University of Virginia Library

49. Creatures in Pennsylvania
BY GABRIEL THOMAS (1698)

THE natives of this country are very charitable to one another. The lame and the blind amongst them live as well as the best. They are also very kind and obliging to the Christians.[181]

In person they are ordinarily tall, straight, and well formed. Their tread is strong, and they generally

walk with the chin high up. Of complexion, they are dark, but in features they are gypsy-like, greasing themselves with bear's fat, and using nothing to protect them against the injuries of the sun and weather, so their skins cannot fail to be dark. Their eyes are small and black. They have pleasing faces.

Their language is dignified and polite. But they use few words. One word serves in the place of three. The language is sweet, and of noble sound.

Take here a specimen:—

This is the English of it:—

As soon as their children are born, they wash them in cold water, especially in cold weather. To harden them and make them courageous, they plunge them in the river. The children find their feet early; usually at nine months they can walk alone.

The boys fish till they are fifteen years of age, then hunt. When they have given a proof of their manhood by getting together a large lot of skins, they may marry. This is usually at the age of seventeen or eighteen. The girls stay with their mothers, and help to hoe the ground, plant corn, and carry burdens. They marry when they are about thirteen or fourteen years of age.

The next people who settled in what is now Pennsylvania after the Indians were the Dutch. They called the country New Netherland. They were the first planters in those parts, but they made little or no improvement in the land. They gave themselves

wholly to trading in skins and furs, which the Indians furnished to them for rum, strong liquors, sugar, and other things.

Soon after the Dutch, came the Swedes and Fins.

They gave themselves to farming, and were the first Christian people that made any great improvement there.

The air in this region is very fine and pleasant, and healthful. The heavens are serene, seldom cloudy, and somewhat like the better part of France. The corn harvest is ended before the middle of July, and most years they have between twenty and thirty bushels for every bushel they sow.

There are several sorts of wild beasts good for trade and for food. Panthers, wolves, deer, beaver, otter, hares, musk-rats, minks, wild-cats, foxes, raccoons, rabbits, and opossums are to be found. The possum is a strange creature, having a pouch to shelter her young ones. By this means she saves them from danger, when anything comes to disturb them. There are also bears, and some wolves. But they are now pretty well destroyed by the Indians for the sake of the reward given them by the Christians for so doing. Here is also that wonderful creature, the flying squirrel! It has a kind of skinny wings, almost like those of the bat. It has the same kind of hair and color as the common squirrel, but is much smaller.

I have myself seen it fly from one tree to another in the woods. But how long it can keep on flying is not exactly known. There are in the woods many red deer. I have bought of the Indians a whole deer skin and all for a little gunpowder.

The venison is excellent food, most delicious, far exceeding that of Europe. This is the opinion of most careful and observing people.

There are vast numbers of other wild creatures, such as the elk and buffalo. All of these beasts, birds, and fish, are free to any one who will shoot or take them away. There is no hindrance or opposition whatever.

There are among other things various sorts of frogs. The bull-frog makes a roaring noise hardly to be distinguished from that of the beast from which it takes its name.

There is another sort of frog that crawls up to the tops of trees.[182] There it seems to imitate the notes of several birds. There are many other strange and different creatures.

Bees thrive and increase wonderfully in that country. The Swedes often get a great supply of them in the woods, where they are free to anybody. Choice honey is sold in the capital city[183] for five pence a pound. Wax is also plentiful and cheap; they have a considerable trade in it.

I must needs say, even the present encouragements are very great and inviting. Poor people, both men and women, of all kinds, can here get three times the wages for their labor that they can in England.

The Christian children born here are generally fine-looking and beautiful to behold. In general they are seen to be better-natured, milder, and more tender-hearted than those born in England.