I learned the use of
the paddle, and became quite a proficient in the gentle craft.
It was not long before we received visits from the Indians, a people
whose beauty, talents, and good qualities have been somewhat
overrated, and invested with a poetical interest which they scarcely
deserve. Their honesty and love of truth are the finest traits in
characters otherwise dark and unlovely. But these are two God-like
attributes, and from them spring all that is generous and ennobling
about them.
There never was a people more sensible of kindness, or more grateful
for any little act of benevolence exercised towards them. We met
them with confidence; our dealings with them were conducted with the
strictest integrity; and they became attached to our persons, and in
no single instance ever destroyed the good opinion we entertained of
them.
The tribes that occupy the shores of all these inland waters, back
of the great lakes, belong to the Chippewa or Missasagua Indians,
perhaps the least attractive of all these wild people, both with
regard to their physical and mental endowments.
The men of this tribe are generally small of stature, with very
coarse and repulsive features.
