Several weeks were spent in their daily exhibitions in Vauxhall, and, as one can easily imagine, much to the satisfaction of the Indians, and, I believe, much to the amusement of the visitors who came to see them. Within the last week of their exhibition I admitted from charity schools 32,000 children, with their teachers, free of charge; to all of whom I gave instructive lectures on the position of the tribe, their condition, their customs and character: and explained also the modes, which were acted out by 14 living Indians before their eyes; and but one of these schools ever communicated with me after, to thank me for the amusement or instruction; which might not have been a curious omission, but I thought it was, at the time.
With the amusements at Vauxhall ended my career in London; and contemplating a tour to several of the provincial towns, in company with the Indians, I took my little family to Brighton, and having left them comfortably situated and provided for, I joined the party in Birmingham, where they had arrived and taken lodgings. The idea of moving about pleased the Indians very much, and I found them all in high spirits when I arrived, delighted to have found that the chickabobboo was the same there as in London, and was likely to continue much the same in all parts of the kingdom to which they should go. There was an unfortunate offset to this pleasing intelligence, however, which seemed to annoy them very much, and of which they were making bitter complaint. On leaving London for the country, they had spent some days, and exercised all their ingenuity, in endeavouring to clean their beautiful skin dresses, which the soot of London had sadly metamorphosed; and on arriving in Birmingham they had the extreme mortification to anticipate, from appearances, an equal destruction of that soft and white surface which they give to their skin dresses, and which (though it had been entirely lost sight of during the latter part of their stay in London) had, with great pains, been partially restored for a more pleasing appearance in the country.
Though I had several times passed through Birmingham, and on one occasion stopped there a day or two, I entered this time a total stranger, and in rather a strange and amusing manner. On my journey there by the railway, I had fallen in company and conversation with a very amusing man, who told me he was a commercial traveller, and we had had so much amusing chat together, that when we arrived, at a late hour at night, I was quite happy to follow his advice as to the quarters we were to take up in the town, at least for the night. He said it was so late that the hotels would be closed, and that the commercial inn, where he was going, was the only place open, and I should find there everything to make me comfortable, and a very nice sort of people. We took an omnibus for town, and as there was only room for one inside, he got upon the top, and so we went off; and getting, as I supposed, into or near the middle of the town, the bus stopped at a “commercial inn,” which was open, and lighted up in front, and a number of passengers getting out, and others down from the top, I was seeing to get my luggage in safe, and the omnibus drove off with my jolly companion still on the top; or this I presumed, as he was not left behind. My only alternative now was, to make the best of it, and be as comfortable as I could; so I got into the “commercial room,” and having been told that I should have a bed, I felt quite easy, and told the plump, tidy little landlady, who was waiting upon me herself, that I would have a mug of ale and a biscuit, and then be ready to go to bed. As she turned round to execute my command, she met a party consisting of three young women, and a man leading one of them on his arm, and in his hands carrying three or four carpet-bags and band-boxes, just got down from the same bus, and entering the inn on the same errand that I was on. “ Madam,” said he, “what have you?”—“Hevery-think, sir, that you can wish.” “Well, one thing we must have, that is, two beds.”—“They are ready, sir.” “Well, ladies,” said he, “suppose we take a drop of wet.” This agreed to, the “wet” was brought in in a moment, and also my mug of ale.
