PERILOUS RESCUE.

A correspondent of a Boston periodical-writing from Oldtown, a village on an island in Penobscot river, (Maine), being the residence of about three hundred of the Penobscot tribe of Indians-says-" It is not long since two of their small boys, in attempting to cross the river, near a fall of ten or twelve feet depth, were carried down by the current, nearly to its brink; when an old Indian, named Sabbans, started in his bark to rescue them. He reached the verge just in time to seize one of the lads by the hair, when he found himself rapidly borne down by the current. There was but an instant to save himself: for, if his boat were swept down sidewise, his fate was certain death. He grappled his paddle, with the energy of desperationset the boat in proper direction, by a single stroke—and descended the fall in safety. The canoe was shivered to pieces before he reached the shore, but he succeeded in saving his own life, and that of the child in his hand. The other was lost.

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Very few White men could have accomplished such a feat. Two Boston gentlemen undertook, the other day, to cross the little interval between Oldtown and the Indian Island, in a birch, and were both turned out, neck and heels, into the water, almost as soon as they had stepped in.

INDIAN CANNIBALISM.

It is beyond all question, that some of the Indian tribes now occasionally indulge in this abominable appetite; and that, before the arrival of the Europeans in America, it was a custom generally-if not universally-prevalent among them. The imperceptible influence of the horror with which the Whites regard the practice, has, however, made its way among them: and-little as they are disposed to confess that they are swayed by our opinions-the earnestness with which they deny the present existence of the practice, and with which they attempt to exculpate their

ancestors from the charge, is an indubitable admission of the influence which our opinions exercise over them.

Flint, in his account of the Mississippi Valley, says'Near the Sabine are a small number of Carancoaks, clearly cannibals. But,' he adds, 'they are viewed with horror, and pursued with a spirit of extermination, by the adjacent Indians.

A Cannibal Feast on the Wabash.—The lady of Major Hamtramck, commanding officer at Vincennes, informed the writer, that, when a girl, she saw a war-party of Indians arrive on the opposite bank of the river, and massacre a prisoner they had taken-whose body they cut up in pieces, which they boiled, and devoured in her presence.

THE SIEGE, AND EXTIRPATION OF A BAND.

Upon the left bank of the river Illinois, there is a projecting cliff, which has obtained the name of Rock Fort. Its base is washed on three sides by the river, which here runs rapidly over a rocky bed. Its elevation is supposed to be about two hundred and fifty feet. It rises perpendicularly from the stream, and is there inaccessible. The only access to it is by a winding and precipitous path, over a chain of hills, extending up the Illinois by a narrow ledge. This rock has on its top a level surface, threefourths of an acre in extent, covered by a soil several feet in depth.

The advantages afforded by this spot, as an impregnable retreat, induced a band of Illinois Indians to intrench themselves here, as a refuge from the fury of the Pottawatomies, with whom they were at war. They repulsed all the - assaults of their besiegers, and would have remained masters of their high tower, but for the impossibility of longer obtaining supplies of water. They had been used to the attaching of vessels to ropes of bark, and dropping them into the river, from an overhanging point. Their enemies now posted themselves in canoes, at the base of the cliff, and cut off the ropes, as fast as they were let down. The consequence of this was, the surrender and utter extirpation of the band.

AN INDIAN FUNERAL.

Eliot, the New England Missionary, (says the writer of this account) attended a funeral, on the 7th of October, 1647, when a change in the usages and prejudices of the Indians was evinced in a striking manner. The deceased was a man of some consequence. Their custom had been to mourn much for the dead, and to appear overcome with grief, especially when the earth shrouded them from their sight. The departed was borne to the grave on a light bier, and interred in a sitting posture: in his hands was placed a calumet and some tobacco, that he might present the ensigns of peace to the people of another world. If the corpse was that of a warrior, his quiver, full of arrows, a bow and a hatchet, were placed by his side, and also a little mirror, that he might see how his face looked after passing through the regions of death-together with some vermilion, to obviate its extreme paleness. His was a bold hand that could, at once, tear aside the loved usages, and make the dust of the warrior of no more consequence than that of the meanest of his followers. The cemetery of the new town* was in the woods, and a procession of all the inhabitants moved slowly beneath their shadow, in deep and solemn silence, with the Missionary at their head: no wail was heard-no wild gush of sorrow. To estimate this

