This was not the only risk I ran at Niagara. On arriving at the cataract, I alighted and fastened my horse's bridle round my arm. As I leaned forward to look down, a rattle-snake moved in the neighbouring bushes. The horse took fright, reared on his hind legs and approached the edge of the precipice. I could not disengage my arm from the bridle, and the animal, with increasing alarm, drew me after him. His feet were already on the point of slipping over the brink of the gulph, and he was kept from destruction by nothing but the reins. My doom seemed to be fixed, when the animal, astonished at the new danger which he all at once perceived, made a final effort, and sprung ten feet from the edge of the precipice.

138

A NIGHT

AMONG THE SAVAGES OF AMERICA.

IT is a feeling, natural on the part of the unfortunate, to aim at the illusions of happiness by the recollection of past pleasures. When I feel weary of existence, when I feel my heart torn by the effects of a commerce with mankind, I involuntarily turn aside, and cast a look of regret. Enchanting meditations! Secret and ineffable charms of a soul which enjoys itself, it was amidst the immense deserts of America that I completely tasted you! Every one boasts of loving liberty, and hardly any one has a just idea of it. When I travelled among the Indian tribes of Canada-when I quitted the habitations of Europeans, and found myself, for the first time, alone, amidst boundless forests, having all nature, as it were prostrate at my feet, a strange revolution took place in my sensations. I was seized with a sort of delirium, and followed no track, but went from tree to tree, and indifferently to the right or left, saying to myself: "Here there is no multiplicity of roads, no towns, no confined houses, no Presidents, Republics and Kings, no laws and no human beings.-Human beings! Yes-some worthy savages, who care nothing about me, nor I about them; who, like myself wander wherever inclination leads them, eat when they wish

it, and sleep where they please. To ascertain whether I was really in possession of my original rights, I put in practice a thousand acts of human will, as fancy suggested them. These proceedings highly enraged the great Dutchman, who accompanied me as a guide, and who in his soul believed me to be a madman.

Released from the tyrannical yoke of society, I comprehended the charms of that natural independence, far surpassing all the pleasures of which civilized man can have an idea. I comprehended why a savage was unwilling to become an European, why several Europeans had become savages, and why the sublime discussion on the inequality of conditions was so little understood by most of our philosophers. It is incredible to what a state of littleness nations and their highly boasted institutions were reduced in my eyes. It appeared to me that I was locking at the kingdoms of the earth with an inverted telescope, or rather that I myself was enlarged, exalted, and contemplating, with the eyes of a giant, the remains of my degenerate fellow creatures.

You, who wish to write of mankind, transport yourselves into the deserts. Become for an instant the chil dren of nature--then, and not till then take the pen.

Among the innumerable enjoyments, which I expe rienced during these travels, one in particular made a lively impression upon my heart.*

* Almost all that follows is taken from the manuscript of my Travels in America, which perished together with several other incomplete works. Among them I had begun one, Les Tableaux de la Nature, which was the history of a savage tribe in Canada, moulded into a sort of romance. The frame, which incloseed these pictures of nature, was entirely new, and the paintings themselves, being strange to our climate, might have merited the indulgence of the reader. Some praise has been bestowed upon my manner of delineating nature, but if the public had seen the work now mentioned, written as it was by fragments on my knee

I was going to see the celebrated cataract of Niagara and had taken my road through the Indian nations, which inhabit the wilds west of the American plantations. My guides were the sun, a pocket compass, and the Dutchman whom I have mentioned. This man perfectly understood five dialects of the Huron language. Our equipage consisted of two horses, to the necks of which we fastened a bell at night and then allowed them to go at large in the forest. At first I was rather afraid of losing them, but my guide removed this apprehension by pointing out the admirable instinct, which causes these sagacious animals never to wander out of sight of our fire.

One evening, when we conceived that we had proceeded so far as to be only about eight or nine leagues from the cataract, we were just about to alight from our horses, that we might prepare our hovel, and light our fire according to the Indian custom. At this moment we perceived a blaze in the woods, and soon afterwards espied some savages seated on the bank of the same stream, which flowed past us. We approached them, and the Dutchman having, by my order, asked permission to pass the night with them, it was granted on the spot. Accordingly we all began our labours together. After having cut branches from the trees, fixed stakes in the ground, stripped off bark to cover our palace, and performed some other general services, each of us turned his attention to his own affairs. I fetched my saddle, which

among the savages themselves, in the forests and on the banks of American lakes, I presume to state that they would probably have found matter more deserving their notice. Of all this work only a few detached leaves remain in my possession, and among them is the Night, which I now insert. I was destined to lose by the revolution fortune, parents, friends, and what is never to be regained when once lost, the detail of reflections as they naturally arose during my travels. Our thoughts are perhaps the only property to be called really our own-even these were taken from me.

faithfully served as my pillow during the whole journey. The guide attended to our horses, and with regard to his preparations for the night, he was not so delicate as my. self, and generally availed himself of some old trunk of a tree for his bed. Our work being finished, we seated ourselves in a circle, with our legs crossed like tailors. In the centre of us was an immense fire, at which we prepared our maize for supper. I had a bottle of brandy too, which not a little increased the gay spirits of the savages. They produced in return some legs of bear, and we made a royal repast.

The party was composed of two women with infants at the breast, and three warriors. Two of the latter might be about forty to forty-five years of age, though they appeared to be much older; the third was a young

: man.

The conversation soon became general, that is to say, by some broken expressions on my part, and by many gestures, an expressive kind of language, which the Indian tribes comprehend with astonishing readiness, and which I learnt among them. The young man alone preserved an obstinate silence, keeping his eyes stedfastly fixed on me. In spite of the black, red, and blue streaks, with which he was disfigured, and the further mutilation of having no ears, it was easy to perceive the noble and sensible expression which animated his countenance. How favorably did I think of him for not liking me! He appeared to be mentally reading the history of all the calamities, with which Europeans had overburthened his country.

The two little children, which were entirely naked, had fallen asleep at our feet, before the fire. The women took them gently in their arms, and laid them upon skins, with that maternal care which it was delicious to observe among these pretended savages. The conversation at