University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

M. P. F.

White people had been seen among the Shoshonee,
ever since the Spanish establishments on the gulf
of California. In their excursions to those settlements,
they had often brought prisoners, generally of
the lower class of the people. These prisoners for
the most part became attached to the Indian ways of
life, remained voluntarily among them, and soon were
only distinguished from them by their European countenance.
Muscovite rovers, traders, and sailors had
more recently appeared in the Oregon; and now and
then one had stolen into the valley. They had also
seen samples of those wonderful people, the Canadian
coureurs du bois. But at the time, when this history
commences, they might still have been considered

a simple, unchanged and unsophisticated people.
This narrative contemplates them at the point of the
first palpable influence of the introduction of money,
and what we call civilization. It cannot fail to present
a spectacle of great moral interest. With an
apparent accession of new ideas, new comforts, new
wants, and new views of things present and to come,
these simple people are always seen to forego their
simplicity, and become less wise; to change their
skins for dresses of cloth, and to begin to suffer from
the inclemency of the seasons; and to learn the use
of our medicines and modes of applying them, and to
become subject to new and more mortal diseases; in
short, to melt away, through the influence of our
boasted civilization, like the snow wreath of their
hills, when a clear sun rises on their southern exposure.

At the point of time in question, the paramount
council chief of the Shoshonee was Ellswatta; in
person tall, venerable, muscular and noble looking,
with a long face, aquiline nose, and the customary
Indian deep black eye. He was full blooded, and
descended from a line of chiefs, distinguished alike
for valor and beneficence. He, too, united, in an uncommon
degree, courage and enterprize with wisdom
and firmness. He evinced a character of calmness
on common occasions, which might have been mistaken
for want of sensibility and quick perceptions, had
not the deep furrows in his cheek, and the occasional
expression of his countenance and flashing of his eye
manifested, that it was the result of long struggle
with himself, for entire self command and a strong
and right estimate of the claims of true wisdom and
dignity. Though turned of sixty years, he bet ayed
no abatement of faculties; but bore himself in a vigorous,
muscular and green old age, on which worth
and authority had set the right impress and seal of

years. His patriarchal authority was at once energetic
and mild, and though he had no guards, lictors,
sheriffs, insignia, emblazonings, or visible display of
office and power, his rule was a simple, though unseen
and purposely concealed despotism. Ellswatta
was one of nature's nobles, and there was nothing
about him of the savage, but his not possessing the
advantage of letters.

During the instinctive and fervid aspirings of his
youthful days, he had been a conqueror. He had
impressed the terror of his arms upon the Spaniard
at the south; and even the frozen precincts of the immeasurable
distance of the Muscovite at the north
had not shielded him from the successful inroads of
the warriors of the young Shoshonee chief. He had
severely humbled the cruel and terrible Blackfeet on
the castern side of the mountains. From his father
he had inherited the feudal homage of the Shienne.
But he achieved the more important task of breaking
down their refractory spirit, of removing them
from their remote and scattered villages, and congregating
the mass and strength of the tribe in a town,
second only to the metropolis in size, removed from
it but a short distance, and established in the same
style, under the curvature of the continued dome of
nature, that skirted the Sewasserna for an extent of
ten leagues. They had formerly been as numerous
as the Shoshonee; and though now subdued, proud
and resisting blood ran in their veins. Their dialect
and customs differed enough from those of their conquerors
to keep alive a national spirit and remembrance
of what they had been. Their chief Tonggat-tsee,
or the Snow whirlwind, was old and infirm,
but had a son, Nelesho, gigantic and powerful in
form, fierce and ambitious in thought and purpose,
cunning and resolved in intellectual character, and
in symmetry of structure a perfect Apollo Belvidere

of the wilderness. Aspiring, artful, cruel, passionate,
he was the secret idol of the Shienne, who looked
to him, as the future instrument of their emancipation
from Shoshonee thraldom. He governed his doting
father, the nominal sub-chief, and cherished in
his bosom a burning and deeply fostered hatred towards
the only son of Ellswatta, kept continually in
action by envy, rivalry, ambition, and all the torturing
and exciting passions of the human heart.

By concentrating the Shienne in his immediate
vicinity, Ellswatta had them continually under his
eye, and could note, and extinguish the first sparks
of insurrection. On issuing his orders, he could see
them carried into immediate execution, or punish
disobedience with instant promptness. The continued
and unresisting quietness of the Shienne, and
their docility and loyalty to his sway under such circumstances,
were abiding proof of the wisdom of this
arrangement.

Ellswatta, as has been said, had been a conqueror
in his youth, and had won even his wife by dint of
arms. Among a people, whose chief and absorbing
pastime is war, and who nurse from their mother's
breast unshrinking hardihood of character and purpose,
and an instinctive love of the terror and excitement
of battle, frequent expeditions are necessary, as
modes of giving utterance and scope to the warlike
musings of the untamed spirits of the young, through
the only natural channel. A long peace had accumulated
an unnatural and dangerous amount of this elastic
and exciting impulse. He felt a full share of it in his
own bosom. On some alleged aggression of the Spaniards
upon a hunting party of his people, the prime and
select of his young warriors, along with a proper conscription
from the Shienne, ranged themselves under
his standard, and prepared to follow him against the
Spanish mission of St. Peter and St. Paul, three hundred

leagues south of the Oregon. Ellswatta had
sufficient foresight not to march, until he had ascertained,
that his force was well appointed, and fore
armed against defeat and disaster, as far as precaution
and preparation could provide. The war song
was sung; and the young mounted warriors dashed
away over torrent, mountain ravine, valley, forest and
prairie, to the orange groves and vineyards of their
southern borderers. The spirited and nimble squadron
swept over the wide interval, like a cloud of
locusts, and commenced plundering their unprepared
enemy. All the detached and remote settlements
and plantations were visited in turn with this desolating
scourge. But Ellswatta was the most generous
and gallant of Indian invaders, and much of terror,
as preceded him, he inflicted no misery or cruelty,
beyond what was indispensable to carry his purposes
into effect. Women and children, the old, feeble, and
rich he permitted to ransom themselves, always proportioning
the sum to the ability. Of pretty women
he found few, or none; or, perhaps, he would not
have been always so forbearing.

He did not deem his force sufficient to assail the
fortified towns. But he overran the unfortified
places, as a whirlwind; and the expedition was absolutely
loaded with plunder; nor did they spare in the
least the well stored wine cellars. Plate, dresses,
money, provisions, horses, mules and asses, in short,
whatever they could with any convenience carry
away, made up the amount of their collection. Before
they could be attacked in one place, they had
levied contributions upon another, and the objects of
the expedition were completed in one week.

