Often have I grieved that people with such generous impulses should be degraded and corrupted by civilised men; that a mysterious destiny involves and hangs over them, pressing them back into the wilderness, and slowly and surely sweeping them from the earth.

Their ideas of Christianity appeared to me vague and unsatisfactory.  They will tell you that Christ died for men, and that He is the Saviour of the World, but they do not seem to comprehend the spiritual character of Christianity, nor the full extent of the requirements and application of the law of Christian love.  These imperfect views may not be entertained by all Christian Indians, but they were very common amongst those with whom I conversed.  Their ignorance upon theological, as well as upon other subjects, is, of course, extreme.  One Indian asked me very innocently if I came from the land where Christ was born, and if I had ever seen Jesus.  They always mention the name of the Persons in the Trinity with great reverence.

They are a highly imaginative people.  The practical meaning of their names, and their intense admiration for the beauties of Nature, are proof of this.  Nothing escapes their observing eyes.  There is not a flower that blooms in the wilderness, a bird that cuts the air with its wings, a beast that roams the wood, a fish that stems the water, or the most minute insect that sports in the sunbeams, but it has an Indian name to illustrate its peculiar habits and qualities.  Some of their words convey the direct meaning of the thing implied—­thus, che-charm, “to sneeze,” is the very sound of that act; too-me-duh, “to churn,” gives the noise made by the dashing of the cream from side to side; and many others.

They believe in supernatural appearances—­in spirits of the earth, the air, the waters.  The latter they consider evil, and propitiate before undertaking a long voyage, by throwing small portions of bread, meat, tobacco, and gunpowder into the water.

When an Indian loses one of his children, he must keep a strict fast for three days, abstaining from food of any kind.  A hunter, of the name of Young, told me a curious story of their rigid observance of this strange rite.

“They had a chief,” he said, “a few years ago, whom they called ’Handsome Jack’—­whether in derision, I cannot tell, for he was one of the ugliest Indians I ever saw.  The scarlet fever got into the camp—­a terrible disease in this country, and doubly terrible to those poor creatures who don’t know how to treat it.  His eldest daughter died.  The chief had fasted two days when I met him in the bush.  I did not know what had happened, but I opened my wallet, for I was on a hunting expedition, and offered him some bread and dried venison.  He looked at me reproachfully.

“’Do white men eat bread the first night their papouse is laid in the earth?’

“I then knew the cause of his depression, and left him.”