and though certainly less palatable than that of flour, yet noway
disagreeable, and both wholesome and digestible as well as highly
nutritive?

* * * * *

FIRST ENGLISH COLONY IN AMERICA.

The first attempt of the English to effect any settlement in America, was
made by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who, in the month of June, 1578, obtained a
patent from Queen Elizabeth, authorizing him to plant a colony in that
country. Gilbert's project failed; but it was afterwards resumed by his
half-brother, the celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh, who, in 1584, obtained a
patent similar to that which had been granted to Gilbert, and next year
planted a colony at the mouth of the Roanoke, naming the country
_Virginia_ in honour of his royal mistress. But all these settlers, as
well as others who crossed the Atlantic during the next twenty years,
either perished by famine and disease, or by the hands of the Indians, or
returned to England.--_Cabinet Cyclopaedia_, vol. xiii.; _being_ vol. i.
_of the History of the Western World--United States of America_.

* * * * *

TRADITIONS OF THE INDIANS.

According to the unambitious belief of the Osages, a people living on the
banks of one of the lower tributaries of the Missouri, they are sprung
from a snail and a beaver. The Mandans believe their ancestors once lived
in a large village under ground, near a subterranean lake; that by means
of a vine tree, which extended its roots to their cheerless habitation,
they got a glimpse of the light; that informed by some adventurers, who
had visited the upper world, of the numerous buffaloes pasturing on the
plains, and of the trees loaded with delicious fruits, the whole nation,
with one consent, began to ascend the roots of the vine; but that, when
about the half of them had reached the surface, a corpulent woman climbing
up, broke the roots by her weight; that the earth immediately closed, and
concealed for ever from those below the cheering beams of the sun. From a
people who entertain such fanciful notions of their origin, no valuable
information concerning their early history can be expected.--_Ibid._

* * * * *

POLITE SLAUGHTERING OF AN ENEMY.

At times, an Indian warrior, when about to kill and scalp a prostrate
enemy, addresses him in such terms as the following:--

"My name is Cashegra: I am a famous warrior, and am going to kill you. Whe