ness, and feeling
besides exhausted from the length and difficulties of our journey, we
determined upon putting these fabled attributes to the proof. Holding
up his stick, as an emblem of peaceable intentions, and backed by the
Lancers, our interpreter advanced, and inquired for the hut of their
chief, and requested, as we were much exhausted, they would oblige us
with a small quantity of their ava, and a few of their native yams. As
they seemed unable to detect his meaning, which we endeavoured to make
more palpable, by all of us at the same time advancing, simultaneously
putting our fingers down our mouths, and rubbing our stomachs, in order
to have our urgent necessities immediately gratified.

"Instead of our wants having been anticipated, as we had naturally
supposed, the whole tribe immediately set up a discordant yell.
Believing that we were still misunderstood, we resolved on asking for
food, and assuring them of our peaceable intentions in all the languages
we were masters of. One of the Lancers who had, during foreign service,
picked up a few expressions of the Cherokee Indians, and also a
knowledge of their habits, proposed addressing them. A consultation
being held, and the result being favourable, he advanced; and, in the
Cherokian language, asked for food, invoked at the same time the great
spirit, which he did by spitting on his hands (an Indian custom), and
holding up his right foot for the purpose of his auditor kissing it, as
a token of conciliation. The person whom he addressed, in an uncouth,
but certainly melodious language, answered in these words:

"'Dom hew-er hies, gie us none o' hew-er-jaw.'

"Another, whom I had willingly entreated in my native tongue for a place
of shelter, answered in the following couplet, which convinced me of the
truth of the supposition of Mr. Thomas Campbell, the intended lecturer
of poetry to the London University, that mankind in an aboriginal state
is essentially poetical, and express their ideas either in rhythmical or
figurative language--

"'Hax hay-bout,
An find it hout.'

"Others shouted with a peculiar strength of lungs, _Bedlam! Bedlam!
ha! ha!_ These words appeared to be instantly caught up by the
surrounding groups, and communicated like wild-fire, amongst the
different tribes, which by this time had increased to an alarming
magnitude. * * *

"Arriving at a settlement, marked out in the maps as Great Russell
Street, the marks of civilization