Stanza 28. 1. 4.

Then forth uprose that lone way-faring man.

They discover an amazing sagacity, and acquire, with the greatest readiness, any thing that depends upon the attention of the mind. By experience, and an acute observation, they attain many perfections to which Americans are strangers.-For instance, they will cross a forest, or a plain, which is two hundred miles in breadth, so as to reach, with great exactness, the point at which they intend to arrive, keeping, during the whole of that space, in a direct line, without any material deviations: and this they will do with the same ease, let the weather be fair or cloudy.— With equal acuteness they will point to that part of the heavens the sun is in, though it be intercepted

by clouds or fogs. Besides this, they are able to pursue, with incredible facility, the traces of man or beast, either on leaves or grass; and on this account it is with great difficulty they escape discovery.They are indebted for these talents not only to nature, but to an extraordinary command of the intellectual qualities, which can only be acquired by an unremitted attention, and by long experience.They are in general very happy in a retentive memory. They can recapitulate every particular that has been treated of in council, and remember the exact time when they were held. Their belts of wampum preserve the substance of the treaties they have concluded with the neighbouring tribes for ages back, to which they will appeal and refer with

as much perspicuity and readiness as Europeans can

to their written records.

The Indians are totally unskilled in geography, as well as all the other sciences, and yet they draw on their birch bark very exact charts or maps of the countries they are acquainted with.-The latitude and longitude only are wanting to make them tolerably complete.

Their sole knowledge in astronomy consists in being able to point out the polar star, by which they regulate their course when they travel in the night.

They reckon the distance of places not by miles

or leagues, but by a day's journey, which, according to the best calculation I could make, appears to be about twenty English miles. These they also divide

into halves and quarters, and will demonstrate them in their maps with great exactness by the hieroglyphics just mentioned, when they regulate in council their war-parties, or their most distant hunting excursions.-CLARKE's and LEWIS's Travels.

Some of the French missionaries have supposed

that the Indians are guided by instinct, and have pretended that Indian children can find their way through a forest as easily as a person of maturer years; but this is a most absurd notion. It is unquestionably by a close attention to the growth of the trees, and position of the sun, that they find their way. On the northern side of a tree there is generally the most moss; and the bark on that side, in general, differs from that on the opposite onę.

The branches towards the south are, for the most

part, more luxuriant than those on the other sides of trees, and several other distinctions also subsist between the northern and southern sides, conspicuous to Indians, being taught from their infancy to attend to them, which a common observer would, perhaps, never notice. Being accustomed from their infancy likewise to pay great attention to the position of the sun, they learn to make the most accurate allowance for its apparent motion from one part of the heavens to another; and in every part of the day they will point to the part of the heavens where it is, although the sky be obscured by clouds or

mists.

An instance of their dexterity in finding their way