To Mr. Melody and Jeffrey also, and to Daniel, all these scenes were new; and the Indians, therefore, had companions and guides enough, and enough, also, to explain to them the meaning of all they saw.
I had been in Edinburgh on a former occasion, and was now engaged in looking up and conversing with old friends, whose former kindness now claimed my first attention; and in hunting for one of them, I found his office had been removed to another part of the city; and, making my way towards it as well as I could, I was amused at the instructions given to me when I inquired of a man whom I met in the street, and who, it happened, was acquainted with my friend and his location, and who relieved me instantly from further embarrassment by the following most lucid and simple direction, as he pointed down the street:—“You have only to take the first turning to the right, Sir, and it is the top flat at the bottom.” This seemed queer and amusing to me, though not in the least embarrassing, for I had been long enough in Edinburgh before to learn that a “flat” was a “story” or floor; and long enough in London to know that one end of a street is the “top” and the other the “bottom.”
To a stranger, however, such an answer as the one I received might have been exceedingly bewildering, and increased his difficulties rather than diminished them.
The old law maxim of “Cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad cœlum,” would scarcely apply to real estate in the city of Edinburgh; for houses are not only rented by floors or flats, but titles, in fee simple and by deed, are given for floor above floor, oftentimes in the same house; a custom that is difficult to account for, unless from the curious fact that so many of the houses in Edinburgh are built so high, by the sides of hills and precipitous ledges, that an adjoining tenant may oftentimes step from the surface of his cultivated fields into the tenth or twelfth story of his neighbour’s back windows, and, by this singular mode of conveyance, able to walk into a comfortable dwelling without the expense of building, and without curtailing the area of his arable ground. By thus getting, for a trifle, the fee simple for the upper story, and of course the privilege of building as many stories on the top of it as he should require, when he could afford the means to do it, his neighbour below was called a “flat.” The law, which is generally cruel to most flats, relinquished one of its oldest and most sacred maxims, to support the numerous claims of this kind which the side-hills and ledges in the building-grounds of the city had produced; and so numerous were the flats, and so frequent the instances of this new sort of tenure, that the term “flat” has become carelessly and erroneously applied to all the floors or stories of buildings in Edinburgh that are to be let or sold separately from the rest of the house.
It was arranged that our stay in Edinburgh was to be but for a few days; and, with this view, we had begun to see its sights pretty rapidly during the two first since our arrival. Many fashionable parties were calling on the Indians in their apartments, and leaving them presents; and at their second night’s exhibition the room was crowded to great excess with the fashion and nobility of the city. The Indians discovered at once that they never before were in the midst of audiences so intellectual and genteel. There was nothing of low and vulgar appearance in any part of the room; but all had the stamp of refinement and gentility, which stimulated their pride, and they did their utmost.
In the midst of their amusements on that evening there was a general call upon me from the ladies, to explain why the little “pappoose in its cradle” was not shown, as announced in the bills; to which I was sorry to reply that it was so ill that it could not be seen. This having been interpreted to the Indians by Jeffrey, and also heard by the Little Wolf’s wife, the mother of the child, and then nursing it in the room behind their platform, she suddenly arranged it, sick as it was, in its beautifully ornamented little cradle, and, having slung it upon her back, and thrown her pictured robe around her, walked into the room, to the surprise of the Indians, and to the great satisfaction of the gentlemen as well as the ladies of the whole house. Her appearance was such, when she walked across the platform, that it called forth applause from every quarter. Many were the ladies who advanced from their seats to the platform, to examine so interesting a subject more closely; and many presents were bestowed upon the mother, who was obliged to retire again with it, from the feeble state it was then in. This fine little child, of ten or twelve months old, and the manner in which it was carried in its Indian cradle upon its mother’s back, had formed one of the most interesting parts of the exhibition the whole time that the Indians were in London, and since they had left. Its illness now becoming somewhat alarming, with the increasing illness also of the Roman Nose, was adding to the old Doctor’s alarms, growing out of the planting of the little trees, which he had insisted was ominous of something that would happen, but what, he did not attempt to predict.
He was daily prescribing and attending his patients, but, being without the roots which he uses in his own country, he was evidently much at a loss; and the ablest advice was procured for both of the patients while in that city.
The Doctor, on this occasion, (though somewhat depressed in spirits, owing to his superstitious forebodings about the sick, seeing such a vast concourse of ladies present, and all encouraging him with their applause as he made his boasts in the eagle dance,) made an effort for a sensation, as he did on his first night in London. When the dance was done, he advanced to the edge of the platform, and, with his usual quizzical look and smile from under his headdress of buffalo horns and eagle quills, addressed the audience. His speech was translated by Jeffrey, and, though it was highly applauded, fell much short of the effect amongst the ladies which he had produced on former occasions. He sat down somewhat in a disappointed mood, when his cruel companion, Jim, told him that his attempt “was an entire failure, and that he would never take with the ladies in Edinburgh.” The old man replied to him that he had better try himself, and, if he would lie flat on his back and make a speech, perhaps he might please the ladies of Edinburgh. After another dance, and amidst the roar of applause, old Neu-mon-ya (the War-chief) arose, and, in the best of his humour, said,—
“My friends, I thank the Great Spirit who conducted us safe across the Great Salt Lake that His eye is still upon us, and that He has led us to your city. No city that we have seen is so beautiful as yours; and we have seen a great deal of it as we have been riding in our carriage to-day. (‘How, how, how!’)
“My friends, the Great Spirit has made us with red skins, and, as all our modes of life are different from yours, our dances are quite different, and we are glad that they do not give any offence when we dance them. Our dresses, which are made of skins, are not so fine and beautiful as yours, but they keep us warm, and that we think is the great thing. (‘How, how, how!’ Applause and ‘Hear, hear.’)