toward the fort, the Europeans walking behind him, enjoyed an excellent opportunity of observing his costume, which consisted of a heavy plume of black feathers in his topknot, a scarlet uniform coat most gorgeously bedizened with tinsel lace, a white linen shirt modestly flowing from beneath it, and two bare copper-colored legs. They found some difficulty, according to Bossu, in preserving the gravity proper for the occasion; although they might possibly have been puzzled to establish the logical relation between true grandeur and a pair of breeches.

Sitting down to a state feast prepared for him by D'Aubant, the husband of the fugitive princess, and then the successor of Montberaut in command of the post, the young emperor-a youth of eighteen-was much gravelled at the unaccustomed knife and fork, but a wise old chief who accompanied him as a kind of Mentor, cut the knot by coolly dismembering a turkey with his fingers, gravely remarking that "the Master of life made fingers before the making of forks."

A savage who waited behind the emperor's chair, observing the Frenchmen sedulous in seasoning their boiled beef with mustard, asked Beaudin, an officer who had lived forty years amongst the Creeks, what it was that they relished so much? Beaudin replied that the French were by no means covetous even of the best of their possessions, and to demonstrate the liberality he boasted, he handed the Indian hench

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man a generous spoonful of the fiery condiment with ostentatious gravity. The savage unhesitatingly swallowed it; but found himself quite unable, with all his Indian fortitude, to hide the tingling agony. He made divers fearful grimaces, and extraordinary contortions of body, and uttered a number of whoops indicative of his feelings, all to the unbounded merriment of the company. But at last he imagined himseli poisoned, and the polite commandant was fain to appease his anger and his pain together, by the unfailing panacea of a good glass of brandy.

On another of Bossu's expeditions through the woods, having gone quietly to sleep near the river's bank, rolled up in a corner of the tent-cloth, in his bear skin, and with a nice string of fish for breakfast stowed by his side, he was startlingly awakened to find himself rapidly propelled by some invisible power through the darkness, towards the river. He roared lustily for help, but, bestirring himself smartly, only managed, before help could come, to free himself and his bear skin, just in season to see his tentcloth and his fish go under water in the jaws of an immense alligator. The horrible monster, smelling the fish, and not very particular what else he took, had carelessly seized the tent-cloth, and was trundling off commander, tent, bed and all, along with his luncheon; quite unintentionally, but with reprehen sible carelessness.

A Choctaw whom Bossu met, having been baptized, and happening to have small success in his hunting just afterwards, conceived that his baptism had been a charm, and that he was bewitched. So going to Father Lefèvre, who had "converted" him, he indignantly told him that his, "medicine" was good for nothing, for that since he had received it he could kill no deer, and he told him to take off the enchantment. The compliant Jesuit, sure that the baptism had safely ticketed the red man's soul for heaven, readily pretended to go through a reversal of the forms of the sacrament; and the Indian, sure enough, shortly afterwards, killed a deer, to his great relief and satisfaction, and was never a whit the worse Christian.

The history of the French in the Southwest would be very incomplete without a sketch of the fortunes and influence of a family, who, for a quarter of a century, controlled the strong tribes of the Creeks, and their allies of the neighboring region, and by means of a mingled course of war and diplomacy, contrived to maintain the territory and independence of the tribes by balancing against each other the power of the Spaniards and of the United States. This is the family of McGillivray, the celebrated half-breed Creek chief; including beside himself, his father, Lachlan McGillivray, his sisters, Sophia and Jeannette, and his brother-in-law, the roving and adven

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turous Frenchman Le Clerc Milfort, not to mention the celebrated chief Weatherford, of the next genera tion, the son of his half-sister Sehoy.

Lachlan McGillivray, the son of respectable Scotch parents, a youth of shrewd, roving and adventurous character, strong constitution and unfailing good temper and spirits, running away from home, had come to Charleston about the year 1735; and engaging in the service of an Indian trader, speedily commenced business on his own account by exchanging a jack-knife which his employer gave him, with an Indian for some deer skins. From this insignificant beginning he rapidly developed an extensive and profitable business, and by skill, courage, and goodnature, and very probably also by means of some secret leanings towards the French, the ancient and faithful allies of the Scottish kingdom, his trading operations extended without interruption, even to the neighborhood of Fort Toulouse. Here he married a beautiful half-blood Indian girl, Sehoy Marchand, whose father, Captain Marchand, had been slain while commanding the fort, by his mutinous soldiers, in the famine in 1722, and whose mother was a full-blooded Creek of the family of the Wind, the aristocracy of the nation, and her Indian name, Sehoy, a hereditary one in the family from time immemorial. Her Lachlan McGillivray marries; settles himself in a trading post at Little Tallase, and here, about 1745, is born Alex

ander McGillivray, their eldest child; his character, as Indian legends say, having been prefigured by his mother's dreams of great piles of manuscripts, ink and paper, and great heaps of books.

The trader, thus situated and connected, grows rich apace, and owns two valuable plantations and two stores. By the consent of his wife, to whom, according to Indian custom, the children belonged, he sends Alexander, now fourteen, to school at Charleston for some little time, and then perches him upon a counting-house stool at Savannah. But haggling and barter-trade are disgusting to him. Account-books are not the books for him; and neglecting his business, he was ever poring over histories and travels. By advice of friends, his father wisely accommodates this craving after knowledge, and placing him in charge of a clergyman of his own name-a Scotch Presbyterian it may be inferred— he falls with avidity to systematic study. In brief time the powerful and active intellect of the youth has mastered Latin and mastered Greek, and his attainments are fair in general literature; and now, as he ripens into early and ardent manhood, as if the civilized part of his nature being in some measure nurtured, the Indian in him had awakened, and was calling for wild woods and savage life; he leaves books and cities, mounts his horse, and hies back to the beautiful country of his people. the Creeks.