peace by exhibiting the palm of his naked hand he
boldly advanced. In the mean time, the Indian betrayed no evidences, of
uneasiness. He suffered the trapper to draw nigh, maintaining by his own mien
and attitude a striking air of dignity and fearlessness. Perhaps the wary
warrior also knew that owing to the difference in their weapons, he should be
plac'd more on an equality, by being brought nearer to the stranger.
    As a description of this individual may furnish some idea of the personal
appearance of a whole race, it may be well to detain the narrative in order to
present it to the reader in our hasty and imperfect manner. Would the truant
eyes of Alston or Greenough turn, but for a time, from their gaze at the models
of antiquity to contemplate this wronged and humbled people, little would be
left for such inferior artists as ourselves to delineate.
    The Indian in question was in every particular a warrior of fine stature and
admirable proportions. As he cast aside his masque composed of such
party-coloured leaves, as he had hurriedly collected, his countenance appeared
in all the gravity, the dignity and it may be added in the terror, of his
profession. The outlines of his lineaments were strikingly noble, and nearly
approaching to Roman, though the secondary features of his face were slightly
marked with the well known traces of his Asiatic origin. The peculiar tint of
the skin, which in itself is so well designed to aid the effect of a martial
expression, had received an additional aspect of wild ferocity from the colours
of the war-paint. But as if he disdained the usual artifices of his people, he
bore none of those strange and horrid devices with which the children of the
forest are accustomed, like the more civilized heroes of the moustache, to back
their reputation for courage, contenting himself with a broad and deep shadowing
of black that served as a sufficient and an admirable foil to the brighter
gleamings of his native swarthiness. His head was as usual shaved to the crown
where a large and gallant scalplock seem'd to challenge the grasp of his
enemies. The ornaments that in peace were pendant from the cartilages of his ear
had been removed on account of his present pursuit. His body, notwithstanding
the lateness of the season, was nearly naked, and the portion that was clad,
bore a vestment no warmer than a light robe of the finest dress'd deer skin,
beautifully stained with the rude design of some daring exploit, and which was
carelessly worn, as if more in pride than from any unmanly regard to comfort.
His leggins