Among the few prisoners, that were not ransomed,
and that followed them back to their country, was
Josepha Estevanna, the daughter of an opulent grazier,
with a numerous family. She belonged to the

town of St. Joseph, and had come, attended with a
curé and servants, on a visit to an uncle, who lived
on this northern frontier of the mission. She had
been reared by a father, who knew little, beside the
art of taking charge of a vacherie, and valued nothing,
but money. This favorite child possessed the only
pretty face in the family, and had been reared, or
rather spoiled, in misguided and weak fondness. Her
mind and heart, respectable in native endowment,
had been suffered to develope at will, without any
efficient discipline. Suffered thus to grow up, like a
prairie plant, she would have been ruined by opulence
and indulgence, had not touches of native sense and
amiability interposed some redemption of character.
As it was, she was a far famed Creole belle,
an object of competition with all the young Spaniards,
who might pretend to it, within sixty leagues. She
sung, played the guitar, danced to a charm, was passably
able to read a romance, and spell a billet of assignation,
so as to have it take effect, though not exactly
in the orthography of the royal academy of
Madrid. She had a fine Italian countenance, of infinite
spirit and vivacity, an olive complexion, keen
black eyes, a high forehead, shaded with curling
ringlets of jetty blackness, and a tall and commanding
figure. Moreover, she was seventeen, and had
been, more than once, on the brink of marriage; and
had failed to obtain the first object of her pursuit, a
husband, not from her own choice, but from the difficulty,
which her father made, touching the point of
dower.

Along with the great mass of plunder, amidst the
bleating of flocks and lowing of herds, and the wreck
of whatsoever could enter into a Spanish establishment,
and the shrieks and sobs of some twenty or
thirty female captives, the proud beauty was brought
forward. The conqueror dismounted from a noble

horse, and in the narrow compass of Spanish, which
he possessed, uttered a few brief words, at once respectful,
complimentary, and conveying assurance of
kind treatment, and the most inviolate decorum of
observance;—the more easily promised, as it was
known even to Josepha, to be guaranteed by the invariable
usages of the Indians. He somewhat sternly
ordered the other prisoners to desist from their wailings,
while the fair captive told her story. The burden
of it was, to request that she might remain at a
stipulated ransom, which her uncle offered security to
pay, as soon as it could be remitted from her father,
then on a journey to San Blas. But Josepha, though
she understood not Shoshonee speech, readily interpreted
the language of the eye and the countenance;
and she saw in a moment, that she had most completely
conquered the conqueror. Unaccustomed to
control, or put rein to his inclinations, Ellswatta had
only taken one full survey of his prize, before he had
determined, that she should accompany him to the
banks of the Sewasserna. It was a difficult business
for the gallant young Indian, to make this purpose
categorically known. But he found words, in which
to be understood to that effect; and moreover to add
to the information reasons for his resolve, as likely to
be satisfactory to Josepha, as any that could be imagined.
Indulgent on every other point, and ready on
the easiest ransom to dismiss to their homes the old
and the ugly, and even the greater number of the
young men, it was in vain that Josepha folded her
hands, fell gracefully on her knees, and raised her fine
eyes to heaven, imploring God, the Virgin and the
young chief, to have mercy upon her. It was in vain
that all her friends, the cure and the uncle among the
rest, crowded round him, wept, entreated, and doubbled
the offers of ransom. It was in vain, that Josepha,
taking advantage of an appearance of his being
softened and subdued, made the welkin ring with
supplications and cries. The impatience of the young
chief waxed towards sternness and wrath. `I could
easier take my heart from my bosom,' he said, `than
grant this request; and if you cease not these troublesome
importunities, by the Master of Life I swear,
I will carry you all away to keep her company. Disperse
to your homes. This bird of paradise must
see the Sewasserna. She shall dwell with my mother.
She shall be regarded as the medicine of the Wah-condah.
If, when she shall have remained with us
through the three moons of flowers, she shall choose
to return, I swear she shall be sent back in honor, and
without ransom, to this place.'

Her friends trembled at the determined tones, and
quailed under the flashing eye of the chief, and scattered,
like leaves in the wind. His orders were peremptory;
and in one hour the plunder was packed on
mules and horses, or loaded in Spanish carts. Whole
flocks and herds, cattle, sheep and swine, were started
away over the plain; and Josepha, alternately weeping,
and praying, mounted the same charger, on which
she had come on this ill-omened visit. She was allowed
a single confidential female servant to attend
her; and in a short time, the procession was moving
away over the prairie. She saw, that she was
treated by the chief and his warriors with a propriety
and respect, which even surpassed that of her
own people; nor could the visible homage to her
charms fail to mitigate in some degree the painful
thoughts of captivity. No alleviations of the incidental
fatigue of the way, no comforts, which such a
position might furnish, were wanting. When they
passed a mountain, or a ravine, Ellswatta was at hand
with respectful assiduity, to help her dismount, to
lead her horse, and, when she was fatigued, to order
his warriors to bear her on a litter of vine branches;

or when the smoothness of the country through which
they passed admitted, to give her a place in the best
of the carriages which they had plundered from the
Spaniards.

Josepha thus saw herself still surrounded by homage,
still supplied with comforts and indulgencies;
and with less change in her circumstances, than could
have been imagined; except, that she journied leisurely
in a new and beautiful country, heard a new
language, and constantly saw finer forms and a more
gallant and spirited people, than her own. As her
steed ambled along the flowering prairies, she
had abundant leisure to compare Ellswatta, leading
his warriors in triumph, and in native grandeur and
dignity towards home, with the numerous suitors, who
left her to wear the willow, merely because her father
demurred to bribe them to close the contract by a sum
of money sufficiently large. She sometimes thought
keenly, it is true, of her home and her father. But
it was, on the whole, a journey in itself not unpleasant.
She had heard a promise, in which she had
every reason to confide, that she should be allowed to
return, after three months, if she chose; and in view
of all these circumstances she found means and summoned
motives, that operated to make her sorrow
much less real than seeming. She still availed herself
of the opportunities, in which Ellswatta came to
aid her, and enquire about her comforts and wants, to
place herself in graceful attitudes, and implore him,
to send her home. But he saw that she found it more
and more difficult, to invoke the accustomed accompaniment
of tears. In short, his keen discernment
and tact, sharpened by love, opened his eyes to perceive
clearly, that at every interview, and at every remove
to the north, her grief was less true and deep,
though it was still sufficiently extravagant in demonstration
of external show.

