“Well—my story is now told. I have only to say, that I was taken at last, for one of my crimes, tried, convicted, and sent to this place. But I shall stay here a short time only. My health is gone—though scarce eighteen years of age; my constitution is wasted away, and the lamp of life is near going out forever!”
Here the poor youth sunk down upon his bed, completely exhausted. He closed his eyes, and by the flickering light of a remote lamp, his face seemed as pallid as marble. It looked like the very image of death, and I felt a sort of awe creeping over me, as if a corpse was at my side. At last I could hear him breathe, and then I went to bed. I reflected long upon what had happened. “I have thought,” said I, mentally, “that I was most unhappy, in being destitute of the care and instruction of parents; but there is a poor youth, who is still more wretched, and who yet has enjoyed the blessing denied to me. The truth is, that after all, good or ill fortune, is usually the result of our own conduct. Even if Providence grants us blessings, we may neglect or abuse them; if they are denied to us, we may, by a steady pursuit of the right path, still be successful in gaining happiness.” With this reflection, I fell asleep; but when I awoke in the morning, the young man at my side was sleeping in the repose of death!
Sketches of the Manners, Customs, &c., of the Indians of America.
CHAPTER XXIII.
General resemblance.—Food.—Fishing.—Hunting.—Houses.—Dress.—Manner in which they train their children.
A strong resemblance in personal traits exists throughout the numberless native tribes of North America. They are generally tall, straight, and robust. Their skin is of a copper-color; their eyes large, bright, black, and piercing; their hair long, dark and coarse, seldom or never curled; and to their simple diet and active life they owe their white and regular teeth, and their excellent health.
Their food is such as they can obtain from the rivers and the forests; hunting and fishing, and fighting form the chief pursuits of the American savages. Before the arrival of the whites, very little labor was expended in tilling the lands; and, even that little, was done mostly by the women. But since their hunting-grounds have become too small, and game too scarce to allow them to support life in this way, they have begun to turn their attention to the riches which labor and time can draw from the bosom of the fertile soil.
The natives made use of both spears and nets in their fisheries. They had a way of fishing in the night time, by means of a fire kindled on a hearth in the middle of their canoes, which dazzled the fishes by its light, and enabled those in the boats to take them easily with a spear. They sometimes built a fence or dam entirely across the mouth of some small river, leaving only one opening, at which they placed a sort of pot or box, made very much in the form of a mouse-trap, into which the fish were carried by the stream, and thus caught.
Before the Indians had learned from Europeans the use of fire-arms, their only method of hunting was by means of bows and arrows, and traps. In shooting with the bow, they were very expert, but they have now generally laid it aside for the gun.
They had a very ingenious way of taking a great number of deer and other large animals at a time. They first make two fences of strong pointed stakes, so high that the deer cannot leap over them. These fences at one end are very far apart, but they gradually approach near each other, until there is but a small opening between them, which leads into a small enclosure in the form of a triangle. At the farther end of this triangle is a small covered way; large enough to allow one deer to pass into it.