evolent effort for their
good, and showed a hearty mind to work in the attainment of the object.
The United States asked for no cession. Many glowing harangues were made
by the chiefs, which gave scope to their peculiar oratory, which is well
worth the preserving. Mongazid, of Fond du Lac, Lake Superior, said:
"When I heard the voice of my Great Father, coming up the Mississippi
Valley calling me to this treaty, it seemed as a murmuring wind; I got
up from my mat where I sat musing, and hastened to obey it. My pathway
has been clear and bright. Truly it is a pleasant sky above our heads
this day. There is not a cloud to darken it. I hear nothing but pleasant
words. The raven is not waiting for his prey, I hear no eagle
cry--'Come, let us go. The feast is ready--the Indian has killed his
brother.'"

When nearly a whole month had been consumed in these negotiations, a
treaty of limits was signed, which will long be remembered in the Indian
reminiscences. This was on the 19th of August (1825), _vide_ Indian
Treaties, p. 371. It was a pleasing sight to see the explorer of the
Columbia in 1806, and the writer of the proclamation of the army that
invaded Canada in 1812, uniting in a task boding so much good to the
tribes whose passions and trespasses on each other's lands keep them
perpetually at war.

'Tis war alone that gluts the Indian's mind,
As eating meats, inflames the tiger kind.
HETH.

At the close of the treaty, an experiment was made on the moral sense of
the Indians, with regard to intoxicating liquors, which was evidently of
too refined a character for their just appreciation. It had been said by
the tribes that the true reason for the Commissioners of the United
States government speaking against the use of ardent spirits by the
Indians, and refusing to give them, was not a sense of its bad effects,
so much, as the fear of the expense. To show them that the government
was above such a petty principle, the Commissioners had a long row of
tin camp kettles, holding several gallons each, placed on the grass,
from one end of the council house to the other, and then, after some
suitable remarks, each kettle was spilled out in their presence. The
thing was evidently ill relished by the Indians. They loved the whisky
better than the joke.

_Impostor_.--Among the books which I purchased for General Cass, at New
York, was the narrative of one John Dunn Hunter. I remember being
introduced to the man,