An hour or so in the streets, in a pleasant day, enabled them to see a great deal that was unlike the green prairies where they lived; and the "old Doctor," wrapped in his robe, and ogling the pretty girls, and everything else that he saw that was amusing as he passed along, raised a new excitement in the streets, and gave an extensive notification that "the wedding party had actually got back," or that another party of _red skins_ had arrived. They returned to their lodgings in great glee, and amused us at least for an hour with their "first impressions" of London; the _leading_, _striking_ feature of which, and the one that seemed to afford them the greatest satisfaction, was the _quantity of fresh meat_ that they saw in every street hanging up at the doors and windows--pigs, and calves, and sheep, and deer, and prairie hens, in such profusion that they thought "there would be little doubt of their getting as much fresh meat as they could eat." Besides this, they had seen many things that amused them, and others that excited their pity. They laughed much about the "black fellows with white eyes" who were carrying bags of coal, and "every one of them had got their hats on the wrong side before." They had seen many people who seemed to be very poor, and looked as if they were hungry: for they held out their hands to people passing by, as if they were asking for something to eat. "They had passed two _Indians_, with brooms in their hands, sweeping the dirt in the streets!"
This occurrence had excited their greatest anxieties to know "what Indians they could be, that would be willing to take a broom in their hands and sweep the dirt from under white men's feet, and then hold out their hands to white people for money to buy food to eat." They all agreed "that _Ioways_ would not do it, that _Sioux_ would not, that _Pawnees_ would not;" and when they were just deciding that their enemies, the _Ojibbeways_, _might_ be _slaves_ enough to do it, and that these were possibly a part of the Ojibbeway party that had been flourishing in London, I explained the mystery to them, by informing them that their conjectures were wrong--that it was true they were Indians, but not from North America. I agreed with them that no North American Indian would use that mode of getting his living, but that there were Indians in different parts of the world, and that these were from the East Indies, a country many thousands of miles from here; that these people were Indians from that country, and were of a tribe called _Lascars_; that many of them were employed by the captains of English ships to help to navigate their vessels from that country to this; and that in London they often come to want, and are glad to sweep the streets and beg, as the means of living, instead of starving to death. It seemed still a mystery to them, but partly solved, and they made many further remarks among themselves about them. The good landlady at this moment announced to Mr. Melody and Jeffrey that the dinner for the Indians was ready, and in a moment all were seated save the Doctor; he was missing. "That old fool," said Jeffrey, "there's no doubt but he has found his way to the top of the house." I was conducted by one of the servants through several unoccupied rooms and dark passages, and at last through a narrow and almost impassable labyrinth that brought me out upon the roof. The "Doctor" was _there_; and, wrapped in his buffalo robe, with his red face and his buffalo horns, was standing like a _Zealand penguin_, and smiling upon the crowds of gazers who were gathering in the streets, and at the windows, and upon the house-tops, in the vicinity.