e, carrying his only child
in his arms, and followed by his starving wife. They had been hunting
apart from the other bands, had been unsuccessful, and whilst in want
were seized with the epidemical disease. An Indian is accustomed to
starve, and it is not easy to elicit from him an account of his
sufferings. This poor man's story was very brief; as soon as the fever
abated, he set out with his wife for Cumberland House, having been
previously reduced to feed on the bits of skin and offal, which remained
about their encampment. Even this miserable fare was exhausted, and they
walked several days without eating, yet exerting themselves far beyond
their strength that they might save the life of the infant. It died
almost within sight of the house. Mr. Connolly, who was then in charge
of the post, received them with the utmost humanity, and instantly
placed food before them; but no language can describe the manner in
which the miserable father dashed the morsel from his lips and deplored
the loss of his child. Misery may harden a disposition naturally bad,
but it never fails to soften the heart of a good man.

The _origin_ of the Crees, to which nation the Cumberland House Indians
belong, is, like that of the other Aborigines of America, involved in
obscurity; but the researches now making into the nature and affinities
of the languages spoken by the different Indian tribes, may eventually
throw some light on the subject. Indeed, the American philologists seem
to have succeeded already in classing the known dialects into three
languages:--1st. The Floridean, spoken by the Creeks, Chickesaws,
Choctaws, Cherokees, Pascagoulas, and some other tribes, who inhabit the
southern parts of the United States. 2d. The Iroquois, spoken by the
Mengwe, or Six Nations, the Wyandots, the Nadowessies, and
Asseeneepoytuck. 3d. The Lenni-lenape, spoken by a great family more
widely spread than the other two, and from which, together with a vast
number of other tribes, are sprung our Crees. Mr. Heckewelder, a
missionary, who resided long amongst these people, and from whose paper,
(published in the _Transactions of the American Philosophical Society_,)
the above classification is taken, states that the Lenape have a
tradition amongst them, of their ancestors having come from the
westward, and taken possession of the whole country from the Missouri to
the Atlantic, after driving away or destroying the original inhabitants
of the land, whom the