with cold. He stretched forth one hand, and then the other, to the fire-and, as he did so, he fixed his hollow and ghastly eye on Ko-way-hoom-mah, and a slight smile lighted up his livid countenance-but no word did he utter. Ko-way-hoom-mah's situation may be imagined. He felt his flesh and hair creep, and the blood freezing in his veins; yet, with instinctive Indian courtesy, he presented his deer-skin, as a seat for his grim visitor. The spectre waved his hand, and shook his head in refusal. He stepped aside, plucked up a parcel of briers from an adjacent thicket, spread them by the fire, and, on this thorny couch, he stretched himself, and seemed to court repose.

6

"Our hunter was petrified with mingled fear and astonishment. His eyes continued long riveted on the strange and ghastly being stretched before him, and he was only awakened from his trance of horror by the voice of his faithful dog. Arise,' said the dog, suddenly and supernaturally gifted with speech- arise, and flee for your life! The spectre now slumbers: should you also slumber, you are lost. Arise and flee, while I stay and watch.' Koway-hoom-mah arose, and stole softly from the fire. Having advanced a few hundred paces, he stopped to listen: all was still silent, and, with a beating heart, he continued his stealthy and rapid flight. Again he listened, and again, with renewed confidence, he pursued his rapid course, until he had gained several miles on his route homeward. Feeling, at length, a sense of safety, he paused, to recover breath, on the brow of a lofty hill. The night was still, calm, and serene-the stars shone above him, with steady lustre, and, as Ko-way-hoom-mah gazed upwards, he breathed freely, and felt every apprehension vanish. Alas! on the instant, the distant baying of his dog struck on his ear. With a thrill of renewed apprehension, he bent his ear to listen, and the appalling cry of his dog, now more distinctly audible, convinced him that the spectre must be in full pursuit. Again he fled, with accelerated speed, over hill, over plain, through swamps and thickets, till once more he paused by the side of a deep and rapid river. The heavy baying of his dog told him, too truly, that his fearful pursuer was close at hand. One minute he stood VOL. II.-H

for breath, and then he plunged into the stream. But scarcely had he gained the centre, when the spectre appeared on the bank, and plunged in after him, closely followed by the panting dog. Ko-way-hoom-mah's apprehensions now amounted to agony. He fancied he saw the hollow and glassy eye-balls of his pursuer, glaring above the water, and that his skeleton hand was already outstretched to grapple with him. With a cry of horror, he was about giving up the struggle for life, and sinking beneath the waves, when his faithful dog, with a fierce yell, seized upon his master's enemy. After a short, but severe struggle, they both sunk-the waters settled over them, and our exhausted hunter reached the shore in safety. Ko-way-hoom-mah became an altered man. shunned the dance and the ball-play, and his former hilarity gave place to a settled melancholy. In about a year after this strange adventure, he joined a war party against a distant enemy, and never returned.

He

Such, my dear sir, is the substance of the tale, as related to me. And, as I review what I have written, it seems to me faint and feeble, compared with the animated and vivid touches of my Choctaw narrator ;-another evidence which I might assign of the superior force of our vernacular, were I not aware that it might be said (perhaps too justly) that I am ignorant of the force and power of the English language, and therefore not a competent judge. But let that pass, and, in conclusion, believe me to be "Ever sincerely, yours,

"P. P. PITCHLYNN, Big Prairie.”

"J. L. M'DONALD.

"P. S.-By-the-bye, I once read a singular story of one Rip Van Winkle, who went out hunting, and, feeling somewhat fatigued, lay down to take a nap. His nap, it seems, proved a long one; for, when he awoke, he found his gun covered with mushrooms. I remember having been particularly struck with the mushroom gun' in my Indian's story; and I think I can safely affirm he had never heard of Rip Van Winkle.”

NOTES.-For the convenience of those who do not un

derstand Choctaw mythology, the following explanations are submitted.

Ittabolays are genii of very diminutive stature, being not more than fifteen inches high, but of great power. From

them the conjurers, &c. receive their influence. They often ride by moonlight, on deers, with wands in their hands, and singing magic songs. Elikshi, or doctors, receive gifts from them. They are invisible, intangible, except to their favourites, and invulnerable.

Nan-ishta-hool-los are demons, or the true Grecian devils, that wander about the earth.

Shil-loops are ghosts, or wandering spirits, empowered to speak-visible, but not tangible.

