Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/290

Rh seeming to be looking for something among the bushes. They appeared, for the most part, to be women in the boats; but it is not easy to distinguish a man from a woman as they sit there wrapped in their blankets, with their bare, unkempt hair. They were seeking for wild berries and herbs, which they collect, among the bushes. How savage, and like wild beasts they looked! And yet it is very entertaining to see human beings so unlike the people one sees every day, so unlike our own selves!

The Indians we see here are of the Sioux or Dakotah nation, still one of the most powerful tribes in the country, and who, together with the Chippewas, inhabit the district around the springs of the Mississippi (Minnesota). Each nation is said to amount to twenty-five thousand souls. The two tribes live in hostility with each other; but have lately held, after some bloody encounters, a peace congress at Fort Snelling, where the American authorities compelled these vengeful people, although unwillingly, to offer each other the hand of reconciliation.

Mr. Sibley, who has lived many years among the Sioux, participating in their hunting and their daily life, has related to me many characteristic traits of this people's life and disposition. There is a certain grandeur about them, but it is founded on immense pride; and their passion for revenge is carried to a savage and cruel extreme. Mr. Sibley is also very fond of the Indians, and is said to be a very great favourite with them. Sometimes when we sail past Indian villages, he utters a kind of wild cry which receives an exulting response from the shore.

Sometimes we see a little log-house, with two or three Indian lodges beside it. Such houses belong to half-blood Indians, that is to say, one whose father was a white man and mother an Indian, and these are his relations by the mother's side, or the relatives of his