told by way of evincing superior knowledge of the
world, but just to show you, gentle or simple reader, whichever you
may be, that, in a sentimental journey through Canada, you must
accommodate yourself a little to the manners and customs of the
population, if you expect to get along quietly, and to form any just
opinion of the country.

When we saw the naked Indians under the wide-spreading trees,
literally taking their ease, _sub tegmine fagi_, I thought that, if a
Cockney could be transported in a balloon from Temple Bar right down
here, what a barbarous land he would say Canada was, and his note-book
would run thus: "Landed on the banks of a river twice as broad as the
Thames, and saw the inhabitants burnt brown, and stark naked, under
the trees. Oh, fie!"

Really, however, there is nothing very startling in seeing a naked
Indian, whether it is that the bronze colour of his red skin looks so
artificial, or that white flesh is so rarely observed, except in
fashionable ball-rooms, I do not know; but I do know that I should
most unequivocally feel queer, if I suddenly saw twenty or thirty
naked Cockneys squatting and smoking under the trees on the banks of
the Serpentine River, even if the thermometer was at 110 deg. at the
moment. Such is custom. A naked Indian looks natural, and a naked
Cockney would look _contra bonos mores_, to say the least of it.

The Indian, whether dressed or undressed, is a modest man--not so
always the Cockney; and there is an air of grandeur and natural
freedom about the savage, which civilized man wants, or which modern
coats, waistcoats, trowsers, and hats, are unquestionably not
calculated to inspire.

Look at the statue of a Roman Consul, or at Apollo Belvidere, in his
scanty clothing, and then you will understand what I mean; or, what is
better, look at your grandmother's picture, with her hair powdered,
stomacher, and farthingale, and then at the Venus de Medicis, and you
will know better, if you are a man of taste. How the American ladies,
who do not admit such words as _naked_ or _legs_ into their
vocabulary, there being an especial act of Congress forbidding females
to use them, get over the difficulty of Indians in their war costume,
has puzzled me not a little. To draw a curtain before an Indian chief
would be rather a venturous affair, as he is a little sensitive; and,
when well painted, thinks himself extremely _comme il faut_, and very
well dressed. But _de gustibus non es