THE FOUR INDIANS.
During the progress of the evening, and while at the dinner and supper
table, I had opportunity to survey the crowd, and to recognize in it the
representatives of many distinct and different nations.
Americans, the lineal descendants of the true European race, of course
predominated. Among the subdivisions of this race were English, Scotch,
Irish, and German.
Africans, too, were numerous; but were found chiefly among the "hands"
employed on board the steamboat. The waiters at table, the two stewards,
the barber, the cooks,--from first to last, for there was almost an army
of them,--were more or less of African origin. Some of them were jet
black; but the far greater part were of commingled blood. Some were so
light colored, that at first sight one would hardly recognize them as
having ever belonged to the race of "Uncle Tom," or "Aunt Chloe."
Besides, there were with us four American Indians, of the Shawnee tribe.
They were just from their home, among the upper branches of the Arkansas
River, and were on their way to Washington, on business in behalf of
their nation.
They were dressed in a full American costume, and two of them could
converse in English very well. One of them--a young man--appeared to
have no knowledge of any but his native dialect.
With one of the elder of these men I had some conversation myself. He
answered my questions very readily and frankly, but seldom, in return,
made any inquiries of me. Yet he was not destitute of curiosity. On
several occasions I saw him looking with interest while mechanical and
manufacturing operations were going on, both on board and on shore.
I found to my surprise that these Indians were not, even when at home,
naked or half-naked savages, ignorant of the arts and decencies of
life; but respectable farmers, more than half civilized, and some of
them Christianized. They had cultivated fields and frame houses, with
great numbers of horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs.
The younger of them even expressed a good deal of religious feeling, and
said by an interpreter that he wished his nation read more in the New
Testament and religious books. Another, who was a half-breed, and was
older, appeared to be a professor of religion. One bad habit, so common
among the whites, they had caught by contact: I mean that of smoking
tobacco; and it is fortunate if they have been contaminated by us in
nothing else.
But ten o'clock came, the hour when we were expected to retire to our
berths, and it was not long before silence and darkness reigned, except
where it was needful for men to watch and labor to see that the boat
pursued her onward, ascending course.
Some of us, before retiring, took a short walk upon deck. The moon had
not yet risen, but it was starlight. The surface of the river, and the
waving outline of the adjacent shores and hills, with here and there a
house, and one or two small villages, were all that we could see. After
taking proper care of my little state-room, to see that the ventilators
were so arranged as to give on the one hand a free circulation, and on
the other to prevent a current of damp night air from falling directly
upon me, and after remembering, too, that there was a God in the heavens
in whom, as the supreme director on the water as well as on the land, I
could trust, I resigned myself to sleep, and did not rise till the day
had dawned, and the moon had reached the middle of the heavens.