wife the use of some fpecifics of wonderful efficacy; and all the favages are dexterous in curing wounds by the application of herbs. But the power of these remedies is always attributed to the magical ceremonies with which they are administered.

Though the women generally bear the laborious part of domeftic economy, their condition is far from being so flavish as it appears. On the contrary, the greatest refpect is paid by the men to the female fex. The women even hold their councils, and have their fhare in all deliberations which concern the ftate. Polygamy is practifed by some nations, but is not general. In moft, they content themselves with one wife; but a divorce is admitted in cafe of adultery. No nation of the Americans is without a regular marriage, in which there are many ceremonies; the principal of which is, the bride's prefenting the bridegroom with a plate of their corn. The women, though before incontinent, are remarkable for chastity after marriage.

Liberty, in its full extent, being the darling paffion of the Indians, their education is directed in such a manner as to cherish this difpofition to the utmoft. Hence children are never upon any account chaftifed with blows, and they are feldom even reprimanded. Reafon, they fay, will guide their children when they come to the use of it, and before that time their faults cannot be very great: but blows might damp their free and martial fpirit, by the habit of a flavish motive to action. When grown up, they experience nothing like command, dependence, or fubordination; even ftrong perfuafion is induftriously with-held by those who have influence among them.- No man is held in great esteem, unless he has increased the ftrength of his country with a captive, or adorned his hut with a scalp of one of his enemies.

Controverfies among the Indians are few, and quickly decided. When any criminal matter is fo flagrant as to become a national concern, it is brought under the jurifdiction of the great council; but in ordinary cafes, the crime is either revenged or compromifed by the parties concerned. If a murder be committed, the family which has loft a rela-tion prepares to retaliate on that of the offender. They often kill the murderer; and when this happens, the kindred of the last person slain look upon themselves to be as much injured, and to have the same right to vengeance as the other party. In general, however, the offender abfents himself; the friends fend compliments of condolence to those of the person that has been murdered. The head of the family at length appears with a number of prefents, the delivery of which he accompanies with a formal fpeech. The whole ends, as ufual, in mutual feastings, fongs, and dances. If the murder is committed by one of the No. II. fame

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fame family or cabin, that cabin has the full right of judgment within itfelf, either to punish the guilty with death, or to pardon him, or to oblige him to give fome recompence to the wife or children of the flain. Inftances of fuch a crime, however, very feldom happen; for their attachment to thofe of the fame family is remarkably ftrong, and is faid to produce fuch friend fhips as may vie with the most celebrated in fabulous antiquity.

Such, in general, are the manners and customs of the Indian nations; but every tribe has fomething peculiar to itself. Among the Hurons and Natchez, the dignity of the chief is hereditary, and the right of fucceffion in the female line. When this happens to be extinct, the moft refpectable matron of the tribe makes choice of whom the pleases to fucceed.

The Cherokees are governed by feveral fachems or chiefs, elected by the different villages; as are alfo the Creeks and Chactaws. The two latter punish adultery in a woman by cutting off her hair, which they will not fuffer to grow till the corn is ripe the next feafon; but the Illinois, for the fame crime, cut off the womens noses and ears.

The Indians on the lakes are formed into a fort of empire; and the emperor is elected from the eldeft tribe, which is that of the Ottowawaws. He has the greatest authority of any chief that has appeared on the continent fince our acquaintance with it. A few years ago, the perfon who held this rank formed a defign of uniting all the Indian nations under his fovereignty; but he miscarried in the attempt.

In general, the American Indians live to a great age, although it is not poffible to know from themselves the exact number of their years. It was afked of an Indian, who appeared to be extremely old, what age he was of? I am above twenty, was his reply. Upon putting the quef

tion in a different form, by reminding him of certain circumstances in former times, My machu, faid he, fpoke to me when I was young of the Incas; and he had feen thefe princes. According to this reply, there muft have elapfed, from the date of his machu's (his grandfather's) remembrance to that time, a period of at least 232 years. The man who made this reply appeared to be 120 years of age: for, befides the whiteness of his hair and beard, his body was almoft bent to the ground▲ without, however, fhowing any other marks of debility or fuffering. This happened in 1764. This longevity, attended in general with uninterrupted health, is probably the confequence in part of their vacancy from all ferious thought and employment, joined alfo with the robust, texture and conformation of their bodily organs. If the Indians did not destroy one another in their almoft perpetual wars, and if their

habits of intoxication were not fo universal and incurable, they would be, of all the races of men who inhabit the globe, the most likely to prolong, not only the bounds, but the enjoyments, of animal life to their utmost duration,

