ir shoulders, they took
their seats, quite at ease, in a semicircle before us. The pipe was now
to be lighted and passed round from one to another; and this was the
only entertainment that at present they expected from us. These visitors
were fathers, brothers, or other relatives of the squaws in the
fort, where they were permitted to remain, loitering about in perfect
idleness. All those who smoked with us were men of standing and repute.
Two or three others dropped in also; young fellows who neither by their
years nor their exploits were entitled to rank with the old men and
warriors, and who, abashed in the presence of their superiors, stood
aloof, never withdrawing their eyes from us. Their cheeks were adorned
with vermilion, their ears with pendants of shell, and their necks with
beads. Never yet having signalized themselves as hunters, or performed
the honorable exploit of killing a man, they were held in slight
esteem, and were diffident and bashful in proportion. Certain formidable
inconveniences attended this influx of visitors. They were bent on
inspecting everything in the room; our equipments and our dress alike
underwent their scrutiny; for though the contrary has been carelessly
asserted, few beings have more curiosity than Indians in regard to
subjects within their ordinary range of thought. As to other matters,
indeed, they seemed utterly indifferent. They will not trouble
themselves to inquire into what they cannot comprehend, but are quite
contented to place their hands over their mouths in token of wonder, and
exclaim that it is "great medicine." With this comprehensive solution,
an Indian never is at a loss. He never launches forth into speculation
and conjecture; his reason moves in its beaten track. His soul is
dormant; and no exertions of the missionaries, Jesuit or Puritan, of the
Old World or of the New, have as yet availed to rouse it.

As we were looking, at sunset, from the wall, upon the wild and desolate
plains that surround the fort, we observed a cluster of strange objects
like scaffolds rising in the distance against the red western sky. They
bore aloft some singular looking burdens; and at their foot glimmered
something white like bones. This was the place of sepulture of some
Dakota chiefs, whose remains their people are fond of placing in the
vicinity of the fort, in the hope that they may thus be protected from
violation at the hands of their enemies. Yet it has happened more than
on