I met him here one day, however, on my entering, where he had been for some time waiting without acting the beau, for any one, which was quite an unusual thing. He called me aside, and told me there was a chance for us to make a sensation if I felt disposed to join him in it, and to make a great deal of amusement for others as well as a dish of fun for ourselves—this was, to assume the Indian costume and throw ourselves into the Caledonian ball, which was to be given at Almack’s that evening, and for which he had procured the tickets. For the information of those who never have seen one of those annual balls, I will briefly say that they are decidedly the most brilliant and splendid affairs that can be seen in London—presenting the most gorgeous display of costumes and diamonds that the world can exhibit, short of royalty itself. It was but for Mr. Murray to propose—the finest costumes were taken from the Walls of my Room—weapons, head-dresses, scalping-knives, scalps, &c.—and placed in one of the chambers of the Egyptian Hall: and three o’clock was the hour appointed for Mr. Murray to meet me again, to fit us with our respective dresses, and go through a sort of rehearsal in our songs, dances, &c., which we might be called upon to enact during the evening, and in which it would be a great pity for us Indian knowing ones to make any mistake.
Mr. Murray was punctual at the hour of three; and having proposed that my nephew, Burr Catlin, a young man of 21 years and then living with me, should be of the party, we entered the dressing-room, and were soon suited with our respective dresses and took our weapons in hand. My nephew, Burr, being six feet two inches, with a bold and Indian outline of face, was arrayed in a Sioux dress; and it was instantly agreed that he should be put forward as the Big Sioux—the Great Chief Wan-ne-ton. He happened to wear the identical head-dress of that distinguished chief, which was made of war-eagle’s quills and ermine skins. He was to hold himself entirely mute upon his dignity, according to the customs of the country. I was dressed as a warrior of the Sac tribe, with head ornaments of red and white quills of the war-eagle, denoting, according to the custom of the country, my readiness for war or for peace. Mr. Murray had chosen a dress less rich, and more light and easy to act in, and a head-dress that was made much like a wig of long black hair spreading over his shoulders and falling down nearly to the calves of his legs, surmounted by a solitary eagle’s quill—giving himself more the appearance of a “Bois Brûlé,” as they are termed on the Indian frontiers of America—a race of half-castes, who are generally used as interpreters, speaking a little French and some “Americaine” (as they call the English language). These curious personages are generally the spokesmen for all parties of Indians travelling abroad or delegations to neighbouring tribes. This character exactly suited Mr. Murray, as he spoke the French and the German, and also a little of two or three Indian tongues; and, in the position of an interpreter for the party, he would be the vehicle of communication between the two chiefs and his numerous friends and relations, both ladies and gentlemen, whom he was to meet in every part of the Rooms.
The least discerning will easily see that he was most ingeniously laying his plans for a great deal of amusement; and if my readers could have seen the manner in which he was dressed out and metamorphosed for the occasion, they would have insured him, at a low premium, fun enough on that evening to have lasted him for a week. Having arrayed our persons in the respective costumes we had agreed upon, and arranged the different characters which we were to sustain, I took the Indian drum or tambour in my hand, and to the music of that and the chief’s rattle, and our combined voices in concert in an Indian song, we practised the war-dance and scalp-dance of the Sioux, until we agreed that we could “do them” beyond (at least) the reach of civilized criticisms, in case we should be called upon to dance, which it was agreed should be at first met as a condescension that the chiefs could not submit to, but which it was understood we should yield to if the measure was to be very strenuously urged. Matters being thus arranged, we adjourned until nine o’clock, when we were to meet again, and make our final preparations for our début in the ballroom.
