“My friends, we have been to-day to see your great fort. We were much pleased with it, and the ‘big gun;’ we think it a great pity it is broken. We saw the room where the king of England was born, and we feel proud that we have been in it. (‘How, how, how!’ Much laughter.)
“My friends, we saw there the crowns of your kings and queens as we were told. This we don’t think we quite understand yet, but we think Chippehola will tell us all that,—it may be all right. (Laughter and ‘Hear.’)
“My friends, we went to another great house where we saw many things that pleased us—we saw the bed in which your Queen slept: this was very pleasing to us all; it was much nearer than we got to the Queen of England. (Great laughter.)
“My friends, this is all I have to say.” (‘Bravo!’)
After this night’s exhibition, and the sights of the day which had pleased them so much, there was subject enough for a number of pipes of conversation; and to join them in this Mr. Melody and I had repaired to their room, where we found them in the midst of a grand feast of ducks, which they said it was always necessary to give when they entered a new country, and which in this case they had expended some of their own money in buying. Daniel and Jeffrey were seated with them, and we were obliged to sit down upon the floor, and take each a duck’s leg at least, and a glass of the Queen’s chickabobboo (champagne), which had been added at the expense of Daniel and Jeffrey, as the ordinary chickabobboo did not answer the object of a feast of that description. After the feast was over, and the War-chief had returned thanks to the Great Spirit, according to their invariable custom, the pipe was lit, and then the gossip for the evening commenced. They had already learned from Daniel that there were jails and poorhouses here as in other places, and were now remarking that they had not yet seen any of the “good people” here, and began to fear they had lost all chance of meeting any of them again. They seemed to be much at a loss to know how it was that here were the crowns and swords of kings and queens, and the houses they had lived in, and the beds they had slept on, and that there are none of them left. They believed, though they were not yet quite certain of it, that this country must have been conquered by England. These inquiries were all answered as nearly as I could explain them; and the result was, that “it was a great pity, in their estimations, that so fine a country and people should not continue to have a king of their own to put on the crown again, instead of leaving it in the castle to be shut up in a dark room.” They seemed to think it “very curious that the Scotch people should like to keep the crown for people to look at, when they could not keep the king to wear it;” and they thought “it would be far better to take out the beautiful red and green stones and make watch-seals of them, and melt the gold into sovereigns, so that some of it might get into poor people’s pockets, than to keep it where it is, just to be looked at and to be talked of.”
They thought “the crown was much more beautiful than the one they saw in London belonging to the Queen, and which was kept in the great prison where they saw so many guns, spears, &c.”[32] The joker, Jim, thought that “if he were the Queen he should propose to swap, for he thought this decidedly the handsomest crown.” The old Doctor said, that “if he were the Queen of England he should be very well suited to wear the one they had seen in London, and he would send and get this one very quickly, and also the beautiful sword they saw, for Prince Albert to wear.” In this happy and conjectural mood we left them, receiving from Daniel further accounts of the events and history of the country which they had seen so many evidences of during their visits in the early part of the day.
Our stay in this beautiful city was but four days, contemplating another visit to it in a short time; and at the close of that time the party took a steamer for Dundee, with a view to make a visit of a few days to that town, and afterwards spend a day or two in Perth. I took the land route to Dundee, and, arriving there before the party, had announced their arrival and exhibition to take place on the same evening. An accident however that happened on the steamer compelled it to put back to Edinburgh, and their arrival was delayed for a couple of days.
During this voyage there was an occurrence on board of the steamer, which was related to me by Mr. Melody and Daniel, which deserves mention in this place. It seems that on board of the steamer, as a passenger, was a little girl of twelve years of age and a stranger to all on board. When, on their way, the captain was collecting his passage-money on deck, he came to the little girl for her fare, who told him she had no money, but that she expected to meet her father in Dundee, whom she was going to see, and that he would certainly pay her fare if she could find him. The captain was in a great rage, and abused the child for coming on without the money to pay her fare, and said that he should not let her go ashore, but should hold her a prisoner on board, and take her back to Edinburgh with him. The poor little girl was frightened, and cried herself almost into fits. The passengers, of whom there were a great many, all seemed affected by her situation, and began to raise the money amongst them to pay her passage, giving a penny or two apiece, which, when done, amounted to about a quarter of the sum required. The poor little girl’s grief and fear still continued, and the old Doctor, standing on deck, wrapped in his robe, and watching all these results, too much touched with pity for her situation, went down in the fore-cabin where the rest of the party were, and, relating the circumstances, soon raised eight shillings, one shilling of which, the Little Wolf, after giving a shilling himself, put into the hand of his little infant, then supposed to be dying, that its dying hand might do one act of charity, and caused it to drop it into the Doctor’s hand with the rest. With the money the Doctor came on deck, and, advancing, offered it to the little girl, who was frightened and ran away. Daniel went to the girl and called her up to the Doctor, assuring her there was no need of alarm, when the old Doctor put the money into her hand, and said to her, through the interpreter, and in presence of all the passengers, who were gathering around, “Now go to the cruel captain and pay him the money, and never again be afraid of a man because his skin is red; but be always sure that the heart of a red man is as good and as kind as that of a white man. And when you are in Dundee, where we are all going, if you do not find your father as you wish, and are amongst strangers, come to us, wherever we shall be, and you shall not suffer; you shall have enough to eat, and, if money is necessary, you shall have more.”
Such acts of kindness as this, and others that have and will be named, that I was a witness to while those people were under my charge, require no further comment than to be made known: they carry their own proof with them that the Doctor was right in saying that “the hearts of red men are as good as those of the whites.”
As I was in anxious expectation of their arrival, I met the party with carriages when they landed, and I was pained to learn that the babe of the Little Wolf, which he had wrapped and embraced in his arms, was dying, and it breathed its last at the moment they entered the apartments that were prepared for them. My heart was broken to see the agony that this noble fellow was in, embracing his little boy, and laying him down in the last gasp of death, in a foreign land, and amongst strangers. We all wept for the heartbroken parents, and also for the dear little “Corsair,” as he was called (from the name of the steamer on which he was born, on the Ohio river in the United States). We had all become attached to the little fellow, and his death caused a gloom amongst the whole party. The old Doctor looked more sad than ever, and evidently beheld the symptoms of Roman Nose as more alarming than they had been.