women especially of the Stekin and Tongass tribes are celebrated for their more than fair share of good looks. They look with supreme contempt on the Flatheads of the southern coasts, styling them Sapalel le tetes, or dough-heads; and the compliment is returned by the southern tribes, who accuse their detractors of every crime forbidden in the decalogue albeit none of them are paragons of perfection in the matter of morality. There is, however, a vast difference between the morality of different tribes, even among those which have been corrupted by the whites, the Flatbows and others in the vicinity of the Kootanie River, in British Columbia, ranking highest, while the northern tribes are justly classed as the lowest in this respect.

It is, perhaps, unfair for a writer to give a general character of any people, for there are good and bad among all, and in an Indian village, however low the average of the moral standard may be, you are sure to find good men and bad, who are just as well known and appreciated among their neighbours as in an English hamlet of the same size and population. Still they have some characteristics which seem to belong to them peculiarly, though, of course, they are found in different individuals in various degrees of development: a notice of some of the most prominent of these will not be uninteresting.

GENERAL CHARACTER.

The vice which prominently presents itself before those who have much intercourse with them is that of ingratitude, for whatever may have been said of the gratitude of their brethren in the United States on the first advent of the whites, yet I know assuredly that he who calculates upon the gratitude of an Indian in the West-speaking as a rule-reckons without his host. You may confer numberless favours upon him, let him hang round your camp day after day, feeding at your expense, but if you ask him to go for a bucket of water, it is just as

likely as not that he will refuse, or ask you how much you are going to give him. I knew this from personal experience, and always reckoned on it, and this quite apart from any corruption by witnessing the selfish manner they are treated by the whites. I know a man who used to behave to all the vagrant Indians of his acquaintance in the most kindly and hospitable manner; but it happened in an unlucky hour that, as he was descending Fraser River in his canoe, he managed to get capsized, and while struggling in the water he shouted for help to several of his old friends whom he noticed gaping on the banks. They came quietly down, and as they viewed the poor fellow drowning, coolly asked, "Well, how much are you going to give us?" He managed to get ashore, and I can assure the reader that no Indian need ever reckon on a supper at his camp from now until the coming of the Greek Kalendsand not then!

Another feature in their character, very much akin to that I have just noticed, is the fact that they never forgive an injury or can be persuaded to make any allowance for an accident. During one of my earliest expeditions I narrowly escaped shooting an Indian in mistake for a bear which was prowling around my camp-fire, and though I fully made up to him for his injured honour, and met him frequently afterwards, yet that man cherished the most implacable feelings of resentment towards me, believing that I had intended taking his life, and knowing this, I took very good care never to come within range of his musket in a shady, out-of-the-way place. I have heard of a Frenchman who was out "fire-hunting" in the woods one night, and as he was waving round the lighted torch or frying-pan of fire, he saw two eyes glaring at him in the dark. Thinking it was a deer, he immediately fired, but was horrified to find that he had shot an Indian of his acquaintance. The poor man was much distressed, and in the morning put the body into his canoe and took it to the lodge of the Indian's brother, narrating the circumstance, thinking that he would be forgiven on making some provision for the dead man's family. The brother said nothing, however, but went into his lodge and quietly loading his musket, shot the Frenchman dead. Blood for blood is their universal law, and though among some tribes you can buy a body, or a wound, or any other injury can be equally palliated by a douceur to the injured one or his friends, yet this is their law, and many of the unaccountable murders in the Indian country are owing to this. If they cannot reach the murderer, they will often kill an innocent man.

