Gegwedjisa (Trying to Walk, as nearly as it can be translated) of Leech Lake, who was considered by the traders, after careful investigation, to be a hundred and fifteen years old. Conversing with him about twelve or fifteen years ago, I found that he perfectly remembered General Pike's visit to Leech lake, which was in February, 1806, and described him. Being asked at what age he was then, he said he was married and had a daughter "so high," running about. He was probably twenty-five years old then. Indians never know their age, but describe themselves as being "so high," if it was in their childhood, when some noted event happened, such as "when the Indians nearly all died of the small-pox," or "at the time of the great sickness caused by the rotten flour issued after the payment."

Old Shay-day-ence told me that when a child he remembered seeing old men with the hair of their heads all pulled out (such as we see in the pictures of Indians) and only the scalp lock left. He said the old fellows used to come into the wigwam where he was, and, bowing, as it were, alternately to one side and the other, would say in a deep guttural voice, "Oongh, oongh." He said he was mortally afraid of them and their smooth scalps. He said the hair was pulled out very quickly, a handful at a time, and that it caused them very little pain. The same old man was once with me in St. Paul, about the year 1882, I think, and we sat on a hill, the Park Place property, I believe, overlooking the city. For some time he did not recognize the place, it was so changed by the buildings; then all of a sudden it came back to him and he recognized it. "There," said he, pointing to a certain place, "was Little Crow's village; and there was where the road led out of his village into the country, and it was beside that road that two Indians and I were secreted, when two women, I think, and a man, not suspecting any danger, came out along the path and were killed and scalped by our party, who then made off to the Ojibway country." Such was life in St. Paul at that early time. He did not say that he killed any of them, and I hope he did not; but even if he did, being a heathen man at that time, and a recognized state of war existing, and it being according to their ideas of right or even merit, we should be slow to pronounce judgment in the case.

HABITS IN WORK; LOGGING, RIVER DRIVING, GARDENING.

When the Ojibway man works, strange to say, he works very fast, much faster than a white man. Perhaps that is one reason why they so soon get tired of it and give it up, because they exert themselves so strongly while they are at it. This is seen, for example, in hoeing a field. The men, and the women also, are excellent with the ax, being trained to it from earliest infancy. When some boys whom I sent to school were in Illinois, the people there used to turn out to see those boys chop. Though it was a wooded country, none there could handle the ax as they.

Ojibways hired in a logging camp usually do not stay very long; a week or two, till they get a little money ahead. Then they go home to spend it and rest. This is a relic of the old life, when a period of violent exertion was succeeded by a prolonged rest. Occasionally, however, one will be found who will stay in a logging camp all winter. The lumbermen say that while they do work they are as good hands as any. They like working with the ax better than almost any other labor.

One kind of work they excel in and are particularly fond of, river-driving. The excitement, the continual change, just suits them. Monotony in anything they cannot stand. The constant repetition of performing the same act over, over and over again, as white people do, for instance, in manufacturing, is insupportable to them.

Contrary to what would be supposed, the Ojibway excels the white man in making a farm or garden, when he wants to do it; not in wheat-farming, however, or such farming as he has not been used to, but such as he knows, vegetable raising. A skilled white farmer and gardener went on a journey of a hundred and twenty miles through the white man's country from Gull Lake settlement to Hubbard and back; and he told me the best gardens by far that he saw on the road were Indians' gardens. The white men could not begin to equal them. Similarly a resident of Bemidji, an old farmer, told me that the best garden in all that region was that raised by Shenaw-ishkunk, the old Ojibway who had always lived on the town-site of Bemidji. The Indian has genius; he can do

anything he wants to, and his genius shows in the looks of his garden, even though it be a small spot he cultivates.

SALUTATIONS.-ASIATIC ORIGIN.

The Ojibways have, in their own language, no word of salutation at meeting or parting. They have, however, adopted from the French the phrase, "Bon jour." As there is no "r" in their language, the nearest they can come to it is "Bo zhoo," which is now their salutation at meeting and parting. However, when a guest is leaving, the proper thing to say to him is "Madjan, madjan" (go, go). Often I have seen Ojibways who were good friends and had not seen each other for a long time meet unexpectedly on the trail in the woods, look at each other affectionately for quite a long time, and then pass on without a single word being said on either side, not even "bo zhoo."