The expedition crossed the last mountain, the immediate
boundary of the Shoshonee valley, in safety,
and the lady Josepha might have told enquiring
friends, in the customary phrase, that she found herself
as well as could be expected. The most glorious of all
the Indian solemnities is the triumphal return of a
successful expedition. This had every feature, to
mark it with the highest festivity. It had been distant.
Not a warrior had fallen. It had brought back
a prodigious booty. The flocks and herds, that the
warriors drove before them, filled all the plain. The
whole united people of the two tribes received them,
as they came down the mountains, and instantly undeceived
those of their captives, who had been taught
to consider them a callous, cold and insensible race.
Wives embraced their husbands, parents their children,
and maidens their elected warriors. The old
people walked in procession before them. The
drums beat. Fire arms were discharged; and as
soon as they arrived at the council house, the medicine
dance took place, and due thanks were returned
to the Master of Life. As not a person of the expedition
had fallen, even the captives were treated with
the utmost kindness. They were all distributed, and
assigned according to immemorial usage, and Josepha,
with every mark of tenderness and respect, was passed
over to the keeping of the aged mother of Ellswatta.
Here every amusement and gratification, which the
means of the valley could furnish, were put in requisition
by Ellswatta. In the energetic and beautiful
phrase of his native vale, he declared unbounded love
for his fair captive. He strove to enlist her ambition
to swerve her to become the wife of the chief. She
saw him adored by his people. She observed him intelligent
and generous, of an admirable form and noble
spirit. She discovered, too, that she held her conqueror
in chains, and could impose such conditions, as

pleased her. She still wept at times, and talked of
her dear country, as Ellswatta showed her the beautiful
domain of his people. She teased him, vexed
him, pouted, and flung at times, and threatened in
Shoshonee, for she had shown an admirable quickness
in learning the language, to return at the expiration
of the moon of flowers. In short, she tormented the
young Indian in all conceivable ways, and her combinations
of that sort were quit respectable in number.

But when the first fine day of summer came, and
Ellswatta, true to his word, and trembling through
fear, that there were more female mysteries yet to
learn, came to inform her that he was ready to accomplish
his promise, and to conduct her back to her
people,—if Josepha had balanced in time past between
returning to her father, perhaps to spend her
days in single blessedness, and the certainty of a generous
and noble husband, chief of two nations, she
did so no longer. She thought of the tawny, mean
looking, and timid young Creoles who had been her
mercenary suitors, as the chief in the form and majesty
of an Apollo stood before her. `Bird of paradise,'
said he, `thou art as free as yon eagle that is
soaring over the mountain, toward thy country, and
Ellswatta has strength from the Wahcondah to offer
to accompany thee to thy home.'

Josepha replied with all the affected modesty and
holding back, that might seem to suit the occasion,
that she had changed her mind, in regard to returning
to her own people She told him, `that she felt
as though she ought to punish him for the rudeness
and cruelty of bringing her away from her dear parents
and country, by returning to them; but as she
could not bring herself to endure the mortification
and wounded feeling, which, she knew, awaited her
among her own race, where she would be pointed at,
and pitied by every one, as having been subject to

the control and caprice of an Indian chief for three
whole months, she should be obliged to live among
the Shoshonee. Not at all, she added, that she
wished him to marry her, because she chose to remain,
and thus avoid this bitter but now unavoidable
consequence of his cruelty.'

In short, the chief guaranteed her the free and unmolested
exercise of her worship, and they were married
after the most splendid Indian ceremonial. Josepha,
on this occasion, received a Shoshonee name,
equivalent to `Moss Rose,' and the rejoicing and festivities
on this happy event are still recounted by the
elders of the tribe, in proof of the degeneracy and
decreasing refinement of the younger generation, as
evinced in the comparative insignificance of their festivals.
Josepha became a good and affectionate wife,
identifying her interests, henceforward, with those of
her husband, in many points conforming to the ways
of her adopted people; and reciprocally fostering in
the bosom of her husband no small tendency towards
the Spanish habits and ways of thinking. Nor was
Josepha ever heard to complain, that this marriage
had not rendered her happy.

The other Spanish captives were adopted into different
families, and in no great length of time had intermarried
with the Shoshonee or Shienne, and were
so effectually incorporated with them, as to bear no
other trace of distinction, save their European countenances.

The first white family, that established itself among
them, in such a way, as to sustain its distinct identity,
was that of William Weldon. It was a family,
which would have been considered so rare and unique
in any place, that it will be necessary to go back to
its origin, as far as its peculiar circumstances may
serve to explain its peculiarities. Never example
afforded a more ample confirmation of the thought in

the beautiful verses of Gray, touching the gems, that
blaze unseen in the dark caverns of the ocean, and the
roses, that waste their fragance on the desert air.—
The head of this family was originally a New England
mariner, of a highly respectable family, accustomed
to the most careful domestic discipline, and receiving
the advantages of the best education, which that
country could furnish. The family had once been
opulent, and had experienced reverses. The son early
manifested buddings of the highest order of talent;
and the parents looked forward with the usual fondness
of parental affection to this son, as the means of
retrieving their fortunes, and redeeming their circumstances.
He was sent to a university, and intended
for the law. But William was cursed, in a very uncommon
measure of endowment, with genius, and the
blighting influence of what seems to have been an evil
star. He grew up a musing, poetry-loving, sensitive,
capricious, irritable and jealous being, holding little
converse, except with inanimate nature, and the ideal
world within himself. When he should have been
thinking about his lessons, gaining the good will of his
instructers, and attending to his present and future
interests, his imagination, perhaps, was rioting with the
fool's thoughts at the ends of the earth. He knew
every thing, but what was useful for him to know.
Neither his reasonings, his actions, or calculations
were like those of any body about him. He laughed
without seeming reason, and was sad without visible
cause; and generally preserved uncommon taciturnity,
and a countenance clouded with thought and dark
musings, frequently mistaken for ill temper. He was
constantly advancing paradoxical opinions, which he
defended with so many arguments and so much acuteness,
that he confounded, if he confuted not his adversaries.
Among those of his opinions, that had really
operated deep conviction, was the wild and pernicious
sophism of Rosseau, that the savage is happier,
than the social state. The sequel will explain what
an influence this deep and absorbing conviction operated
upon his subsequent life.

William graduated from the university, with the
estimation by the faculty of an odd, original and rather
refractory subject. Still they admitted, that he had
genius; and he was a most persevering and indefatigable
student. His parents began to distrust his success
in life, for he only now and then acquired a warm
friend at the expense of a host of enemies; though
every one of them was obliged to admit, that he was
irreproachable. The sanguine hope of his parents
received the final extinguisher, when they discovered
in him an unconquerable propensity to the sea. They
reasoned, remonstrated, and struggled. But he felt
the leading of his star, and went to sea. Master of
the higher mathematics and of navigation, in the first
voyage he became an admirable practical sailor. The
parents, with the common versatility of the power
of creating illusions, welded their broken chain of
hopes anew; and now promised themselves, that they
should soon see him an India captain, and thereafter
a first rate merchant. He commenced his second
voyage, as second mate of a China ship. But, with
more acquaintance with navigation, and with an unimpeached
reputation, as a man, and a sailor, no one
spoke of his advancement. He seemed to be fixed
at the scale of second mate. Again and again he
sailed on the same voyage, with the same result. The
stripling and the novice were exalted over his head.
William had keen feelings and a bottomless fund of
tortured pride. He cursed civilization in his heart,
and charged his want of success to the evil influence
of social life. Disappointed hopes, humbled pride,
and a consciousness of ill requited merit, continually
corroded his nerves. His parents unreasonably complained,

and he fled, a self resolved exile, from his
country. He still went to sea second mate, and
bowed to young men, every way his inferiors, in proud
humility, and in stern and uncomplaining taciturnity
of professional subordination. The sailors avoided
and almost dreaded him, they knew not why. His
intellectual powers, his mathematical knowledge, his
nautical learning and his seamanship, along with his
silent and thoughtful manner, caused strange and
almost superstitious views of him to be entertained
on ship board, and he was generally designated by
the name, Sulky Will.