When an Indian meets you, his first thought invariably seems to be, "How can I 'do' this man? How can I protect myself against some design he is meditating against me?" He is so accustomed to see the white man treat him with the most callous selfishness, that he is apt to value the morality of the whole race at a low estimate, and to think that "the big meeting at the church is only for the purpose of arranging to lower the price of beaver-skins," when he sees the trader go there, and then come out and cheat him (if he can) in the sale of his furs. One day an Indian entered a house in California when the husband was absent. The wife-a new arrival-instantly seized a revolver and drove the Indian, who only came out of the merest curiosity, to the door, much to her after-congratulation and boastfulness on the head of her courage. The Indian, surprised at what he thought only an exhibition of ill-temper on the part of a virago, merely remarked to his friends that "now he understood why so few white men in California were married!" He is habitually suspicious, and it is only after long acquaintance that his nature thaws. The Indian is no stoic-grand in

his silence; a more talkative fellow, when you know him, and he has cast off a portion of his suspicious reserve, is not found in the desert. Among themselves they are great gossips and full of a grim humour. You will often see an old man and woman bandying jokes with each other, and as repartee after repartee passes, peals of laughter come from the bystanders. Even with strangers they are the same; but, as I have said, they are long before they recover from their first suspicions of a design against them. Treachery is ever in their thoughts, and being merely creatures of impulse-mere children of a very grim growth-though you may travel for months and years among them quite alone, as I did most of the time, yet you are never safe, and at any time your head may pay forfeit for your temerity. On the whole, though I do not by any means approve of it, yet there is some truth in what an old friend of mine, Jim Baker, a very celebrated Rocky Mountain trapper, told General Marcy:

:

"They are the most onsartainest varmints in all creation, and I reckon thar not mor❜n half human; for you never seed a human, arter you'd fed and treated him to the best fixins in your lodge, just turn round and steal all your horses, or anything he could lay his hands on. No, not adzackly; he would feel kinder grateful, and ask you to spread a blanket in his lodge ef ever you passed that a-way. But the Injun he don't care shucks for you, and is ready to do you a heap of mischief as soon as he quits your feed. No, cap.," he continued, "it's not the right way to give um presents to buy peace; but ef I war Governor of these yeer U-nited States, I'll tell you what I'd do: I'd invite um all to a big feast, and make b'lieve I wanted to have a big talk; and as soon as I got um all together, I'd pitch in and sculp half of um, and then t' other half would be mighty glad to make a peace that would stick. That's the way I'd make a treaty with the dog'ond, red-bellied varmints; and as sure as you're born, cap., that's the only way. It aint no use to talk about honour with them, cap.; they haint got no such thing in um; and they won't show fair fight, any way you can fix it. Don't they kill and sculp a white man, when-ar they get the better on him? The mean varmints, they'll never behave themselves until you give um a clean out-and-out licking. They can't onderstand white folks' ways, and they won't learn um; and ef you treat um decently, they think you're afeared. You may depend on't, cap., the only way to treat Injuns is to thrash them well at first, then the balance will sorter take to you and behave themselves." I quote this opinion, not only for the amount of truth inherent in it, but also because it expresses the very general rationale of the treatment the Indians get from the rough class who pursue their callings on the great prairies and the frontier, and with such ideas we need not be surprised to hear continually of "Indian outrages." It is well for the Indians that Jim Baker is not "Governor of these yeer U-nited States!" Give an Indian presents continually, and he will always expect more, so that when you stop (as stop you must some time) he thinks your heart has changed to him, and he is very likely your enemy. If you will give presents to them, it is best to give all you are going to give at first and be done; but still better to give none until you are leaving. They are, as nearly all savages are, very honest among themselves, but with the whites they are not at all backward in stealing. Taking your property by force is, of course, dignified with another name. Again, among themselves a liar is looked upon in a most contemptuous light; but they will lie to you about the merest trifle, seemingly almost unconsciously. It is always very bad policy to make a cache and conceal your property when obliged to leave any behind in the vicinity of an Indian tribe, because they are sure to find it out, and will have no

mercy on you or your goods; but if you put them into the chief's hands, with a few flattering compliments as to his high character for honour, honesty, and all the other cardinal virtues,

though he be the veriest rogue in Pagandom, yet you may be sure, unless something extraordinary interferes, that they will be returned uninjured.

When I first commenced to travel on the north-west coast, a worthy gentleman, whom to name would be to recall to the recollection of all North-western travellers of any experience one