When I went in the whale-ship, I saw another tribe of Indians, that
were very different from those I told you of before. They knew more
than those Indians. They used bows and arrows; and you would have been
pleased to see how they would hit a mark a great way off, with their
arrows.
One of them, who had a name so long that I will not try to speak it,
used to come every day to our ship, when we were lying near the shore.
He liked pieces of glass, and nails and tin, and things of that kind,
quite as well as the other Indians I told you of. He had seen white
men before, so he was not at all afraid of us. I suppose that almost
all the white men he had seen before used rum and tobacco. He asked
all our sailors for these two things, and kept asking every day. I am
sorry to say that some of the men gave him some rum once in a while,
and one day he drank so much that he got drunk. Poor man! He was not
so much to blame, I think, as the bad sailors that gave him the rum.
What do you think about it?
This man would dive in the water further than anybody I ever saw
before or since. Some of the sailors used to throw pieces of tin into
very deep water, and tell him he might have them if he would dive and
bring them up. He was so fond of such things, that he would always
gladly dive to get them.
I once saw him dive for an old worn-out knife. The water was very deep
where it was thrown. It was so deep that none of us thought he would
get it. He went down, and staid a long, long time. We thought he never
would come up again. The sailor that threw the knife into the water
began to be sorry he had done it, because he thought the poor Indian
was drowned. But, by and by, he came up again, with the knife in his
mouth. He had been hunting after the knife on the bottom of the sea.
These Indians had boats which were made of the bark of trees. They
were so light, that an Indian could carry one of them on his shoulder.
The man who used to come to the ship so often, brought his little
girl with him one day. She was not more than six or seven years old.
She had never seen any white men before, and at first she was afraid
of us all. But when she saw that the white folks would not hurt her
any more than the Indians would, she liked us very well, and wanted to
stay with us all the time. The captain showed her his watch, and she
looked at it a long time. She thought she had never seen so strange a
thing before. "Is it alive?" she asked her father. He could not tell
whether it was alive or not, any more than the little girl could.
The captain liked the little girl very well. He wanted to take her
home with him. So he asked her father if his little girl might go a
great way off, where the white men lived. The Indians could not talk
like us. They could talk, but they did not use the same words. The
captain made out to tell the Indian what he wanted, by using signs,
just as he would have done if he had been talking with a deaf and dumb
man. And what do you think the father of that little girl said, when
he knew that the captain wanted to take the girl home with him? If
anybody should ask your father if he would let you go away and never
come back again, you can tell what your father would say. He would
say, "No, I cannot spare my dear little child."
[Illustration]
But the Indian said, "Yes, give me some money, and you can take my
little girl, and carry her away with you. I have got more girls in my
house." The little Indian girl wanted to go with us, so the captain
gave her father some money, and when the ship sailed, he took her
along with him. But the poor Indian girl did not live till our ship
got home. She was taken very sick, and died. We all felt very bad
when she left us. We had taught her a great many things. She could
read a little. She knew all her letters, and could spell out such easy
words as there are in your little primers and picture books. She did
not know any thing about God, and Christ, and heaven, before she came
to the ship. But some of us told her about them. She was glad to hear
about them. Oh, how her bright eyes did sparkle when she heard that
Christ came into the world, and died for such little girls as she! How
happy it made her, to think that He loved her! By and by, she used to
pray every night, when she went to bed. I taught her to say that sweet
little prayer which you know so well, and love so well:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep:
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Oh, I was very sorry when our little Anna died! We called her Anna.
She had another name at home, but we liked Anna better than we did
her old name. I was very sorry when she died, and we were all sorry.
[Illustration: The Fishermen.]