questions with
great civility. We asked to whom belonged the meadows lying back of the
cabins, on which we saw patches of rye, oats, and potatoes.

"Oh, they belong to the mission; the Indians work them."

"Are they good people, these Indians?"

"Oh yes, good people."

"Do they never drink too much whisky?"

"Well, I guess they drink too much whisky sometimes."

There was a single wigwam in the village, apparently a supplement to one
of the log-cabins. We looked in and saw two Indian looms, from which two
unfinished mats were depending. Mrs. Speight, the wife of the missionary,
told us that, a few days before, the village had been full of these
lodges; that the Indians delighted in them greatly, and always put them up
during the mosquito season; "for a mosquito," said the good lady, "will
never enter a wigwam;" and that lately, the mosquitoes having disappeared,
and the nights having grown cooler, they had taken down all but the one we
saw.

We passed a few minutes in the house of the missionary, to which Mrs.
Speight kindly invited us. She gave a rather favorable account of the
Indians under her husband's charge, but manifestly an honest one, and
without any wish to extenuate the defects of their character.

"There are many excellent persons among them," she said; "they are a kind,
simple, honest people, and some of them are eminently pious."

"Do they follow any regular industry?"

"Many of them are as regularly industrious as the whites, rising early and
continuing at their work in the fields all day. They are not so attentive
as we could wish to the education of their children. It is difficult to
make them send their children regularly to school; they think they confer
a favor in allowing us to instruct them, and if they happen to take a
little offense their children are kept at home. The great evil against
which we have to guard is the love of strong drink. When this is offered
to an Indian, it seems as if it was not in his nature to resist the
temptation. I have known whole congregations of Indians, good Indians,
ruined and brought to nothing by the opportunity of obtaining whisky as
often as they pleased."

We inquired whether the numbers of the people at the mission were
diminishing. She could not speak with much certainty as to this point,
having been only a year and a half at the mission, but she thought there
was a gradual decrease.

"The families of the Indians," she said, in answer to one of