To enforce their language, though
it was uncommonly nervous and expressive, and such as would of itself
have carried terror to the firmest heart; at the end of every period
they struck their war-clubs against the poles of my tent with such
violence, that I expected every moment it would have tumbled upon us. As
each of them in dancing round passed by me, they placed their right
hands over their eyes, and coming close to me, looked me steadily in the
face, which I could not construe into a token of friendship. My men gave
themselves up for lost; and I acknowledge for my own part, that I never
found my apprehensions more tumultuous on any occasion."
He mollified them, however, in the end by presents.
It is pity that Lord Edward Fitzgerald did not leave a detailed account
of his journey through the wilderness, where he was pilot of an unknown
course for twenty days, as Murray and Henry have of theirs. There is
nothing more interesting than to see the civilized man thus thrown
wholly on himself and his manhood, and _not_ found at fault.
McKenney and Hall's book upon the Indians is a valuable work. The
portraits of the chiefs alone would make a history, and they are
beautifully colored.
Most of the anecdotes may be found again in Drake's Book of the Indians;
which will afford a useful magazine to their future historian.
I shall, however, cite a few of them, as especially interesting to
myself.
Of Guess, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, it was observable in
the picture, and observed in the text, that his face had an oriental
cast.
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