----*---- _Cottage, Haddington, 15th April, 1843._ DEAR SIR,
I have enjoyed much pleasure in attending your lectures at the Waterloo Rooms in Edinburgh. Your delineations of the Indian character, the display of beautiful costumes, and the native Indian manners, true to the life, realised to my mind and view scenes I had so often witnessed in the parts of the Indian countries where I had been; and for twenty years' peregrinations in those parts, from Montreal to the Great Slave River north, and from the shores of the Atlantic, crossing the Rocky Mountains, to the mouth of the Columbia River, on the Pacific Ocean, west, I had opportunities of seeing much. Your lectures and exhibition have afforded me great pleasure and satisfaction, and I shall wish you all that success which you so eminently deserve for the rich treat which you have afforded in our enlightened, literary, and scientific metropolis.
I remain, dear Sir, yours very truly, JOHN HALDANE. _To George Catlin, Esq._
The following is an extract of a letter received some days since by a gentleman in Edinburgh, from Mr. James Hargrave, of the Hudson's Bay Company, dated York Factory, Hudson's Bay, 10th December, 1842:--
"Should you happen to fall in with Catlin's Letters on the North American Indians, I would strongly recommend a perusal of them for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the habits and customs of those tribes among whom he was placed. Catlin's sketches are true to life, and are powerfully descriptive of their appearance and character."
A Tribe of Indians residing on the Upper Mississippi and Desmoines rivers. Present number (in 1840) about 5000. The smallpox carried off half their population a few years since; and a considerable number were destroyed in the "Black Hawk War" in 1832-3. This tribe shave the head, leaving only a small tuft of hair on the top, which is called the "scalplock."
[The _acute accent_ is used in the spelling of the Indian names merely to denote the emphasis.]
1. _Kee-o-kúk_, the Running Fox; present Chief of the Tribe. Shield on his arm and staff of office (sceptre) in his hand; necklace of grisly bear's claws, over the skin of a white wolf, on his neck.
This man, during the Black Hawk War, kept two-thirds of the warriors of the tribe neutral, and was therefore appointed chief by General Scott, in treaty, with the consent of the nation.