sacrifice it is necessary to recur to the Indian belief, that ' after death they should go to a very fertile country, where they were to have many wives, and, above all, lovely places for hunting:'-often, no doubt, the shadowy chase of the bear and the stag came on the dreams of the dying man, and afterwards beautiful women would welcome him, weary, to his home. When the dead was laid in the grave, Eliot read the funeral service over him, and then told the many people that in heaven they neither married, nor were given in marriage; that the passions of this world, the wild chase or the warrior's joy, could never come there: there was neither chieftain nor slave; that in the love of Christ, who was

*

Nonanctum, a village erected under the supervision of the Missionaries.-ED.

the resurrection and the life, all these things would be lost. And they believed him-those fierce and brutal men-and wept-not for the dead, but for themselves.

INDIAN HONOUR AND FINESSE IN WAR.

Courage, among Indians, is the virtue most honoured. Those who shrink or run away in an action, are not corporeally punished:-they are considered as the dregs of human nature. The ugliest girls will not accept of them for husbands; they are compelled to let their hair grow, and to wear an alconan, or apron, like the women. "I saw one

of them," says Bossu-who dwelt a long time among the Indians "who, being ashamed of his figure, went by himself to fight the Chicachas, for his misery was more than he could bear. For three or four days he went on, creeping like a snake, and hiding himself in the high grass, without eating or drinking. So he came to their country, and watched a long time to achieve some exploit to retrieve his name from infamy-often lying down in the rushes, when his enemies drew near, and raising his head, from time to time, above the water, to take breath. At length he arrived at the village in the night-cried the cry of death-killed an enemy, and then fled with the speed of an arrow. He spent three months upon this expedition ;such is the caution and perseverance of a Savage in search of blood. When he drew nigh to his own village, weary, and bearing the head of an enemy, his former associates descended the hill to meet him. The women were loud in his praises the warriors gathered around him ;-and then they gave him a wife.”

MOST SINGULAR ESCAPE FROM SAVAGES.

Bradbury, in his 'Travels in the Interior of North America,' relates the following perilous adventure of John Colter, a hunter:

Colter came to St. Louis in May 1810, in a small canoe, from the head waters of the Missouri, a distance of three thousand miles, which he traversed in thirty days. I saw him on his arrival, and received from him an account of his adventures, after he had separated from Lewis and Clarke's party. One of these, for its singularity, I shall re

late:

On the arrival of the party at the head waters of the Missouri, Colter, observing an appearance of an abundance of beavers being there, obtained permission to remain, and hunt for some time, which he did, in company with a man of the name of Dixon, who had traversed the immense tract of country, from St. Louis to the head waters of the Missouri, alone. Soon afterwards he separated from Dixon, and trapped in company with a hunter, named Potts; and, aware of the hostility of the Black-Feet Indians—one of whom had been killed by Lewis-they set their traps at night, and took them up early in the morning, remaining concealed during the day. They were examining their traps early one morning, in a creek about six miles from that branch of the Missouri now called Jefferson's Fork, and were ascending in a canoe, when they suddenly heard a great noise, resembling the trampling of animals; but they could not ascertain the fact, as the high perpendicular banks on each side of the river impeded their view. Colter immediately pronounced it to be occasioned by Indians, and advised an instant retreat—but was accused of cowardice by Potts, who insisted that the noise was caused by buffaloes-and they proceeded on.

In a few minutes afterwards, their doubts were removed by a party of Indians making their appearance on both sides of the creek, to the amount of five or six hundred, who beckoned them to come ashore. As retreat was now impossible, Colter turned the head of the canoe, and, at