do all
the labour, are much more muscular. One day, as I was on the prairie, I
witnessed the effect of custom upon these people. A Sioux was coming up
without perceiving me; his squaw followed very heavily laden, and to
assist her he had himself a large package on his shoulder. As soon as
they perceived me, he dropped his burden, and it was taken up by the
squaw and added to what she had already. If a woman wishes to upbraid
another, the severest thing she can say is, "You let your husband carry
burthens."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

Left St Peters. Taking the two varieties in the mass, the Indians must
be acknowledged the most perfect gentlemen in America, particularly in
their deportment. It was with regret that I parted with my friends in
the fort, my kind host, Mr Sibley, and my noble-minded warrior Sioux.
I could have remained at St Peters for a year with pleasure, and could
only regret that life was so short, and the Mississippi so long.

There is, however, one serious drawback in all America to life in the
woods, or life in cities, or every other kind of life; which is the
manner, go where you will, in which you are pestered by the mosquitoes.
Strangers are not the only sufferers; those who are born and die in the
country are equally tormented, and it is slap, slap, slap, all day and
all night long, for these animals bite through everything less thick
than a buffalo's skin. As we ascended the river they attacked us on the
crown of the head--a very unusual thing,--and raised swellings as large
as pigeons' eggs. I must have immolated at least five hundred of them
upon my bump of benevolence. Whatever people may think, I feel that no
one can be very imaginative where these animals are so eternally
tormenting them. You meditate under the shady boughs of some
forest-king (slap knee, slap cheek), and farewell to anything like
concentration of thought; you ponder on the sailing moon (clap again,
right and left, above, below), always unpleasantly interrupted. It
won't do at all: you are teased and phlebotomised out of all poetry and
patience.

It is midnight, the darkness is intense, not even a star in the heavens
above, and the steamboat appears as if it were gliding through a current
of ink, with black masses rising just perceptible on either side of it;
no sound except the reiterated note of the "Whip poor Will," answered by
the loud coughing of the high-pressure engine. Who, of those in
ex