y country, I haste on my way,
For duty commands me, and duty must sway;
Yet I leave the bright land where my little ones dwell,
With a sober regret, and a bitter farewell;
For there I must leave the dear jewels I love,
The dearest of gifts from my Master above.

NEW YORK, _March 18th_, 1839.

_17th_. Went, in the evening, to hear Mr. Stephens, the celebrated
traveler, lecture before the Historical Society, at the Stuyvesant
Institute, on Mehemet Ali. Public opinion places lecturers sometimes in
a false position. An attempt was here made to make out Mehemet Ali a
great personage, exercising much influence in his times. An old despotic
rajah in a tea-pot! Who looks to him for exaltation of sentiment,
liberality and enlargement of views, or as an exemplar of political
truth? Mr. Stephens, however, knew the feeling and expectation of his
audience, and drew a picture, which was eloquently done, and well
received. This popular mode of lecturing is certainly better than the
run-a-muck amusements of the day. But it panders to an excited
intellectual appetite, and is anything but philosophical, historical, or
strictly just.

_18th_. I received instructions from Washington, to form a treaty with
the Saginaws, for the cession of a tract of ground on which to build a
light-house on Saginaw Bay.

The next letter I opened was from Mrs. Jameson, of London, who writes
that her plan of publication is, to divide the profits with her
publishers, and, as these are honest men and gentlemen, she has found
that the best way. She advises me to adopt the same course with respect
to my Indian legends.[91]

[Footnote 91: I followed this advice, but fell into the hands of the
Philistines.]

"I published," she says, "in my little journal, one or two legends which
Mrs. Schoolcraft gave me, and they have excited very general interest.
The more exactly you can (in translation) adhere to the _style_ of the
language of the Indian nations, instead of emulating a fine or correct
English style--the more characteristic in all respects--the more
original--the more interesting your work will be."

_21st_. I read the following article in the New York Herald:--

NEW INDIAN TRIBE.--Dr. Jackson, in his report of the geology of the
public lands, states that at the mouth of the Tobique there is an Indian
settlement, where a large tribe of Indians reside, and gain a livelihood
by trapping the otter and beaver. These Indians a