A very genteel-looking little man whom I had seen in the same carriage with me, and now sitting in the room before me, with his carpet-bag by the side of him, and his umbrella in his hand, addressed me, “Stranger, you’ll allow me.”—“Certainly, sir.” “I think I heard you tell a gentleman in the carriage that you were from New York.”—“Yes, I did so.” “I’m from there. I left there four months ago, and I’ve gone ahead, or I’ll be shot. How long have you bin from there, sir?”—“About five years.” “Hell! there’s been great fixins there in that time; you’d scarcely know New York now; look here, isn’t this the darndest strange country you ever saw in your life? rot ’em, I can’t get ’em to do anything as I want it done; they are the greatest set of numskulls I ever saw; now see, that little snub of a petticoat that’s just gone out there, I suppose she is cock of the walk here too; she’s been all civility to you, but I’ve had a hell of a blow up with her; I was in here not five minutes before you by the watch, and I spoke for a bed and a mug of ale; she brought me the ale, and I told her to bring me a tumbler and a cracker, and she turned upon me in a hell of a flare-up. She said she was very much obliged to me for my himpudence, she didn’t allow crackers in her house, and as for ’tumblers,' they were characters she never had anything to do with, thank God; they were a low set of creatures, and they never got any favour about her house. She wanted to know what quarter I came from. I told her I wasn’t from any quarter, I was from half—half the globe, by God, and the better half too—wasn’t I right, stranger? She said her house was a hinn, to be sure, but she didn’t hentertain blackguards, so there was my hale, and I might drink it hup and be hoff, and be anged, and then she cut her string quicker than lightning; now isn’t she a hard un? I don’t suppose there is another house open in this darned outlandish place at this time of the night; what the devil shall I do? you are fixed snug enough.” “Oh, well, never mind,” said I, “be quite easy, it is settled in a moment,”—as I rung the bell. The tidy little landlady came in again, and I said, “This gentleman will have a glass if you please, and a biscuit.”—“Hif he was a gentleman, Sir,” said she, “but I assure you, Sir, is beaviour as'nt been much like it.” “Well, well,” said I, “never mind it now, you will be good friends after a little better understanding—he comes from a country where a glass is a tumbler and a biscuit is a cracker: now, if you had known this, there would have been no difficulty between you.” “Ho, that I hadmit, but it’s very hodd.” “Never mind that, you will find him a good fellow, and give him his bed.” “Is bed, Sir?—hit’s too late; it’s been hoccupied hever since you entered the ouse—the only chance his for you and im to turn hin.” “Well,” said I, “never mind, he and I will manage that; it is after midnight, and I suppose the other houses are all shut?” “I’ll hanswer for that: hif you are ready, gentlemen, I’ll show you hup.” My friend kept by my side, but knowing the gloomy fate that awaited him if he got into the street again, he kept entirely quiet until the little landlady was down stairs. “There,” said he, “isn’t she a roarer? I could have settled the hash with her myself in a twinkling, if she had only let me have said five words, but her tongue run so slick that I couldn’t get the half of a word in edgewise.”
My new acquaintance and I talked a little more before we “turned in,” but much more after we had got into bed. He could command words and ideas fast enough when he was on his feet; but I found in him something of Jim’s peculiarity, that he thought much faster and stronger when on his back; and for half an hour or so I reaped the benefit of the improvement. How long I heard him, and how much he actually said, I never could tell exactly; but what he said before I went to sleep I always distinctly recollected, and a mere sentence or two of it was as follows:—“Well, stranger, here we are: this is droll, ain’t it? ‘hodd,’ as the landlady would call it. I’d a been in the streets to-night as sure as catgut if it hadn’t been for you. God knows I am obliged to you. Youv'e got a sort o’ way o’ gettin' along ur' these ere darned, ignorant, stupid sort o’ beings. I can’t do it: dod rot 'em! they put me out at every step; they are so eternally ignorant; did you ever see the like? I suppose you are going to stop awhile in Birmingham?” “A few days.” “I shall be here a week, and be bright and early enough to get into a decenter house than this is, and be glad to join you. I was told in London that the Ioway Indians went on here yesterday. I’m damned anxious to meet them: you’ve seen them, I suppose?” “Yes, I saw them in London.” “Well, I did not; I was just too late; but I must go and look 'em up to-morrow: they know me.” “Then you have seen them'?” “Oh, dam 'em, yes: I’ve known 'em for several years: they’ll be at home with me at once. I’ve run buffaloes with White-Cloud, the chief, many and many a time. He and I have camped out more than once. They are a fine set of fellows. I’m going to spend some time with them in Birmingham. I know 'em like a book. Oh yes, they’ll know me quick enough. I was all through their country. I went clean up Lake Superior, nearly to Hudson’s Bay. I saw all the Chippeways, and the Black-feet, and the Crows, Catlin’s old friends. By the way, Catlin, I’m told, is with these Indians, or was, when they were in London—he’s all sorts of a man.” “Have you seen him?” “Seen him? why, dam it, I raised him, as the saying is: I have known him all my life. I met him a number of times in the Prairie country; he’s a roarer.” This was about the last that I distinctly recollected before going to sleep; and the next morning my vigilant and wide-awake little bedfellow, being about the room a little before me, where my name was conspicuous on my carpet bag and writing-desk, &c., had from some cause or other thought it would be less trouble and bother to wend his way amongst these “stupid and ignorant beings” alone, than to encounter the Indians and Mr. Catlin, and endeavour to obliterate the hasty professions he had made; and therefore, when I came down and called for breakfast for two, the landlady informed me that my companion had paid his bill and left at an early hour. I was rather sorry for this, for he was quite an amusing little man, and I have never heard of him since.
