to boot, he would have been perfectly safe.

But, say they who are accustomed to the strict social subdivisions of old monarchies, how do you do with the workmen, and the serving damsels, and all the class of people that you don't associate with in the house? Why, we do very well. That is the curiosity of it. Politeness, if it do not soar to the height of refinement that it does in courts, never sinks down to rudeness or brutality in the United States. Everybody understands that everybody has rights. The " great" are more careful not to offend the "little," so that I never once heard a haughty word to an inferior; and the "little," knowing that they are in no danger of being encroached on by the "great," in their turn commit no unpleasant encroachment. People fall naturally