navigation on the lakes; others, of the Messuagues and Mukmaks, wander about exactly like our gypsies, picking up a precarious subsistence; all these are exclusive of Mestifs or half-breeds, or those demicivilized into a kind of Christianity, who have villages and agriculture. But there are yet a few modern American Indians to be met with in the more remote parts of the northern continent that bear a stamp of their original character. Of these, Captain Franklin, in his very interesting narrative of his journey to the Polar Sea, gives favourable sketches; but even these are melting, like their own snows, fast away, in all the vast regions round Hudson's Bay, and westward to the rocky mountains. Those primitive tribes, the Krees, the stone, the copper-mine, and the dog-ribbed Indians, could not muster one thousand individuals, men, women, and children.

The dreadful torments which the various tribes were accustomed to inflict on their war prisoners are no longer heard of, and this favourable change must be wholly attributed to the spread of Christianity; which, though there are tribes still unconverted, has yet so diffused its divine spirit and influence among the red people, that those cruelties are, I believe, every where disused. I am, therefore, induced to transcribe the account of a scene of this nature, by an eye-witness and a Frenchman, which, though having taken place long since, may, probably, be the

last that will be recorded.* The Irrekees, or six nations, supported by the English, were at war with the Indian allies of the French at Michillimakinak. A famous Irrekee warrior was taken prisoner in a skirmish, and doomed to the stake. The execution took place in front of the fort, and, by order of the commander, the Outiaks, an allied tribe, were invited "to drink the broth of their enemies." A strong post was fixed firmly in the earth, fires were prepared, and ramrods and old gun-barrels were heated. The Irrekee chief, naked and painted black, was marched into the middle of the circle, singing his death-song. He was fastened to the post strongly, by his hands and feet, yet with liberty to move about. Then commenced the operations. A French trader seized a ramrod, being made red-hot at one end, and an Outiak chief another; they drew the irons across the feet, and slowly up the insides of the legs and thighs, the victim singing his death-song all the time without flinching; they then suddenly applied the bottom of a metal pan, heated red-hot, to his thighs, rubbing it on his hips and loins. He now shouted out loud, that fire was powerful; upon which the whole assemblage gave a shout of triumph: "You a warrior chief, indeed!" they cried, "you shrink from the fire like a child—you are no man!" An Outiak then

Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale par M. de la Potherie, tom. ii.

made a long slash down his side, and stuffed the wound with gunpowder, to which he set fire. The prisoner, scorched and parched to a cinder, cried out for water, which was given him, not for his relief, but to enable him to suffer still worse. An Indian with a scalping-knife now stepped forward and tore off the scalp, which hung down his neck, whilst another clapped a platter of red-hot gravel on the denuded cranium. The tortured wretch now lost all his fortitude, and abandoned himself to despair, attempting to beat out his brains against the post. His tormentors all the time were shouting with joy, and insulting him with the most cutting railleries. He was thus tortured without the least relaxation for more than two hours! At length, when he became feeble and faint, they unloosed him, and said, "Now be off, we give you your life!" He, bleeding and burnt at every pore and fibre, tumbled about, rising and falling like a drunken man. They drove him towards the setting sun, the road to the shades, pelting him with stones, which he had still spirit enough to return on his pursuers. At length he was crushed to death under a heap of stones, and every one cut off a small slice of flesh to be broiled, and thus to finish the horrible feast.

THE FALLING OF THE LEAF.

BY THE REV. THOMAS RAFFLES, LL. D.

OH, mortal man! the falling leaf,
In solemn silence, speaks to thee :-
"Thy stay on earth, like our's, is brief,
And man is but a fading tree.

Thy spring of youth is quickly past;
Thy manhood's summer sheds its bloom;
Then age, like autumn's chilling blast,
Brings on the winter of the tomb."

But spring returns, and trees again
Put on their foliage, fresh and green;
But nought of man shall e'er remain
To mark the place where he hath been.

Yet, in a brighter, happier state,
They that believe in Jesus rise;
A fairer spring shall them await,
And endless summer in the skies.

THE ENGLISH MOTHER.

BY THE REV. HENRY STEBBING, M.A.

An English Mother!—at that name
How many thoughts arise!
Some sacred as an altar's flame,

Aspiring to the skies

;

And some that make the spirit weep
With its own joy, profound and deep;
Or prompt the patriot vow that starts,
The watchword of our English hearts.

And some, the earliest born of mind-
Love's syllables of thought,—
The dew of blessing that we find
In after seasons wrought

Into those golden cords that wreathe
Together all the forms that breathe-

The good, the beautiful, the bright

And earth with heaven-and love with light.

Y