At nine we were drawing on our buckskin leggings, and mocassins fringed with scalp-locks and ornamented with porcupine quills of various dyes; our shirts or tuniques were also of deerskins richly ornamented, and their sleeves fringed, like the leggings, with locks of the hair of Indian victims slain in battle. We painted our faces and hands of a copper colour, in close imitation of the colour of the Indian, and over and across that, to make the illusion more complete, gave occasional bold daubs of vermilion and green or black paint, so that, with our heavy and richly garnished robes of the buffalo, thrown over our shoulders and trailing on the floor as we walked, with tomahawks and scalping knives in our belts, our shields of buffalo hides on our arms, with our quivers slung and our bows and arrows clenched in our hands, we were prepared for the sensation we were in a few minutes to make. We stood and smiled at each others’ faces a few moments in curious anticipation, practising over each other’s names, which we had almost forgotten to take. And having decided that the great chief was Wan-ne-ton, that the warrior’s name was Na-see-us-kuk, and that of the interpreter Pah-ti-coo-chee, we seated ourselves in a carriage, and in three minutes were being ushered through the crowded halls leading to the splendid and brilliant array, into the midst of which a long Indian step or two more placed us!
There was a little cruelty in the suddenness of our approach, and a simultaneous yell which we gave, innocently mistaking the effect it might have upon the nerves of ladies standing near us, several of whom, on catching the sound and then the sight of us, gave sudden shrieks far more piercing and startling than the savage war-whoop that had been sounded over their shoulders. By this time we formed the centre of attraction in the room, and we stood in so dense a crowd to be gazed at, that nothing could be scanned of us lower down than our chins and shoulders. The big Sioux chief, however, who was a head taller than the crowd around him, flourishing his enormous head-dress of eagle’s quills, was quietly rolling his eagle eyes around over the multitude, who were getting so satisfactory a view of him that it eased us a little from the rush that otherwise would have been upon us.
We had made our entry into this world of fashion and splendour entirely unexpected by any one, and of course unknown to all. Here was truly a splendid field for my friend Mr. Murray, and the time for his operations had now arrived. All questions (and there were many, and in various languages) put to the big chief or the warrior were, by the understanding, answered only by frowns; and the interrogations referred to Pah-ti-coo-chee, the interpreter. This brought him at once into great demand, and he replied at first in Indian, and then strained a few distorted words of French and German into his replies, by which he made himself partially understood. Lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses, and princes and princesses of his acquaintance were in the room, and now gazing at his copper colour, bedaubed with red and black paint, and patiently listening to and endeavouring to translate his garbled French and German and Indian for some description of the grand personages he had in tow, without dreaming of the honourable gentleman upon whose visage they were actually looking. From a custom of the Prairie country, which he had wisely thought of, he carried a rifle-bullet in his mouth whilst he was talking, and his voice was thus as much a stranger as his face.
Amongst the gazers on, and those who questioned him, were many of his most familiar friends; and even his own brother, the Earl of Dunmore, drew some marvellous tales from him before he made himself known, which he did at last to him and a few others of his friends, that he might the better crack the good jokes he had come to enjoy.
The crowd, by this time, had completely wedged us in, so that there was no apparent possibility of moving from our position, yet it was not a crowd that was insupportable: it was, at least for a while, a pleasure to be thus invested, as we were, by silks and satins, by necklaces of diamonds and necks as fair as alabaster, by gold lace, and golden epaulettes, chapeaux and small swords; but the weight of our bison robes at length brought us to the expedient that our ingenious interpreter put forth, which gained us temporary relief, and gave us locomotive powers by which we could show ourselves at full length, and occasionally escape investigations when they became too close for our good friend or ourselves.
It was a lucky thought of our interpreter, which he divulged to some of his confidential friends much to our advantage, that the paints which the Indians used were indelible colours, and he regretted to learn that some of the ladies had injured their costly dresses by being in too close contact with us. And again he feared that some of the scalp-locks on the dresses of the chief and the warrior were not quite dry, as they were fresh from the country where they had just been at war with the Sacs and Foxes. This had a delightful effect, and we were not again in danger of suffocation, though the space we had to move in was limited enough during the rest of the night for our warm dresses and our enormous buffalo robes.
The introductions I had on that night, to lords and ladies, and to dukes and duchesses, as Na-see-us-huk, a famous warrior of the Sacs, and my nephew, as Wan-ne-ton, the great Sioux Chief, were honours certainly that he or I could never have aspired to under any other names; and our misfortune was, that their duration was necessarily as brief as the names and titles we had assumed.