Charles Lever - Arthur O'Leary - His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands

“You will ask me, by what chance did I escape with life among such a tribe. An accident – the merest accident – saved me. When a smuggler, as I have already told you I was, I once, when becalmed in the Bay of Biscay, got one of the sailors to tattoo my arm with gunpowder, a very common practice at sea. The operator had been in the North American trade, and had passed ten years as a prisoner among the Indians, and brought away with him innumerable recollections of their habits and customs. Among others, their strange idols had made a great impression on his mind; and, as I gave him a discretionary power as to the frescos he was to adorn me with, he painted a most American-looking savage with two faces on his head – his body all stuck over with arrows and spear-points, while he, apparently unmoved by such visitors, was skipping about, in something that might be a war-dance.

“This, with all its appropriate colours – for as the heraldry folk say, ‘It was proper’ – was a very conspicuous object on my arm, and no sooner seen by the chief, than he immediately knelt down beside me, dressed my wounds and tended me; while the rest of the tribe, recognising me as one whose existence was charmed, showed me every manner of respect, and even devotion. Indeed, I soon felt my popularity to be my greatest difficulty; for whatever great event was going forward among the tribe, it became the etiquette to consult me on it, as a species of soothsayer, and never was a prophet more sorely tested. Sometimes, it was a question of the whale-fishery – whether ‘bottle noses,’ or ‘sulphur bottoms,’ were coming up the bay, and whether, in the then season, it was safe, or not, to strike the ‘calf whales’ first. Now, it was a disputed point as to the condition of bears; or worse than either, a little marauding party would be undertaken into a neighbour’s premises, where I was expected to perform a very leading part, which, not having the same strong convictions of my invulnerable nature, as my worthy associates, I undertook with as few feelings of satisfaction as you may imagine. But these were not all; offers of marriage from many noble families pressed me on every side; and though polygamy to any extent was permissible, I never could persuade myself, to make my fortune in this manner. The ladies too, I am bound to say, were not so seductive as to endanger my principles: flattened heads, bent-down noses and lip stones, are very strong antidotes to the tender passion. And I was obliged to declare, that I was compelled, by a vow, not to marry for three moons. I dared not venture on a longer period of amnesty, lest I should excite suspicion of any insult to them, on a point where their vengeance never forgives; and I hoped, ere that time elapsed, that I should be able to make my escape – though how, or when, or where to, were points I could not possibly guess at.

“Before the half of my probation had expired, we were visited by an old Indian of a distant tribe – a strange old fellow he was, clothed in goats’ skins, and wearing strong leather boots and rackets (snow shoes), a felt hat, and a kind of leather sack strapped on his back, and secured by a lock. This singular-looking fellow was, ‘the post.’ He travelled once a year from a small settlement near Miramichi, to Quebec, and back, carrying the letters to and from these places, a distance of something like seven hundred miles, which he accomplished entirely on foot, great part of it through dense forests and over wild uninhabited prairies, passing through the hunting-grounds of several hostile tribes, fording rivers and climbing mountains, and all, for the moderate payment of ten pounds a year, half of which he spent in rum before he left Quebec, and while waiting for the return mail; and strangest of all, though for forty years he had continued to perform this journey, not only no accident had ever occurred to the letters, but he himself was never known to be behind his appointed time at his destination.

“‘Tahata,’ for such was his name, was, however, a character of great interest; even to the barbarous tribes through whose territories he passed. He was a species of savage newspaper, recounting various details respecting the hunting and fishing seasons, – the price of skins at Quebec or Montreal, – what was the peltry most in request, and how it would bring its best price. Cautiously abstaining from the local politics of these small states, his information only bore on such topics as are generally useful and interesting, and never for a moment partook of any partisan character; besides, he had ever some petty commission or other, from the squaws, to discharge at Quebec. There was an amber bead, or a tin ornament, a bit of red ribbon or a glass button, or some such valuable, everywhere he went; and his coming was an event as much longed and looked for, as any other that marked their monotonous existence.

“He rested for a few days at our village, when I learned these few particulars of his life, and at once resolved, come what might, to make my escape with him, and, if possible, reach Quebec. An opportunity, fortunately, soon offered for my doing so with facility. The day of the courier’s departure was fixed for a great fishing excursion, on which the tribe were to be absent for several days. Affecting illness, I remained on shore, and never stirred from the wigwam till the last canoe had disappeared from sight: then I slowly sauntered out, and telling the squaws that I would stroll about, for an hour or so, to breathe the air, I followed the track which was pointed out to me by the courier, who had departed early on the same morning. Before sunset I came up with my friend, and with a heart overflowing with delight, sat down to partake of the little supper he had provided for our first day’s journey; after that, each day was to take care of itself.

“Then began a series of adventures, to which all I have hitherto told you, are, as nothing. It was the wild life of the prairies in companionship with one, who felt as much at home in the recesses of a pine forest, as ever I did in the snug corner of mine inn. Now, it was a night spent under the starry sky, beside some clear river’s bank, where the fish lay motionless beneath the red glare of our watch-fire; now, we bivouacked in a gloomy forest, planting stockades around to keep off the wild beasts; then, we would chance upon some small Indian settlement, where we were regaled with hospitality, and spent half the night listening to the low chant of a red man’s song, as he deplored the downfall of his nation, and the loss of their hunting-grounds. Through all, my guide preserved the steady equability of one who was travelling a well-worn path – some notched tree, some small stone heap, some fissured rock, being his guide through wastes, where, it seemed to me, no human foot had ever trod. He lightened the road with many a song and many a story, the latter always displaying some curious trait of his people, whose high sense of truth and unswerving fidelity to their word, once pledged, appeared to be an invariable feature in every narrative; and though he could well account for the feeling that makes a man more attached to his own nation, he more than once half expressed his surprise, how, having lived among the simple-minded children of the forest, I could ever return to the haunts of the plotting, and designing white men.

“This story of mine,” continued Mr. O’Kelly, “has somehow spun itself out far more than I intended. My desire was, to show you briefly, in what strange and dissimilar situations I have been thrown in life – how, I have lived among every rank, and class, at home and abroad, in comparative affluence – in narrow poverty; how, I have looked on, at the world, in all its gala dress of wealth, and rank, and beauty – of power, of station, and command of intellect; and how I have seen it poor, and mean, and naked – the companion of gloomy solitudes, and the denizen of pathless forests; and yet found the same human passions, the same love, and hate, the same jealousy, and fear, courage, and daring – the same desire for power, and the same wish to govern, in the red Indian of the prairie, as in the starred noble of Europe. The proudest rank of civilized life has no higher boast, than in the practice of such virtues as I have seen rife among the wild dwellers in the dark forest. Long habit of moving thus among my fellow men, has worn off much of that conventional reverence for class, which forms the standing point of all our education at home. The tarred and weather-beaten sailor, if he be but a pleasant fellow, and has seen life, is to me as agreeable a companion as the greatest admiral that ever trod a quarter-deck. My delight has been thus, for many a year back, to ramble through the world, and look on its game, like one who sits before the curtain, and has no concern with the actors, save, in so far as they amuse him.