“Yes, Sir, the bone was broken, hand it ad to be hamputated.”
“It must have been very painful!”
“Ah, hit urt a little; though as for the pain of hamputation, I woudn’t give a penny for it: but the loss of my leg is worth a great deal to me; it’s hall ealed up now, Sir, though it’s very hunandy.”
This simple and unfortunate man and his very pretty little wife left me, and I repaired to the Indians’ rooms in St. James’s Street, where I found them finishing their suppers and taking their chickabobboo. Here was in readiness a long catalogue of the adventures of the day—of things they had seen in their drive, &c., to be talked over, as well as the cruel jokes to be listened to, which they were all passing upon the poor Doctor, for the sudden failure of his prospects of digging roots in the fair dame’s garden.
There were many subjects of an amusing nature talked over by these droll fellows during the pipes of this evening, and one of the themes for their comments was the drive which we had given them in two open carriages through Hyde Park, at the fashionable hour. They decided that “the Park, along the banks of the Serpentine, reminded them of the prairies on the shores of the Skunk and the Cedar rivers in their own country; and in fact, that some parts of it were almost exactly the same.” They were amused to see many of the ladies lying down as they rode in their carriages; and also, that many of the great chiefs, pointed out to them riding on horseback, “didn’t know how to ride—that they were obliged to have a man riding a little behind them to pick them up if they should fall off.”
Jim, who was in an unusual good humour this evening, either from the effects of his chickabobboo or from some fine present he might have received in the room, seemed to be the chief “spokesman” for the evening, and for the purpose of assisting his imagination or aiding his voice had laid himself flat upon his back upon his robe, which was spread upon the floor. His loquacity was such, that there was little else for any of us to do than sit still and excessively laugh at the dryness of his jokes, and his amusing remarks upon the things they had seen as they were taking their ride on this and past mornings. He had now got, as has been said, a facility of using occasional words of English, and he brought them in once in a while with the most amusing effect.
He said they had found another place where there were two more Ojibbeway Indians (as he called them), Lascars. sweeping the streets; and it seems that after passing them they had ordered their bus to stop, and called them up and shook hands, and tried to talk with them. They could speak a few words in English, and so could Jim: he was enabled to ask them if they were Ojibbeways, and they to answer, “No, they were Mussulmen.” “Where you live?” “Bombay.” “You sweep dirt in the road?” “Yes,” “Dam fool!” Jim gathered a handful of pennies and gave them, and they drove off.
It seemed that in their drive this day, Jim and the Doctor had both rode outside, which had afforded to Jim the opportunity of seeing to advantage, for the first time. the immense number of “gin palaces,” as they passed along the streets; and into which they could look from the top of the bus, and distinctly see the great number of large kegs, and what was going on inside. The Doctor had first discovered them in his numerous outside rides, and as he was not quite sure that he had rightly understood them, hearing that the English people detested drunkards so much, he had not ventured to say much about them. He had been anxious for the corroboration of Jim’s sharper eyes, and during this morning they had fully decided that the hundreds of such places they were in all directions passing, were places where people went to drink chickabobboo, and they were called chickabobbooags. The conversation of Jim and the Doctor enlarged very much on this grand discovery, and the probable effects they had upon the London people. They had seen many women, and some of them with little babies in their arms, standing and lying around them, and they were quite sure that some of those women were drunk. Jim said that he and the Doctor had counted two or three hundred in one hour. Some of the party told him he had made his story too big, so he said he and the Doctor next day would mark them down on a stick. Jim said there was one street they came through, where he hoped they would never drive them again, for it made their hearts sore to see so many women and little children all in dirty rags: they had never seen any Indians in the wilderness half so poor, and looking so sick. He was sure they had not half enough to eat. He said he thought it was wrong to send missionaries from this to the Indian country, when there were so many poor creatures here who want their help, and so many thousands as they saw going into the chickabobbooags to drink fire-water.
He said they came through a very grand street, where every thing looked so fine and splendid in the windows, and where the ladies looked so beautiful in their carriages, many of them lying quite down, and seemed as if they were very rich and happy; and some of them lay in their carriages, that were standing still, so as to let them read their books. And in this same grand street they saw a great many fine-looking ladies walking along the sides of the roads, and looking back at the gentlemen as they passed by them. These ladies, he and the Doctor observed, looked young, and all looked very smiling, and they thought they wanted husbands. A great deal, Jim said, they had seen of these ladies as they were every day looking out of their own windows in St. James’s Street. A great many of these women, he said, behave very curious; he said he didn’t know for certain but some of these might be chimegotches. This excited a tremendous laugh with the Doctor and several of the young men, and made some of the women smile, though it was rather hushed by the chiefs as an imprudent word for Jim to apply in the present case. This did little, however, to arrest the effects of Jim’s joke, and he continued with some further ingenious embellishments, which set the chiefs into a roar, and Jim then kept the field. Melody and myself laughed also, not at the joke, for we did not understand it, but at their amusement, which seemed to be very great, and led us to inquire the meaning of chimegotches. “Fish,” said Jim, “fish!” We were still at a loss for the meaning of his joke; and our ignorance being discovered, as well as our anxiety to know, they proposed that Jim should relate the story of Chimegotches, or “Fish.” Some one was charging and lighting the pipe in the mean time, which was handed to him, as he rose and took a whiff or two, and then, resuming his former position, flat upon his back, he commenced—
“When the great Mississippi river was a young and beautiful stream, and its waters were blue and clear, and the Ioways lived on its banks, more than a thousand snows since, Net-no-qua, a young man of great beauty, and son of a great chief, complained that he was sick. His appetite left him, and his sleep was not good. His eyes, which had been like those of the war-eagle, grew soft and dim, and sunk deep in his head. His lips, that had been the music for all about him, had become silent; his breast, that had always been calm, was beating, and deep sighs showed that something was wrong within. O-za-pa, whose medicine was great, and to whom all the plants and roots of the prairies were known, was quite lost; he tried all, and all was in vain; the fair son of the chief was wasting away, as each sweet breath that he breathed went off upon the winds, and never came back to him. Thus did Net-no-qua, the son of Ti-ah-ka, pine away. The medicine man told him at last that there was but one thing that could cure him, and that was attended with great danger. In his dream a small prairie snake had got upon a bush, and its light, which was that of the sun, opened his eyes to its brightness, and his ears to its words: ‘The son of Ti-ah-ka grieves—this must not be—his breast must be quiet, and his thoughts like the quiet waters of the gliding brook; the son of Ti-ah-ka will grow like the firm rocks of the mountain, and the chiefs and warriors, who will descend from him, will grow like the branches of the spreading oak.’ The medicine man said to the son of Ti-ah-ka that he must now take a small piece of the flesh from his side for his bait, and in a certain cove on the bank of the river, the first fish that he caught was to be brought to his wigwam alone, under his robe, and she, whose blood would become warm, would be to him like the vine that clings around and through the branches of the oak: that then his eyes would soon shine again like those of the eagle; the music of his lips would soon return, and his troubled breast would again become calm, his appetite would be good, and his sleep would be sweet and quiet like that of a babe.