Some of the Indians have a very Chinese cast of features. The way the eyes are set, and the color of the skin, leave no doubt of a Chinese or Japanese origin. I saw one Indian near Winnibigoshish who in his looks seemed to me as veritable a Chinaman as any that ever left China.

VISITING; DELIBERATENESS IN THINKING AND SPEAKING.

When the Ojibway pays a visit to a white man, his time is any time from the dawn till after bedtime, and he enjoys making a good long visit, of many hours' duration or all day. This is because he has no particular business to call him away, and he is deliberate in all his movements. If a man, he smokes his long-stemmed Indian pipe a good part of the time, and talks. Smoking seems to assist his mental operations; and when anything difficult is to be thought out he instinctively reaches for his pipe. He does not need to be entertained, as a white visitor would, with small talk; he is content to sit and think, and absorb the, to him, unfamiliar surroundings. However, like every other man, he is pleased at being occasionally spoken to, and taken notice of.

When a woman pays a visit she does not need, as a white woman, to be amused or entertained; she will sit for hours

saying nothing, but perfectly satisfied, taking in everything, the appearance of the house, the manner of housekeeping, the people. It would be a bore to her to be talked to. She has come there to enjoy herself in her own quiet way by looking. White women at first think they must entertain their Indian sister visitor by talking to her, as they would to a white visitor; but soon they find out the better way, namely, to let her alone. If she is talked to she answers in monosyllables, and manifests no wish to keep up an animated conversation. But all the time she is taking in everything. By and by, after she has sat perhaps for hours, and not before, she will tell what she has come for, get it, and leave. In the same way a man will sit a long time, and not tell his business; or, if asked, will merely say that he came "for nothing." By and by, when he is ready to leave, he will at last do his errand.

Indians are much more deliberate in thinking and in speaking than white people. We know how fast white people, women especially, will sometimes chatter, talking fast, three or four at once. Oftentimes no thinking seems to accompany the speaking. The Indian always thinks as he speaks, and only speaks so far as he thinks. There is a volume of small talk among us that is absent among them. With them is deliberation. For instance, if one goes into the house or wigwam, and makes the formal friendly inquiry, "Are you all well?" the man or woman thinks a considerable time before answering, and then gives the exact state of the health of the family. With us it would be answered as unthinkingly as it is asked. The same deliberation and thought of what is said runs through all their intercourse. There are some women, never men, who talk at once and somewhat fast, but rarely so.

OJIBWAY GIRLS AND WOMEN IN HOUSEWORK.

If the women have a piece of work to do, as washing a church floor, or anything else, they like to do it as a frolic, a number joining together in it, and making it easy by continual jokes and laughter. To do it alone would seem much harder.

In doing any work, or anything else, an Indian cannot be forced or driven; he can only be led, and allowed to do it

voluntarily. If attempted to be driven, he will simply stop, and not do anything, and he cannot be compelled. For instance, my wife, who had Indian girls to help in the housework for many years, found that if she would say to an Indian girl, as she would to a white girl, "Do this now," pointing out some piece of work, however simple, she could not get it done. But if she would show it to the girl, and say that she wished it done, and go off and leave her alone for five minutes, she would find it done when she came back. The Indian nature rebels against being driven to do anything, but must do it voluntarily if at all. So all people who have sense never try to drive Indians to anything. By leading them to it, it can be got done. That is the way they are made; no people in the world so unlikely candidates for slaves as they. Every Indian is innately proud and rebels against obeying any direct command.

Indian girls do not take naturally to housework. The monotony of doing the same acts over and over again, as washing dishes, cooking, etc., is insupportable to them. Consequently a few weeks of it is as much as they usually can stand. The old life was a life of continual change and excitement; the treadmill comes hard. My wife has never found any Indian woman who could do three good days' work in a week; a few can do two, but the majority can only brace up once a week to do a real good day's work.

In an Indian village where there are hundreds of women and girls, very poor and very much in need of everything, there are yet very few or none at all whom one can get even to attempt to do any housework. For instance, I have known the government blacksmith at Leech Lake, where there must have been hundreds of women and girls, scour the white man's country for a distance of sixty-five miles from Leech Lake trying to hire a white girl to help in the housework. No girl or woman at Leech Lake could be hired. People may think that when they go to the Indian country they will be waited on like lords; but the truth is that each one must do everything for himself. A very high price must be paid, and very imperfect service will be rendered, if at all.