A deep and inexhaustible fund of friendship and
good feelings was thus locked up in his heart, for
want of a congenial friend, and the right kind of society
and circumstances to draw it forth. But indignant,
that every one misapprehended, and showed
dispositions to shun him, he finally grew misanthropic,
wrote verses and threw them in the sea; and determined,
the next time he should sail to the north-west
coast, to join the Indians in the interior.

It happened on his last outward bound voyage, that
a young gentleman went out passenger, with a handsome
capital, to establish himself in business at Canton.
He was an unconnected, studious and amiable
man, of feeble health. He was ill of a hectic
complaint, and in the ennui of a long voyage, circumstances
brought him intimately acquainted with
William. They soon found in each other the elective
attraction, delight and advantage of congenial
minds. How delightful is the sensation, on making
such a discovery any where! How much more so,
when made on ship board, while the frail vessel is
ploughing its solitary path along the trackless wastes
of Ocean! And most of all so, when one of the
parties was imperceptibly sinking under the influence
of that insidious and terrible disorder which,

while it precludes all hope of overcoming it, heightens
the sensibilities, and gives new tension to the ties
of the heart. All, that had understood William
Weldon, loved him; and this young gentleman became
deeply attached to him. The ship was becalmed
in the tropical latitudes. The invalid began
to sink rapidly; and it soon became evident, that he
would not survive, to reach his destination. William
Weldon spent every moment, that was not devoted
to his proper duties, with him. He watched over him
with tender and unabating care, read to him, conversed
with him, and said much to cheer, and sustain
him, and solace his last hours. In a long and
affectionate conversation with him, two days before
his death, the young man told him, that he had no
near connexions; and that in consideration of his
friendship for him, and his gratitude for his kind assiduities,
he intended to make him his sole heir. This
he declared verbally, before the captain and crew.
After his death a will was found to the same effect;
and William Weldon became possessed of ten thousand
dollars. He henceforward passed by the name
of `rich Sulky Will,' without seeming to have propitiated
the good will of the officers, or brightened in
the slightest degree his prospects of advancement.

While he was discharging his duty of second mate,
for this office was still the cap of his climax of promotion,
and while his ship was lying in the river, half
a league below Canton, there arose a sudden and
violent squall, attended with thunder, lightning and
hail. Many Chinese vessels in sight were capsized
by the suddenness of the gale; and among others a
large custom house junk, used by its officer, as a place
of habitation. Three or four persons were seen to
escape from this vessel, as it lay close by the ship.
They swam with perfect ease towards a British ship,
at no great distance. Not so a single young woman,

who was observed to struggle with the waves for a
moment, and then to sink with a shriek, but a few
yards from the ship, towards which she seemed to be
making. This was plainly apparent amidst all the
commotion and uproar; and excited a general cry of
sympathy. The fierceness of the storm, the beating
of the hail, the screaming of the winds in the ropes,
and the waves lashed to a fury, rendered it a fearful
chance for any one, to commit himself at that moment
to the raging element. The thoughts of William
Weldon, it may be, were a thousand leagues away,
when the storm commenced. The sight of this drowning
woman and the general cry of sympathy concentered
his seattered thoughts. As she arose, holding
to an oar with one hand, and reaching the other for
help to the ship's crew, William plunged overboard.
The uproar of the elements and the commotion of the
water were terrible. At the same time all the idolatrous
fondness of sailors for manifestation of generous
feeling, reckless intrepidity, and disregard for self
was kindled, and directed towards the adventurer, as
by an electric spark. William Weldon became popular
and a favorite in a moment. `God bless you,
Sulky Will,' they cried, `Who would have thought,
it had been in you'! He had nearly reached the woman,
when she sunk a second time. He was seen to
descend, at the point where she sunk. The lightning
glared. The rain fell in sheets, and for half a minute,
it was thought, that both were forever whelmed in
the abyss. But a moment afterwards, he was seen
rising with the drowning woman. Coops and casks
were thrown over towards them. A general shout
arose. `Hurra, my noble lad! Hold to her. The
gale is falling. We will have you a rope in a moment.'
Meanwhile another intrepid tar had sprung
overboard, and reached him, when nearly exhausted,
with a rope. William caught it, and they were dragged
on board, the woman in a state of entire insensibility,
and her preserver apparently exhausted.

The squall passed away. By proper exertions the
woman was recovered, and was found to be a Chinese
lady of a most interesting appearance, and the daughter
of a Mandarin of considerable rank, and holding
an office in the customs of no mean importance. Her
father, accompanied by many friends, came on board,
for her; and William received many grateful thanks,
and offers of reward, which he, of course, declined.—
But William had won the acclamations of officers and
crew by an act, of a character always to go directly
to a sailor's heart. `You shall be promoted, my brave
lad,' they said, and a clear vista was now opened to
promotion.

But their voyage was destined to be continued to
the Oregon, before their return. It happened, while
they lay in the river, that one of the hands died.—
The captain immediately advertised for another hand,
by distributing cards among the American and English
ships in the river. The evening before the ship
was to sail on her voyage to the north west coast, a
young Chinaman of a singularly interesting and pleasant
countenance, and speaking the usual amount and
dialect of English, appeared on deck, and offered himself
to the captain for the advertised sailor. The
captain looked at him with the common kind of scrutiny
in such cases, and objected to the slenderness
and delicacy of his form, as not promising sufficient
muscle, power and endurance for a sailor's duty.—
The countenance of the interesting young Chinaman
sank, and became overclouded with distress; and his
extreme anxiety and earnestness to be engaged
was palpably manifest. The captam proposed some
trials of his skill and adroitness, through which he
passed with competent facility. His gentleness and
docility, the earnest sweetness of his countenance, and

a certain urbanity of manners, gained on the good
will of the captain. But he said, `my good lad, your
face looks very little like having been weather beaten,
or your hands like handling ropes.' His whimsical
way of speaking English, and the pleasant tones
of his voice had won him the warm heart of the sailors.
William Weldon, too, in this case, seemed to
have aroused from his wonted apathy and indifference
to what was passing. He asked, as a favor to him,
that the young Chinaman might be employed; and
remarking, that the captain knew, that he had in him
the power to perform the duty of three men, he pledged
himself, that he would supply the deficiency of the
Chinaman's duty, when it resulted from his inability
to perform it himself. In short, Yensi, for so the Chinaman
was called, was shipped, and, apparently delighted
to have obtained his point, left the matter of
his wages entirely to the will of the captain.