THE RECLUSE INDIAN.

In the month of January, in the high northern latitudes, as some men were hunting, they discovered the track of a strange snow-shoe, and followed it. At a considerable distance, they struck upon a little hut, wherein was a young woman sitting alone. Finding she understood their language, they brought her with them to the tents. She proved to be one of the Western Dog-Ribbed Indians, who had been taken prisoner by the Athapuscow Indians, in the summer of 1770; and, in the following summer, when the Indians who had taken her were near this place, she had escaped from them, with the intent of returning to her own country. But the distance being so great, and having, when captured, been carried in a canoe the whole way, the turnings and windings in the rivers and lakes were so numerous, that she forgot the route: so she built the hut in which she was found, to shelter her during the winter-and here she had resided from the first setting in of the autumn.

From her account of the moons past since her elopement, it appeared she had been near seven months without seeing a human face; during all which time she had supported herself very well, by snaring partridges, rabbits, and squirrels. She had also killed two or three beavers and

some porcupines. That she did not seem to have been in want, was evident, as she had a small stock of provisions by her when she was discovered, and was in good health and condition; "and I think (adds the narrator) she was one of the finest women, of a Red Indian, that I have seen in any part of North America."

The means practised by this poor creature to procure a livelihood, were truly admirable; and another proof, among thousands, that Necessity is the mother of invention.' When the few deer-sinews that she had an opportunity of taking with her, were all expended in making snares and sewing her clothing, she had nothing to supply their place but the sinews of the rabbits' legs and feet. These she twisted together for that purpose, with great dexterity and success. The rabbits, &c. which she caught in those snares, not only furnished her with a comfortable subsistence, but with the skins she made a suit of neat and warm clothing for the winter. It is scarcely possible to conceive, that a person in her forlorn situation could be so composed as to be capable of contriving or executing any thing that was not absolutely necessary to her existence. But there were sufficient proofs that she had extended her care much farther as all her clothing, beside being calculated for real service, showed great taste, and exhibited no little variety of ornament. The materials, though rude, were very curiously wrought, and so judiciously placed, as to make the whole of her garb have a very pleasing, though romantic appearance.

Her leisure hours from hunting had been engaged in twisting the inner bark or rind of willows, into small lines, like net-twine-of which she had several hundred fathoms by her. With this she intended to make a fishing-net, as soon as the spring advanced. It is of the inner bark of willows, twisted in this manner, that the Dog-Ribbed Indians make their fishing-nets-and they are much preferable to those made by the Northern Indians.

Five or six inches of an iron hoop, made into a knife, and the shank of an arrow-head of iron, which served her for an awl, were all the metals this poor woman had with her when she made her escape-and with these implements

she had made herself complete snow-shoes, and several other useful articles.

Her method of making fire was equally singular and ingenious-having no other materials for the purpose than two hard sulphureous stones. These, by long friction and hard knocking, elicted a few sparks, which, at length, communicated to some touchwood. But, as this method was attended with some trouble, and not always with success, she did not suffer her fire to go out all the winter. Hence we may conclude that she had no idea of producing fire by friction, as practised by the Esquimaux and many other uncivilized nations; because, if she had, the above mentioned precaution would have been unnecessary.

The singularity of the circumstance, the comeliness of her person, and her approved accomplishments, occasioned a strong contest among several of the Indians of our narrator's party who should have her for a wife-and the poor girl was actually won and lost, at wrestling, by near half a score of different men the same evening. "My guide, Matonabee," says the narrator, "who had, at that time, no fewer than seven wives, all women grown, besides a girl of eleven or twelve years old, would have put in for the prize also, had not one of his wives made him ashamed of it, by her sarcastical sneers and observations.

When the Athapuscow Indians made this Dog-Ribbed woman a prisoner, they, according to the universal custom of those Savages, surprised her and her party in the night, and killed every person in the tent, except herself and three other young women. Among the killed were her father, mother, and husband. Her young child, four or five months old, she concealed in a bundle of clothing, and took it with her, undiscovered, in the night. But when she arrived at the place where the Athapuscow Indians had left their wives-which was not far distant-they began to examine her bundle, and finding the child, one of the women took it from her, and killed it on the spot.

This last piece of barbarity impressed her with such disgust to those Indians, that, notwithstanding the man who took care of her, treated her, in every respect, as his wife, and was, she said, remarkably kind to, and even fond of her, so far was she from being able to reconcile herself to