Page:Tupper family records - 1835.djvu/227

 American continent, may be conceived from the well-known fact, that he visited the Creek Indians, in the hopes of prevailing on them to unite with their northern brethren, in efforts to regain their country as far as the banks of the Ohio. His facility of communicating the information he had acquired, was thus displayed before a concourse of spectators. Previously to General Brock's crossing over to Detroit, he asked Te-cum-seh what sort of a country he should have to pass through, in case of his proceeding further. Te-cum-seh, taking a roll of elm- bark, and extending it on the ground by means of four stones, drew forth his scalping knife, and, with the point, presently etched upon the bark a plan of the country, its hills, woods, rivers, morasses, and roads ; a plan which, if not as neat, was, for the purpose required, fully as intelligible, as if Arrowsmith himself had prepared it. Pleased with this unexpected talent in Te-cum-seh, also with his having, by his characteristic boldness, induced the Indians, not of his immediate party, to cross the Detroit, prior to the embarkation of the regulars and militia, General Brock, as soon as the business was over, publicly took off his sash, and placed it round the body of the chief. Te-cum-seh received the honor with evident gratification ; but was, the next day, seen without his sash. General Brock, fearing something had displeased the Indian, sent his interpreter for an explanation. The latter soon returned with an account, that Te-cum-seh, not wishing to wear such a mark of distinction, when an older, and, as he said, abler, warrior than himself was present, had transferred the sash to the Wyandot chief, Round-head. Such a man was the unlettered 'savage' Te-cum-seh ; and such a man have the Indians for ever lost. He has left a son, who, when his father fell, was about seventeen years old, and fought by his side. The Prince Regent, in 1814, out of respect to the memory of the old, sent out as a present to the young Te-cum-seh, a handsome sword. Unfortunately, however, for the Indian cause and country, faint are the prospects, that Te-cum-seh the son, will ever equal, in wisdom or prowess, Te-cum-seh the father." — Ibid. pp. 289-293.

��Extracts from " The Quarterly Bevieiv." — July, 1822.

"Among the Indians that joined General Proctor from the Wa- bash, was the higly gifted and celebrated chief, Te-cum-seh, who united in his person all those heroic qualities which romance has ever delighted to attribute to the 'children of the forest,' and, with

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