The foreigner proved to be more slender and delicate,
than had been apprehended; and the little white
hands, taper fingers, and fairy feet of the Chinaman
were a matter of most amusing speculation to the
sailors. But his manners were modest and elegant;
his temper mild and affectionate; and he was untiring
in his efforts to learn, and accomplish his duty. His
musical tones of voice, and monosyllabic dialect delighted
the crew from their novelty. There was a
charm in his whole deportment, which won him general
favor; and there were others of the crew as ready,
as William, in cases of severe, or extra duty, to
perform those services, for which his want of strength,
or skill, disqualified him. But Yensi, though civil
and obliging to all, was observed from the first day
to attach himself almost exclusively to the society of
Sulky Will. This was an inexplicable mystery to
the crew; for William was naturally as silent and
reserved, as Yensi was affable and colloquial. But

so it was, that, while they evidently sought to avoid
manifestations of particular liking for each other in
the observation of the ship's company, they chose
contiguous births, cooked and messed together; and
while, publicly, they strove to seem no more particular
to each other, than to the rest, they always seized
the first decent opportunity for retirement, to be
apart by themselves; and it was remarked, that, silent
as William was with the rest, with Yensi he was as
colloquial and voluble, as a Frenchman.

While the ship sped before as gentle and steady
gales as ever blew, and while the bland atmosphere
of the tropics and mid ocean encircled them, when
the rest of the crew drank their grog, pledged their
sweethearts, sang their songs, and told their stories,
under the radiance of the moon tempered by the
fleecy clouds, William and Yensi, on the extreme
stern, or bow, courted seclusion, and never tired of
each other's society; and this companionship seemed
to have ripened into a mysterious friendship. The
sailors soon learned to find amusement in teasing
Yensi, by ridiculing his friend. He had learned the
exact import of the name `Sulky Will;' and nothing
so soon overcame his customary placidity, as to hear
them apply the term `Sulky' to his friend. On the
other hand, William had shown no pugnacious dispositions,
until some of the crew began to talk scoffingly
about Yensi's little feet, slender hands, and beardless
face. William begged them to desist from such conversation,
in a manner that obtained his purpose at
once. A slight gale arose, and Yensi was severely
sea-sick. He would accept no nursing, but that of
William. In short, sick or well, on duty or at leisure,
William and Yensi were inseparable companions.
This unheard of kind of Platonic sentimentality between
a Yankee sailor and a Chinaman, naturally
became a subject of conversation and curiosity.

Three days before the ship reached the mouth of the
Oregon, it was remarked, that William had never
shown so much wrath, as at an insinuation, apparently
thrown out at hazard, that Yensi was a woman concealed
in a sailor's habit.

William's extreme agitation strengthened, and
fixed the suspicion; and the rumor was soon afloat,
that Yensi was in fact a woman. Such a fine subject
for ship gossip could not be long in reaching the ears
of the captain, who gaily proposed to William, to
clear himself from suspicion by submitting the premises
to the test of search. But the wit, if wit it
was intended to be, was met by him with such a look,
as gave the captain no disposition to repeat the proposition.
If a more formal investigation had been
contemplated by the captain, it was prevented by
squalls and stormy weather, which betokened their
approach to the north west coast. The captain and
crew were too much occupied by a sense of danger
and the bustle of duty, to pursue the rumor further,
either in jest or earnest. But the parties had been
made most painfully aware, that the report was
afloat, and on the return of pleasant weather would,
probably, lead to unpleasant consequences.

The moment the ship anchored in the Oregon, and
put out her plank on the bluff shore, fearful of some
officious interference, and sensible that the secret
could not be longer concealed, William Weldon took
the first opportunity to inform the captain, in private,
that the sailors had divined rightly, and that Yensi
was in fact a Chinese girl. He informed him further,
that there was an indissoluble attachment between
them; that both were alike disgusted with social and
civilized life, and had resolved to join the Indians in
the interior. He, therefore, demanded the discharge
of both. The captain at first demurred, remonstrating
that such desertion would leave him without

sufficient hands to work the ship. A remedy was
found for that difficulty in the fact, that there were
many discharged sailors in the settlement at the
mouth of the river, who wished to hire. They would,
of course, make common cause with William, whose
resolute, persevering, and fearless character was well
known. The captain saw his predicament, and
deemed it best to comply, without attempting compulsion.
So William Weldon and Yensi were paid
and discharged. A colony of adventurers had already
formed a kind of rude town on the banks,
whose inhabitants pursued sea lions, otters and seals
on the shore, and drove a very considerable trade
with the Indians up the Oregon and its branches.
William and Yensi immediately moved their effects
on board another ship in the river. That ship had
on board a well known factor, bound in a few days to
Canton. With him William deposited his money,
on interest, to be paid him on personal demand, or to
be remitted at his order to the chief inhabitant of the
settlement for his use. His own wages and earnings
were expended in guns, powder, lead, traps, clothing
of various kinds, and, in general, in an ample supply
of such articles, as his foresight taught him would be
necessary in the new position, in which he expected
to place himself. Yensi, among other things, had
brought trunks and boxes of Chinese silks, and all
her own articles of dress, comprising an extensive
wardrobe, adjusted to the wealth and standing of
her father. She had not forgotten, at the same time,
Chinese books, paintings and a considerable weight
of ingots of silver. From the first, William had always
carried with him a respectable select assortment
of the best of books. It was matter of sufficient
astonishment, and furnished abundant ground for
gossip and conjecture, and a thousand extravagant
versions of the affair, to remark two people in the
prime of youth, with comparative wealth, and such
abundant means, making arrangements to bury themselves
among the savages in the interior.

As soon, as they were on board the other ship,
Yensi changed her sailor dress for an appropriate one
of her own country; and appeared in her proper
character, a lovely young woman, habited as the
daughter of a Chinese Mandarin. She was, in fact,
the very Chinese girl, whom William had saved from
drowning in the storm. A young woman, who has a
heart, whether she appear with the complection and
dress, and speak the language of Boston or Canton,
whether she wear India rubber shoes, or have her
feet crimped in those of China, has the same grateful
nature over the globe. William's vessel and the Chinese
junk had been moored within half a cable's
length of each other for weeks. The Chinese lady
was often on deck; and William, who had made a
covenant with his eyes, in regard to ladies of his own
country, was struck with the air and figure of this foreign
girl. Certain bows, and looks, that speak the
universal language, had been exchanged between
them, before his intrepid exploit. That settled the
relationship of affection between them. As soon as
she recovered consciousness on the American ship, she
and her deliverer interchanged vows with their eyes.
She loved William, as one loves, to whom that sentiment
is every thing. They contrived an interview.
They arranged together the plan for elopement, the
success of which has been related.

