Bobasheela replied to them that he was delighted to hear of their success, and to learn that they had seen the King, an honour he should himself have been very proud of. He told them that he never had seen the King, but that, while travelling in Kentucky many years ago, he was close upon the heels of the King, and so near him that he slept on the same (not bed, but) floor in a cabin where the King had slept, with his feet to the fire, but a short time before. This was something quite new to the Indians, and, like most of Bobasheela’s stories of the Far West, pleased them exceedingly.
Jim, who was a matter-of-fact man, more than one of fancy and imagination, rather sided with Bobasheela, and, turning to his round numbers last added to his book, of “9000 illegitimate children born in Paris in the last year,” asked his friend if he could read it, to which he replied “Yes.” “Well,” said Jim, in broad English, “some fish there, I guess, ha? I no like em Frenchwomen—I no like em: no good! I no like em so many children, no fader!” We all saw by Jim’s eye, and by the agitation commencing, that he had some ideas that were coming out, and at the instant he was turning over on to his back, and drawing up his knees, and evidently keeping his eyes fixed on some object on the ceiling of the room, not to lose the chain of his thoughts, and he continued (not in English, for he spoke more easily in his own language), “I do not like the Frenchwomen. I did not like them at first, when I saw them leading so many dogs. I thought then that they had more dogs than children, but I think otherwise now. We believe that those women, who we have seen leading their dogs around with strings, have put their children away to be raised in the great house of the Government, and they get these little dogs to fill their places, and to suck their breasts when they are full of milk.”
“Hut—tut—tut!” said Melody, “you ill-mannerly fellow! what are you about? You will blow us all up here, Jim, if you utter such sentiments as those. I think the French ladies the finest in the world except the Americans, and if they heard such ideas as those, advanced by us, they would soon drive us out of Paris.”
“Yes,” said Jim (in English again), “yes, I know—I know you like em—may be very good, but you see I no like em!” In his decided dislike, Jim’s excitement was too great for his ideas to flow smoothly any further, and Mr. Melody not disposed to push the argument, the subject was dropped, and preparations made for the day exhibition, the hour for which was at hand.
CHAPTER XXVII.
La Morgue—The Catacombs—The Doctor’s dream—Their great alarm—Visit to the Hippodrome—Jim riding M. Franconi’s horse—Indians in the Woods of Boulogne—Fright of the rabbits—Jim and the Doctor at the Bal Mabille, Champs Elysées—At the Masquerade, Grand Opera—Their opinions and criticisms on them—Frenchwomen at confession in St. Roch—Doctor’s ideas of it—Jim’s speech—“Industrious fleas”—Death of the wife of Little Wolf—Her baptism—Husband’s distress—Her funeral in the Madeleine—Her burial in Montmartre—Council held—Indians resolve to return to America—Preparations to depart in a few days—Bobasheela goes to London to ship their boxes to New York—He returns, and accompanies the Indians to Havre—Indians take leave of Chippehola (the Author)—M. Vattemare accompanies them to Havre—Kindly treated by Mr. Winslow, an American gentleman, at Havre—A splendid dinner, and (Queen’s) Chickabobboo—Indians embark—Taking leave of Bobasheela—Illness of the Author’s lady—His alarm and distress—Her death—Obituary—Her remains embalmed and sent to New York.
After their exhibition was over, and they had taken their dinner and chickabobboo (at the former of which they had had the company of their old friend Bobasheela), their pipe was lit, and the conversation resumed about the French ladies, for whom Jim’s dislike was daily increasing, and with his dislike, his slanderous propensity. He could not divest his mind of the 9000 illegitimate and abandoned little babies that he had seen, and the affection for dogs, which, instead of exposing, they secure with ribbons, and hold one end in their hands, or tie it to their apron-strings. This was a subject so glaring to Jim’s imagination, that he was quite fluent upon it at a moment’s warning, even when standing up or sitting, without the necessity of resorting to his usual and eccentric attitude. This facility caused him to be more lavish of his abuse, and at every interview in the rooms he seemed to be constantly frowning upon the ladies, and studying some new cause for abusing them, and drawing Mr. Melody and the Doctor into debates when they got back to their own apartments. Such was the nature of the debate he had just been waging, and which he had ended in his usual way, with the last word to himself, “I no care; me no like em.”
The subject was here changed, however, by Mr. Melody’s reminding them that this day was the time they had set to visit the Morgue and the Catacombs, for which an order had been procured. These had been the favourite themes for some days; and there had been the greatest impatience expressed to go and see the naked dead bodies of the murdered and felo-de-ses daily stretched out in the one, and the five millions of skulls and other human bones that are laid up like cobhouses under great part of the city. Bobasheela had described to them the wonders of this awful place, which he had been in on a former occasion, and Daniel had read descriptions from books while the Indians had smoked many a pipe; but when the subject was mentioned on this occasion, there were evident proofs instantly shown that some influence had produced a different effect upon their minds, and that they were no longer anxious to go. M. Vattemare, in speaking of the Catacombs a few days before, had said that about a year ago two young men from the West Indies came to Paris, and, getting an order to visit the Catacombs, entered them, and, leaving their guide, strolled so far away that they never got out, and never have been found, but their groans and cries are still often heard under different parts of the city. But the immediate difficulty with the Indians was a dream the Doctor had had the night before, and which he had been relating to them. He had not, he said, dreamed anything about the Catacombs, but he had seen See-catch-e-wee-be, the one-eyed wife of the “fire-eater” (a sorcerer of their tribe), who had followed his track all the way to the great village of the whites (London), and from that to Paris, where he saw her sitting on a bridge over the water; that she gave him a pair of new mocassins of moose-skin, and told him that the Gitchee Manitou (the Great Spirit) had been very kind in not allowing him and Wash-ka-mon-ya (Jim) to go under the ground in the Great Village of the Whites, in England, and their lives were thereby saved. She then went under an old woman’s basket, who was selling apples, and disappeared. He could not understand why he should have such a vision as this the very night before they were to go underground to the Catacombs, unless it was to warn him of the catastrophe that might befall them if they were to make their visit there, as they had designed. They had smoked several pipes upon this information early in the morning, and the chiefs had closely questioned him and also consulted him as their oracle in all such cases, and had unanimously come to the conclusion that these were foreboding prognostications sufficient to decide it to be at least prudent to abandon their project, and thereby be sure to run no hazard.[40]
Mr. Melody and myself both agreed that their resolve placed them on the safe side at all events, and that we thought them wise in making it if they saw the least cause for apprehension. “They could easily run to the river, however, in their drive, and see the other place, the Morgue;” but that could not, on any account, be undertaken, as the two objects had been planned out for the same visit; and, from the Doctor’s dream, it did not appear in the least certain in which of the places they were liable to incur the risk, and therefore they thought it best not to go to either. There was a great deal yet to see above ground, and quite as much as they should be able to see in the little time they had yet to remain there, and which would be much pleasanter to look at than white men’s bones under ground.