I found the dumpy little landlady kindly disposed, and she gave me a very good breakfast, amusing me a great deal with anecdotes of the party who called for “a little bit of wet;” she informed me they were a wedding-party, and the man who had the lady on his arm was the bride-groom. While waiting for my breakfast I was much amused with some fun going on in the street before the window. It seems that the house directly opposite had been taken by a couple of tidy-looking young women who were sisters, and that, having established a millinery business on the lower floor, they had several apartments which they were anxious to underlet in order to assist them in paying their heavy rent. Young gentlemen are everywhere in this country considered the most desirable lodgers, as they give less trouble than any others, are less of the time at home, and generally pay best. These young adventurers had been therefore anxious to get such a class of lodgers in their house, and had, the day before, employed a sign-painter to paint a conspicuous board, in bright and glaring letters, which was put up on a post erected in the little garden in front of their house, near the gate. The announcement ran, when the young ladies retired to bed, “Lodgings for single gentlemen”—a customary and very innocent way of offering apartments; but owing to the cruelty of some wag during the night it was found in the morning, to the great amusement of the collected crowd, to read, “Longings for single gentlemen.” How long this continued to amuse the passers-by, or how it might have affected the future prospects of the poor girls, I cannot of course tell, as I forthwith proceeded to a more pleasant part of the town. Birmingham I found on further acquaintance to be one of the pleasantest towns I visited in the kingdom, and its hotels and streets generally very different from those into which my commercial travelling acquaintance had that night led me.
Mr. Melody had all things prepared for our exhibition when I arrived, having taken the large hall in the Shakspeare Buildings, and also procured rooms for the Indians to sleep in in the same establishment.
The Indians and myself were kindly received in Birmingham, for which, no doubt, they, like myself, will long feel grateful. The work which I had published had been extensively read there, and was an introduction of the most pleasing kind to me, and the novelty and wildness of the manners of the Indians enough to ensure them much attention.
In their exhibition room, which was nightly well attended, we observed many of the Society of Friends, whom we could always easily distinguish by their dress, and also more easily by the kind interest they expressed and exhibited, whenever opportunity occurred, for the welfare of those poor people. The Indians, with their native shrewdness and sagacity, at once discovered from their appearance and manner that they were a different class of people from any they had seen, and were full of inquiries about them. I told them that these were of the same society as their kind friend Dr. Hodgkin, whom they so often saw in London, who is at the head of the Aborigines Protection Society, who was the first person in England to invite them to his table, and whom the reader will recollect they called Ichon-na Wap-pa(the straight coat); that they were the followers of the great William Penn, whom I believed they had heard something about. They instantly pronounced the name of “Penn, Penn,” around the room, convincing me, as nearly every tribe I ever visited in the remotest wildernesses in America had done, that they had heard, and attached the greatest reverence to, the name of Penn.
These inquiries commenced in their private room one evening after the exhibition had closed, and they had had an interview in the exhibition room with several ladies and gentlemen of that society, and had received from them some very valuable presents. They all agreed that there was something in their manners and in their mode of shaking hands with them that was more kind and friendly than anything they had met amongst other people; and this I could see had made a sensible impression upon them.