Her father, as an inspector of the port, and a collector
of the customs, resided in a large junk on the
river; and the daughter officiated, as his house, or
boat keeper. He was avaricious, and proud, and had
shown towards his amiable child total destitution of
the common sympathies of parental affection. Love
was an entirely new perception to this inexperienced

girl, which, deeply as it burned in her bosom, she
would sooner have died, than have disclosed to her
father. Her first efforts at reasoning, and framing
syllogisms, were spent in excusing her rashness and
departure from all Chinese customs, to her own conscience.
But the first step was taken, and love made
the remaining ones easy. William assured her, that at
the first leisure hour, which they should have together,
he could satisfy all her remaining scruples. She had
been taught to believe in the inevitable decrees of
fate, and she was convinced, that she felt the leading
and the consent of the `Universal Tien' in the new
and tumultuous sensations, which agitated her bosom.
She gathered up all, that she conceived, belonged to
her of right, and effected her elopement as has been
related.

In presence of William's banker, a distinguished
merchant, whom he had formerly known, and the
chief settler of the colony, who acted as a kind of self
appointed magistrate, they were privately married,
the one appealing to angels and God, and the other
to the `Universal Tien,' that they made their vows in
full sincerity of heart; and that they would forsake
each other only in death. William's first effort upon
the mind of his bride was, to prove to her the superiority
and advantages of savage over social life; and
to persuade her, to approve his plan of renouncing
society, and joining himself to the Indians. In the
freshness and vigor of a first love, for such was his
new born affection for Yensi, he offered to abide her
decision, either for or against his project. But the
heart of Yensi overflowed with love and confidence.
She dreamed not, that she should ever wish to see, or
converse with any other, than William. She assured
him, that the place of his choice was hers; and had
she known the language, she would have said with
the generous and confiding Ruth, `where thou goest,

I will go. Thy people shall be my people, and thy
God my God, and where thou diest, there also will I
die.'

In a few days their arrangements and purchases
were made; and they were of an extent utterly unlike
any thing of the kind, that had ever ascended the
river before. Cutlery and materials for a house,
cloths, books, a telescope, a microscope, implements
and materials for drawing and painting, together with
the requisite provisions, were loaded into three or four
large periogues, rowed by hired Shoshonee and Shienne,
and accompanied by a young half breed, who
understood English and Shoshonee. The young bride-groom
and bride took their last look of civilized men,
and started away up the river. The season and
weather were temperate and propitious; and the wild
and beautiful nature, that continually opened in incessant
variety upon them, as they moved up the
broad and noble stream, and looked abroad upon the
flowery plains, or the magnificent hills, or the elevated
bluffs, or the millions of sea fowls, or the herds of
wild animals, prospects so utterly unlike any thing,
that Yensi had seen, were sources of new and continual
delight. She was charmed, too, with the simple
manners and the kindness of their Indian conductors.
William's heart exulted, as they advanced deeper
into the beautiful solitudes, and interposed wider distances
between them and social life. They felt, as if
they were all the world to each other; and their first
acquaintance with the wilderness was calculated to
confirm their expectations.

To be brief, they reached the vale of the Sewasserna,
without material adventure; and were most
hospitably received by the Shoshonee. William understood
Spanish; and this brought him in direct communication
with the wife of the chief, and various
other persons of the tribe. A most lovely spot, intermediate

between the Shoshonee and Shienne, was
assigned them, where to fix their dwelling place.—
William had brought trinkets and Indian goods, but
no ardent spirits. This circumstance raised him in
the estimation of Ellswatta, the determined enemy of
the introduction of that article among them. Money
and articles of barter already had their value with
this people; and William, with the aid of Ellswatta,
and the hire of as many Indians, as he chose to employ,
prepared a commodious dwelling, accommodated
to the admirable outline, which nature had already
formed to his hands. The saw and the plane, the
plum and the square yielded their aid—for William
knew their use, and the Indians readily acquired it.
A circular clump of noble pines caught the moaning
breeze in its summits, in front of the dwelling—above
them towered the wall three hundred feet in height.
A considerable stream, tumbling from the mountains,
meandered through the terrace plain above, and fell
in a sheet from the bluff, a little to the right of their
dwelling, and joined the Sewasserna. Fenced by this
stream, and the bluff on three sides, a substantial fence
from the bluff to the river enclosed it on the fourth.
Beyond the clump of pines, a fertile and level portion
of the prairie was formed into a garden and a field.

In like manner three sides of his dwelling were
prepared in the majestic arch of lime stone, under
which he built. Nor did he intermit his labors, and
the services of his hired Indians, until he had a habitation,
neat, comfortable and commodious. The luxury
of windows of glass, of doors, and plaistered walls,
were here seen by the Indians for the first time. Comfortable
furniture had been brought from the Oregon.
The floors were beautifully covered with rich Chinese
matting; and the walls hung with Chinese pictures,
so that Yensi could refresh her memory with
views of the scenery of her native country. Nature

thus united with art, to render the abode, and its accompaniments
of scenery, pleasant, convenient, and
in some degree even impressive and sublime. Flocks
and herds and horses and mules and domestic fowls
were purchased, and added to the establishment.—
The half-breed and a young Spanish widow of a deceased
Indian were their domestics. In an apartment,
looking upon the falling sheet of water, the Sewasserna,
the opposite plain and mountains, and at a point,
where the breezy influences in the tops of the pines,
the dash of the near water fall, and the deep roar of
mountain torrents and the song of the wild birds, united
to form the simple æolian hymn of nature, was
his library.

Such were the circumstances, under which William
and Yensi fixed their abode in the Shoshonee
Valley. Mild in their tempers, happy in themselves,
satisfied with every thing about them, and the munificent
bounty of nature, they quickly learned the
speech of the two tribes, and became general favorites.
Yensi and Josepha, from many points of resemblance,
that they had in common, were sworn and
inseparable friends; while Ellswatta took no important
projects in hand without the counsel of William.
They thus had honor, influence, aid and friendship,
without responsibility, or a visible show of place and
office, to create envy.

As William had frequent intercourse with the
mouth of the Oregon by letters, from his agent there,
brought up by the parties of Indians, continually descending
the river to trade, he ordered such articles,
and especially books, from time to time, as his wants
required, and the means of his agent could furnish.
He became a successful farmer; and in that exuberant
soil raised an abundance of whatever the climate
brings to maturity. Yensi had charge of the
garden; and Chinese and New-England ideas were

curiously blended in its pawpaw shrubberies, and in
its grape, multiflora rose, bignonia, and honey suckle
bowers; and in all the splendid plants or flowers, that
were yielded by the various temperatures and soils
of mountain and hill side, deep glen, prairie and river
bank. Portions of the sheet of water, which always
poured from the terrace above, disparted in numerous
rills, and wound through the lawn in front of their
dwelling, tending either to ornament or convenience,
as they were directed to different points of the garden.
Here, in ease and alternate labor, in study,
meditation, or active pursuits with the Indians, William
tasted the rural life in all its joy, and seldom failed,
at the close of the day, to felicitate himself and his
wife in the wisdom of his choice, and the unanswerable
truth of his position, that the savage was happier,
and every way better, than the social life.