Let us now attend to other pictures which have been given of the aboriginal inhabitants of the New World. The vices and defects of the American Indians have by feveral writers been moft unaccountably aggravated, and every virtue and good quality denied them. Their cruelties have been already described and accounted for. The following anecdote of an Algonquin woman we find adduced as a remarkable proof of their innate thirst of blood. That nation being at war with the Iroquois, fhe happened to be made prifoner, and was carried to one of the villages belonging to them. Here she was ftripped naked, and her hands and feet bound with ropes in one of their cabins. In this condition fhe remained ten days, the favages fleeping round her every night. The eleventh night, while they were asleep, she found means to difengage one of her hands, with which the immediately freed herself from the ropes, and went to the door. Though fhe had now an opportunity of efcaping unperceived, her revengeful temper could not let flip fo favourable an opportunity of killing one of her enemies. The attempt was manifeftly at the hazard of her own life; yet, fnatching up a hatchet, fhe killed the favage that lay next her; and, fpringing out of the cabin, concealed herself in a hollow tree which she had obferved the day before. The groans of the dying perfon foon alarmed the other favages, and the young ones immediately set out in purfuit of her.-Perceiving from her tree, that they all directed their courfe one way, and that no savage was near her, she left her fanctuary, and, flying by an oppofite direction, ran into a foreft without being perceived. The fecond day after this happened, her footsteps were difcovered, and they purfued her with fuch expedition, that the third day fhe difcovered her enemies at her heels. Upon this fhe threw herself into a pond of water; and, diving among fome weeds and bulrushes, fhe could juft breathe above water without being perceived. Her pursuers, after making the most diligent fearch, were forced to return. For 35 days this woman held on her course through woods and defarts, without any other fuftenance than roots and wild berries. When the came to the river St. Lawrence, fhe made with her own hands a kind of a wicker raft, on which fhe croffed it. As the went by the French fort Trois Rivieres, without well knowing where fhe was, the perceived a canoe full of favages; and, fearing they might be Iroquois, ran again into the woods, where the remained till funfet.Continuing her course, foon after the faw Trois Rivieres; and was then

discovered by a party whom she knew to be Hurons, a nation in alliance with the Algonquins. She then fquatted down behind a bush, calling out to them that she was not in a condition to be feen, because she was naked. They immediately threw her a blanket, and then conducted her to the fort, where the recounted her story.

Perfonal courage has been denied them. In proof of their pufillanimity, the following incidents are quoted from Charlevoix by Lord "The fort de Vercheres Kames, in his sketches of the History of Man. in Canada, belonging to the French, was, in the year 1690, attacked by fome Iroquois. They approached filently, preparing to scale the palifade, when some musket shot made them retire. Advancing a fecond time, they were again repulfed, wondering that they could discover none but a woman, who was feen every where. This was Madame de Vercheres, who appeared as refolute as if fupported by a numerous garrifon. The hopes of forming a place without men to defend it occafioned reiterated attacks. After two days fiege, they retired, fearing to be intercepted in their retreat. years after, a party of the fame nation appeared before the fort fo unexpectedly, that a girl of fourteen, daughter of the proprietor, had but time to fhut the gate. With the young

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woman there was not a foul but one raw foldier.

She fhowed herfelf

with her affiftant, fometimes in one place and fometimes in another; changing her drefs frequently, in order to give fome appearance of a garrifon; and always fired opportunely. The faint-hearted Iroquois decamped without fuccefs."

There is no inftance, it is faid, either of a fingle Indian facing an individual of any other nation in fair and open combat, or of their jointly venturing to try the fate of battle with an equal number of any foes. Even with the greateft fuperiority of numbers, they dare not meet an attack. Yet, notwithstanding this want of courage, they are still open formidable; nay, it has been known, that a fmall party of them has routed a much fuperior body of regular troops: but this can only happen when they have furprised them in the faftneffes of their forefts, where the covert of the wood may conceal them until they take their aim with their utmoft certainty. After one fuch difcharge they immediately retreat, without leaving the smallest trace of their route. It may eafily be fuppofed, that an onset of this kind muft produce confufion even among the fteadieft troops, when they can neither know the number. of their enemies, nor perceive the place where they lie in ambush.

Perfidy combined with cruelty has been alfo made a part of their character. Don Ulloa relates, That the Indians of the country called Natches, in Louisiana, laid a plot of massacring in one night every

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vidual belonging to the French colony established there. This plot they actually executed, notwithstanding the feeming good understanding that fubfifted between them and thefe European neighbours. Such was the fecrecy which they obferved, that no person had the least suspicion of their defign until the blow was ftruck. One Frenchman alone escaped, by favour of the darkness, to relate the disaster of his countrymen. The compaffion of a female Indian contributed also in some measure to his exemption from the general maffacre. The tribe of Natches had invited the Indians of other countries, even to a confiderable distance, to join in the fame confpiracy. The day, or rather the night, was fixed, on which they were to make an united attack on the French colonists. It was intimated by sending a parcel of rods, more or less numerous according to the local distance of each tribe, with an injunction to abstract one rod daily; the day on which the last fell to be taken away being that fixed for the execution of their plan. The women were partners of the bloody fecret. The parcels of rods being thus diftributed, that belonging to the tribe of Natches happened to remain in the cuftody of a female. This woman, either moved by her own feelings of compaffion, or by the commiferation expressed by her female acquaintances in the view of the propofed fcene of bloodshed, abstracted one day three or four of the rods, and thus anticipated the term of her tribe's proceeding to the execution of the general confpiracy. The confequence of this was, that the Natches were the only actors in this carnage; their diftant affociates having ftill feveral rods remaining at the time when the former made the attack. An opportunity was thereby given to the colonists in thofe quarters to take meafures for their defence, and for preventing a more extensive execution of the design.

It was by confpiracies fimilar to this that the Indians of the province of Macas, in the kingdom of Quito, destroyed the opulent city of Logrogno, the colony of Guambaya, and its capital Sevilla del Oro; and that fo completely, that it is no longer known in what place these fettlements existed, or where that abundance of gold was found from which the laft-mentioned city took the addition to its name. Like ravages have been committed upon l'Imperiale in Chili, the colonies of the Miffions of Chuncas, thofe of Darien in Terra Firma, and many other places, which have afforded fcenes of this barbarous ferocity. Thefe confpiracies are always carried on in the fame manner. The fecret is inviolably kept, the actors affemble at the precife hour appointed, and every individual is animated with the fame fanguinary purposes. The males that fall into their hands are put to death with every fhocking ircumftance that can be fuggefted by a cool and determined cruelty.

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