THE CHOCTAW INDIANS.
The Vicksburg Sentinel of the 18th ult., referring to this tribe of Indians, has the following:—“The last remnant of this once powerful tribe are now crossing our ferry on their way to their new homes in the far West. To one who, like the writer, has been familiar to their bronze inexpressive faces from infancy, it brings associations of peculiar sadness to see them bidding here a last farewell perhaps to the old hills which gave birth, and are doubtless equally dear to him and them alike. The first playmates of our infancy were the young Choctaw boys of the then woods of Warren county. Their language was once scarcely less familiar to us than our mother-English. We know, we think, the character of the Choctaw well. We knew many of their present stalwart braves in those days of early life when the Indian and white alike forget disguise, but in the unchecked exuberance of youthful feeling show the real character that policy and habit may afterwards so much conceal; and we know that, under the stolid stoic look he assumes, there is burning in the Indian's nature a heart of fire and feeling, and an all-observing keenness of apprehension, that marks and remembers everything that occurs, and every insult he receives. Cunni-at a hah! They are going away! With a visible reluctance which nothing has overcome but the stern necessity they feel impelling them, they have looked their last on the graves of their sires—the scenes of their youth—and have taken up their slow toilsome march, with their household gods among them, to their new home in a strange land. They leave names to many of our rivers, towns and counties; and so long as our State remains, the Choctaws, who once owned most of her soil, will be remembered.”