Sometimes, as the humor came over him, he hunted,
and trapped with the Indians. Sometimes, catching
their habits and ways, he scaled the seemingly inaccessible
mountains, to the cruel disquietude of
Yensi. At other times, he followed a trapping party
to some remote and roaring torrent, and under the
light of the moon, illumining the wild scenery, surveyed
the wonderful amphibious cities, where the
beavers build, and rear their young. With the whole
nation he kept the jubilee of the return of salmon—
and the freedom and abundance and loveliness of this
illimitable range of valleys and mountains, with their
increasing mutual affection, and the unbroken friendship
of the Indians, rendered this beautiful desert all
that his fancy had imaged of happiness on the earth.

Yensi was happy—for although she saw not the
Indian life with the eyes of her husband, he continued
to manifest unabated love; and this was all, that
was requisite to render her heart content. He had
none, with whom to compare her; and she needed not

have feared even that trial. For he was one of those,
whose deep affections had been long nurtured in solitude,
by having no object, upon which to fix. Her
image was first reflected in the fountains of his heart;
and no other could ever have replaced it. In her he
saw with the poet, `whatever good or fair high fancy
forms, or lavish hearts can wish.'

They early began to converse with each other,
touching the great object of worship, and the all absorbing
interests, hopes and fears of the eternal future.
William worshipped after the custom of his fathers,
and hallowed the Sabbath. Yensi at first burned fragrant
woods to the `Universal Tien,' as her ancestors
had done. But, the more the scriptures were expounded
to her, the more she inclined to the holier
religion and worship of the Christians.

To those, who dwell in the mansions of cities,
amidst the feverish excitements and the artificial
splendor and wants of those abodes, it may seem no
more than the language of romance, to say, that William
and Yensi were happy in this vale, as man can
hope to be here below. They would have asked for
nothing more, than thousands of years of this same
half dreaming, and yet satisfying existence. A daughter
was born to them—a desert flower of exquisite
beauty, even from its birth. New and unmoved fountains
of mysterious and slumbering affections were
awakened in the deepest sanctuary of their hearts.
In the clear waters of the brook, which chafed over
pebbles, between banks turfed with wild sage and
numberless desert flowers, and under the overhanging
pines, in the tops of which the southern breeze
played the grand cathedral service of the mountain
solitudes, William performed, as father, priest and
Christian, the touching ceremony of baptising his
babe. Adding the name Jessy to that of the mother,
it was called Jessy Yensi. This sacred rite was performed

on the Sabbath, as the sun was sinking in
cloud-curtained majesty behind the western mountains.
The domestics, Ellswatta, and Josepha, looked
on with awe. William read the scriptures, prayed
and sang, baptised his babe, and handed the nursling
of the desert to Yensi. As she received the beloved
infant in her arms, after it had been consecrated, as
an inmate in the family of the Redeemer, while tears
of tenderness and piety filled her eyes, and fell on
her cheeks, she declared, that she would no longer
invoke the `Universal Tien,' that the God of William
and her babe should be her God; and that they
would both call on the same name, when they prayed
together for their dear babe, even unto death.

As the infant Jessy grew to be a child, not only
did she become an idol to the fond parents, but her
exquisite beauty, her speaking countenance, her perfect
symmetry of feature and form, her richly intelligent
eye, the silken and clustering curls of auburn,
that hung over the alabaster shoulders of the charming
little girl, gained for her the appellation among
the Indians, whose common parlance was poetry, of
`Wakona,' or the bird of paradise. There have been
philosophers, who have prosed gravely, and have said,
that children are all endowed alike, and that education
makes the difference. There are those too,
who believe these absurd assertions; but there is
more difference between the endowments of individuals
of our race, than there is between some of the
lower grade of rationals and the higher orders of
brutes. All the ideal forms of beauty, that had ever
been painted on the teeming imagination of her father,
during his life of silent meditation, were embodied
in the little Jessy. From her mother she inherited
an oriental imagination, sensitiveness and ardor. She
was, intellectually and in person, just what her fond
father had wished his first born might be.

As soon as her instruction commenced, the parents
laid down the plan for her discipline in perfect accordance.
Each was to teach her, what each could impart.
Yensi had been instructed in all, that females
were allowed to learn in China. When her father's
lessons were completed, the child went to the study
of the Chinese lore of her mother. She was particularly
qualified to teach her precision of outline and
beauty of coloring, in drawing and painting, to which
she showed an uncommon aptitude from her earliest
years. William now rejoiced for the first time in
the fruit of the severe studies of his early years. It
would the better qualify him to train the mind of his
daughter. The beautiful child drank instruction, as
the flowers of the valley absorbed the dew. Generous
instructers have felt the high pleasure of training
minds, that expand with eager elasticity to meet
instruction, minds that anticipate the thoughts of the
teacher, and upon which new truths fall as the electric
spark upon the receiver. To conceive of this
pleasure in this case, we must call to mind, that the
instructer was a man of the highest order of genius,
whose affections and thoughts had been concentrated
by study and silence and reflection from his earliest
years; that it was the father teaching the child, the
child of her, whom alone he had loved among women,
a child the very seal and impress of his own character,
and whose loveliness and intelligence extorted the admiration
of even Indians, so little prone to admiration;
that the parents, though they lived in primeval simplicity,
had the means of affluence, had no absorbing
pursuit or pleasure in the world, but the rearing this
daughter, and that they were placed amidst scenery,
as romantic and sublime, as any which the earth could
furnish. In this way, we may arrive at some vague
views of the zeal of the instructer, and the progress
of the pupil. Cherished by Josepha and the Spanish

mothers in the tribe, and accustomed to a Spanish
domestic in the family, she learned Spanish, Shoshonee
and English at the same time. At eight she had
mastered all the simple books of her father's collection,
and drew flowers, to vie in truth and freshness
with those of nature. But among all her books, the
fervor, simplicity, grandeur, truth and nature of the
bible most delighted her; and while her imagination
was imbued with its sublime poetry, her heart was
early affected with its precepts and its spirit.

