not only with the inhabitants of the district, but with the troops themselves; and these, from frequent association with the whites, had lost much of that fierceness which is so characteristic of the North American Indian in his ruder state.  Among these, with the more intelligent Hurons, were the remnants of those very tribes of Shawanees and Delawares whom we have recorded to have borne, half a century ago, so prominent a share in the confederacy against England, but who, after the termination of that disastrous war, had so far abandoned their wild hostility, as to have settled in various points of contiguity to the forts to which they, periodically, repaired to receive those presents which a judicious policy so profusely bestowed.

The reinforcement just arriving was composed principally of warriors who had never yet pressed a soil wherein civilization had extended her influence—­men who had never hitherto beheld the face of a white, unless it were that of the Canadian trader, who, at stated periods, penetrated fearlessly into their wilds for purposes of traffic, and who to the bronzed cheek that exposure had rendered nearly as swarthy as their own, united not only the language but so wholly the dress—­or rather the undress of those he visited, that he might easily have been confounded with one of their own dark blooded race.  So remote, indeed, were the regions in which some of these warriors had been sought, that they were strangers to the existence of more than one of their tribes, and upon these they gazed with a surprise only inferior to what they manifested, when, for the first time, they marked the accoutrements of the British soldier, and turned with secret, but unacknowledged awe and admiration upon the frowning fort and stately shipping, bristling with cannon, and vomiting forth sheets of flame as they approached the shore.  In these might have been studied the natural dignity of man.  Firm of step—­proud of mien—­haughty yet penetrating of look, each leader offered in his own person a model to the sculptor, which he might vainly seek elsewhere.  Free and unfettered in every limb, they moved in the majesty of nature, and with an air of dark reserve, passed, on landing, through the admiring crowd.

There was one of the number, however, and his canoe was decorated with a richer and a larger flag, whose costume was that of the more civilized Indians, and who in nobleness of deportment, even surpassed those we have last named.  This was Tecumseh.  He was not of the race of either of the parties who now accompanied him, but of one of the nations, many of whose warriors were assembled on the bank awaiting his arrival.  As the head chief of the Indians, his authority was acknowledged by all, even to the remotest of these wild but interesting people, and the result of the exercise of his all-powerful influence had been the gathering together of those warriors, whom he had personally hastened to collect from the extreme west, passing in his course, and with impunity, the several American posts that lay in their way.  In order more fully to comprehend the motives and character of this remarkable man, it may not be impertinent to recur summarily to events that took place prior to the declaration of war by the United States against England.