We have, as the means of exchanging sentiment, one English family of refinement and education, on the American side of the river, and two others, an English family and the Hudson Bay House in charge of a Scotch gentleman, on the Canada shore. We have the officers attached to a battalion of infantry, most of them married and having their ladies and families with them, and about a dozen American citizens besides, engaged in traffic and other affairs. These, with the resident metif population of above 300 souls, and the adjacent Indian tribes, constitute the world--the little isolated world--in which we must move for six months to come. About fifty miles off, S.E., is the British post of Drummond Island, and about forty west of the latter, the ancient position and island settlement of Michilimackinack, that bugbear to children in all our earlier editions of Webster's Spelling Book.
All the rest of the United States is a far-off land to us. For one, I draw around my fire, get my table and chair properly located, and resort to my books, and my Indian ia-ne-kun-o-tau-gaid let the storm whistle as it may.
25th. Zimmerman may write as much as he pleases about solitude. It is all very well in one's study, by his stove, if it is winter, with a good feather bed, and all comforts at hand; but he who would test his theories should come here. It is a capital place, in the dead of winter, for stripping poetic theories of their covering.
CHAPTER XIV.
Amusements during the winter months, when the temperature is at the lowest point--Etymology of the word Chippewa--A meteor--The Indian "fire-proof"--Temperature and weather--Chippewa interchangeables--Indian names for the seasons--An incident in conjugating verbs--Visiting--Gossip--The fur trade--Todd, McGillvray, Sir Alexander Mackenzie--Wide dissimilarity of the English and Odjibwa syntax--Close of the year.
1822. December 1st. We have now plunged into the depths of a boreal winter. The blustering of tempests, the whistling of winds, and the careering of snow drifts form the daily topics of remark. We must make shift to be happy, with the most scanty means of amusement. Books and studies must supply the most important item in this--at least, so far as I am concerned.
It is observed by Dr. Johnson "that nothing can supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity, long continued, will render knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible." This sententious apothegm is thrown out in contemplating the life of Savage, one of the English poets who united some of the highest requisites of genius with the lowest personal habits. But how much instruction does it convey to all! It does not fall to the lot of all to have wit or genius, or to be eminent in knowledge. None, however, who are not absolute idiots are without some share of the one or the other. And in proportion as these gifts are possessed, how fruitless, and comparatively useless do they become, if not governed by prudence, assiduity, and regularity!
3d. The Indian tribes in this vicinity call themselves Ojibwäg. This expression is in the plural number. It is rendered singular by taking off the g. The letter a, in this word, is pronounced like a in hate, or ey in obey. Chippewa--often written with a useless terminal y--is the Anglicized pronunciation. The meaning of this seems obscure. The final syllable wä, in compound words, stands for voice. In the ancient Massachusetts language, as preserved by Eliot, in his translation of the Bible, as in Isaiah xi. 14, Chepwoieu means the east.
What a curious subject for speculation the Indian language presents! Since I began to dip into this topic, I have found myself irresistibly carried forward in the inquiry, and been led to resume it, whenever the calls of business or society have been intermitted. I have generally felt, however, while pursuing it, like a mechanist who is required to execute a delicate and difficult work without suitable implements. Technical words may be considered as the working tools of inquiry, and there seems to be a paucity of terms, in our common systems, to describe such a many-syllabled, aggregated language as the Indian. I have been sometimes half inclined to put my manuscripts in the fire, and to exclaim with Dryden, respecting some metaphysical subject--
"I cannot bolt this matter to the bran."
It is not, however, the habitual temper of my mind to give up. "The spider," it is said, "taketh hold with her hands, and is in king's palaces;" and should a man have less perseverance than a spider?
4th. A meteor, or fire-ball, passed through the village at twilight this evening. The weather, which has been intensely cold for the last three days, indicates a change this evening. Meteoric phenomena of a luminous character were universally referred to electricity, after Franklin's day. Chemistry has since put forth reasons why several of these phenomena should be attributed to phosphorus or hydrogen liberated by decomposition.
5th. The Chippewa jugglers, or Jassakeeds, as they are called, have an art of rendering their flesh insensible, probably for a short time, to the effects of a blaze of fire. Robert Dickson told me that he had seen several of them strip themselves of their garments, and jump into a bonfire. Voltaire says, in his Essay on History, that rubbing the hand for a long time with spirit of vitriol and alum, with the juice of an onion, is stated to render it capable of enduring hot water without injury.
7th. Acting as librarian for the garrison during the season, I am privileged to fill up many of the leisure hours of my mornings and evenings by reading. The difficulty appears to be, to read with such reference to system as to render it profitable. History, novels, voyages and travels, and various specific treatises of fancy or fact, invite perusal, and like a common acquaintance, it requires some moral effort to negative their claims. "Judgment," says a celebrated critic, "is forced upon us by experience. He that reads many books must compare one opinion, or one style with another, and when he compares must necessarily distinguish, reject, prefer."
Sunday 8th. Quintilian says, "We palliate our sloth by the specious pretext of difficulty." Nothing, in fact, is too difficult to accomplish, which we set about, with a proper consideration of those difficulties, and pursue with perseverance. The Indian language cannot be acquired so easily as the Greek or Hebrew, but it can be mastered by perseverance. Our Indian policy cannot be understood without looking at the Indian history. The taking of Fort Niagara was the first decisive blow at French power. Less than three months afterwards, that is, on the 18th of October of that year, General Wolf took Quebec. Goldsmith wrote some stanzas on this event, eulogizing the heroism of the exploit. England's consolation for the loss of Wolf is found in his heroic example, which the poet refers to in his closing line,
"Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise."
11th. Names are the pegs of history. Velasco, it is said, on visiting the gulf which receives the St. Lawrence, and finding the country cold and inhospitable, cried out aca nada--"there is nothing here." This is said to be the origin of the word Canada. Nothing could be more improbable: Did the Indians of Canada hear him, and, if so, did they understand or respect the language of a foreigner hovering on their coast? We must look to the Iroquois for the origin of this word. Jacques Cartier, in 1534, evidently mistook the Indian word Canada, signifying a town, for the whole country. The Indians have no geographical terms for districts. They name a hill, a river, or a fall, but do not deal in generics. Some à priori reasoning seems constrained, where the facts are granted, as this: All animals at Nova Zembla, it is said, are carnivorous, because there is no grass.
12th. Snow covers everything. We are shut out from the civilized world, and thrown entirely on our own resources. I doubt, if we were in Siberia, or Kamschatka, if we could be so completely isolated.
13th. Ellis, in one of his northern voyages, asserts the opinion that the northern