In the more important hunting and trapping expeditions
of the two tribes, it was their immemorial
custom to emigrate in a body, leaving only a few behind,
to protect their habitations. William Weldon
soon caught the Indian propensity to long and distant
excursions. His family had every facility for journeying,
which wealth, the favor of Ellswatta, and
droves of horses and mules, like him of Uz, could furnish.
The nation journied by easy stages; and the
little Jessy and her mother were thus accustomed to
the most varied aspects of nature, as she shows herself
in that country of valleys, torrents and mountains.
In this perpetual change of place and scene, the
young Jessy spent a portion of every summer, at that
period, when the heart and character are developing
together. The first objects, that impressed her opening
mind, were soft grass plains, foaming mountain
torrents, snow-clad peaks soaring above the clouds,
the lovely and the awful of nature always grouped in
the same view. When she tented for the night, she
heard her father's hymn, the solemn words of the bible,
the voice of prayer, the songs of the savages, the
howling of wolves, and the distant dash of streams
among the mountains. The bright fire blazed. The
evening comforts were arranged. Milton or Byron
or Shakspeare were read. The itinerary of the child,
and her comments were recited. Or her sketches of

the grandeur and beauty of the country, through
which they had passed, examined. When they paused,
as they sometimes did for days in some valley,
scooped out among the mountains, or beside a stream
rolling through a prairie, boundless to the sight, she
culled flowers, and painted them, sat by the cataracts
listening to their roar, or admiring the snowy whiteness
of their spray, or imitated the sweet notes of the
birds, as she traced them to their embowered haunts
at the sources of springs, or listened to the tales of
the Indian girls told in simple words, and painting affection
in the figurative diction of the desert.

Though her parents had no other child, she was by
no means alone. The little Wakona, as the Indians
always called her, was regarded by them with an almost
superstitious affection. Her beauty, her amiability,
her rare, and premature intelligence threw
over her, in their view, associations of something not
exactly, and altogether of the earth; and every child,
male or female, was ambitious of the honor of ministering
to her wants, or contributing to her pleasures.

But the usages of the tribes, and the estimation of
the people allowed but two children among them unrestrained
intercourse with her, as equals. The first
was Areskoui. Of all the children, whom Josepha
had borne to the chief, this child alone survived.—
From infancy he had put forth the buddings of endowment
almost as singular, as that of Jessy. Though
retaining a touch of the copper visage and the distinct
black lank locks of his father, his countenance was
noble and Italian; his forehead high, his eye, like that
of the eagle, capable of drinking in the sunbeams;
his form tall, agile, graceful, though rather inclined to
slender; with the clean limbs and lofty port of his father;
like him rather inclining to silence, sternness
and passionate perseverance in his opinions and purposes.
From his mother he was ardent, impetuous,

and addicted to the gratification of his propensities.
Never was child regarded by parents with more idolatrous
fondness. The tribe beheld in him the miniature
of all, that they could imagine of great and noble.
Such was the young and interesting son of the
chief. Scarcely two years older than Jessy, they had
played together from infancy; and had learned, in the
affectionate speech of the Shoshonee, to call each
other by appellations equivalent to brother and sister.

This intimacy of the children naturally grew out
of the intimacy of the parents. As has been seen, a
strict friendship subsisted between them. The early
predilection of William Weldon for savage life fostered
feelings, that tended to keep up this affectionate
intercourse. When at home, no day passed,
in which Ellswatta did not look in upon William Weldon,
and spend part of it with him. In encampments
abroad, a tent was always assigned him near that of
the chief. Josepha and Yensi, too, from various circumstances,
were equally intimate; for they had a
thousand thoughts and ways in common, which, they
could never expect, would be shared with any of the
women of the Shoshonee. Hence, while their busbands
hunted, trapped, planned, and made excursions
together, the mothers met, and brought their children
to play together in the shade among the flowers, while
they talked over the incidents and gossip of the tribe,
as they drank their coffee together, for that luxury
had already found its way into their families; as they
discussed the secrets of state, which they had gleaned
from their husbands, and each extolling the child
of the other to the skies, in order to have the pleasure
of hearing their own praised back again in terms
equally extravagant.

The two children were thus reared, as though they
had been twins. Josepha, though anxious, that her
son should be taught in the learning of the whites,

was poorly able to impart him that instruction herself.
William Weldon most cheerfully undertook to give
him lessons along with his daughter. By dint of great
exertion Areskoui learned to read, and write. But,
although apparently possessing the finest order of intellect,
learning from the beginning was his strange
work. The first distinct indication of his strong character
was love for his foster-sister. The second was
hatred to Nelesho, son of the sub-chief of the Shienne,
who frequently came, also, to play with Jessy, and
who was of the same age with himself. The third
was a gloomy and desponding feeling, compounded
perhaps of envy and shame, to see his foster-sister,
younger than himself, comprehend lessons with perfect
ease, of which, he said, his poor head could make
nothing.

Nelesho was a full blooded Indian boy, Herculean
in mould, proud, fierce, of a courage wholly devoid
of fear, subtle, passionate and vindictive. The Shienne
looked forward to him, as their deliverer from
the thraldom of the Shoshonee; and the boy himself,
catching their feelings in secret, regarded himself as
one, who might entertain equal aspirations with Areskoui.
The Indians have been described, as incapable
of love, and having no eye or taste to admire beauty.
Nothing is more foreign from their real character,
than both these estimates. No where does beauty
give higher claims. No people are more passionately
subservient to it. Nelesho loved Jessy, as early
as Areskoui, and as early gave him to understand,
that he should always be in the way to compete with
him for her favor. Before she had yet seen ten years,
she had turned pale at seeing the young chiefs fight to
the point of shedding each other's blood; and been
made conscious the while, that the question of her favor
was the exciting cause of the quarrel.

Very early had the feelings of Jessy inclined her to

take part with Areskoui. A thousand times had Josepha
half intimated the wish to Yensi, that her beautiful
daughter might become the wife of her son, a
wish which Yensi never appeared to understand.—
The boy himself thus naturally imbibed the impression,
that this fair child was destined for him; and
radically was this infant propensity nursed in his bosom,
and incorporated with every fibre of his frame.
Her persuasion was seen to exercise an unbounded influence
over him. She alone could persuade him to
desist from fighting Nelesho. She alone could induce
him to resume the lessons, which he had abandoned
in discouragement; though he would say as he resumed
them, `Wakona, the young eagle loves most to
soar above the mountains, and look at the sun.' He
never could be persuaded to love these perplexing
medicines, and blear his bright eye by poring upon
books. But for her sake he made unremitting efforts
to acquaint himself with them; though no pursuit
clothed his brow in such unalterable gloom. When
she smiled upon him, and told him, it was necessary,
his restless spirit became composed; and he settled
down to his task. When she wept, he clenched his
fists, knit his brows, and was angry with every thing
around him. This feeling grew with his growth, and
strengthened with his strength. There was much of
native nobleness in his character; and it could not but
be, that the intimate relations, subsisting between the
parents, and these earnest and daily manifestations of
the most generous affection for her, should create in
her young bosom feelings of sisterly regard in return.