Daniel (Plate No. 2) is an Irishman, who emigrated to the United States some twenty years since, and, by dint of his industry and hard labour, had met with success in acquiring an humble independence, and had formed the most undoubted attachment to the Government and its institutions; and, from his reading, and conversation with the world, had informed himself tolerably well in political matters, which he was always ready to discuss; and being rather of a hasty and irascible temperament, he often got into debates of that nature, that led him into danger of unpleasant results. It was in the midst of one of these that I found him at the inn, surrounded by at least a hundred labouring men and idlers from the streets, who had been drawn around him at first, as I have said, to get some information of the bears, but who had changed their theme, and were now besieging him on all sides, to combat him on some political dogma he had advanced relative to his favourite and adopted country, the United States; or to taunt him with slaunts at his native country, all of which, with his native wit, he was ready to meet with ability, until, as he afterwards told me, “they were showered upon him so rapidly, and from so many quarters at once, that it became quite impossible to answer them, and that the stupid ignorance and impertinence of some of them had worn out all his patience, and irritated him to that degree, that I must excuse him for the excitement I had found him under when I arrived.” With much difficulty I rescued him from the crowd that had enclosed him, and, retiring to a private room, after matters of business had been arranged, he gave me the following account of the difficulties he had just been in, and of the incidents of his journey from Liverpool to London with the bears.
At Liverpool he had had great difficulty in getting permission to travel by the luggage train, to keep company with the bears, the necessity of which he urged in vain, until he represented that, unless he was with them to feed them, their howlings and other terrific noises and ravings would frighten their hands all out of the stations, and even add probabilities to their breaking loose from the cage in which they were confined, to feed upon the human flesh around them, and of which they were peculiarly fond. Upon these representations, he was allowed the privilege of a narrow space, to stand or to sit, in the corner of one of the luggage-trains, and thus bore the bears company all the way.
When they entered the first tunnel on their way, they raised a hideous howl, which they continued until they were through it, which might have been from a feeling of pleasure, recognizing in it something of the character of the delightful gloominess of their own subterranean abodes; or their outcries might have been from a feeling of dread or fear from those narrow and damp caverns, too much for their delicate tastes and constitutions. This, however, is matter for the bears to decide. At Birmingham, where they rested on the truck for the greater part of a day, their notification to the town had called vast crowds of spectators around them; and though their tarpaulin prevented them from being seen, many, very many, drew marvellous accounts of them from one another, and from the flying reports which had reached them several days before from Liverpool, of “two huge monsters imported from the Rocky Mountains, that had scales like alligators, with long spears of real flint at the ends of their tails; that they made nothing of eating paving-stones when they were hungry, and that in Liverpool they had escaped, and were travelling to the north, and demolishing all the inhabitants of Lancashire as they went along,” &c. Their occasional howls and growls, with, once in a while, a momentary display of one of their huge paws, exhibited from under the tarpaulin, riveted the conviction of the gaping multitude as to the terror and danger of these animals, while it put at rest all apprehensions as to their being at large and overrunning the country. Poor Daniel had to stand between the crowd and his pets, to save them from the peltings and insults of the crowd, and at the same time, to muster every talent he had at natural history, to answer the strange queries and theories that were raised about them. He was assailed on every side with questions as to the appearance and habits of the animals, and at last, about “the other animals,” as they called them, “running on two legs, in America;” for many of them, from his representations, had come fresh from the coal-pits and factories, with ideas that Americans were a sort of savages, and that savages, they had understood, were “a sort of wild beastises, and living on raw meat.” These conjectures and queries were answered amusingly for them, by Daniel; and, after he had a little enlightened them by the information he gave them, their conversation took a sort of political turn, which, I have before said, he was prone to run into; and thus, luckily, the time was whiled away, without any set-to to bother the bears and himself, which he had seen evidently preparing, until the whistle announced them and him on their way again for the metropolis.
The next morning he found himself and the bears safe landed at the terminus in London, where I have already said that I found him and released him from a medley of difficulties he had worked himself into.
The keeper of the inn had himself been the first to provoke poor Daniel, but when he found it for his interest, and advised a different course, he endeavoured to turn his criticisms into good nature, and had taken sides with him. Daniel, very amusingly however, describes his remarks as so excessively ignorant, that they excited his mirth more than anger, and he repeated several of them in the following manner:—He first provoked Daniel by inquiring “who his master was, and where he was at that time.” Daniel replied to him, somewhat to his surprise, “I have no master, Sir; I live in a country, thank God, where we are our own masters. My ‘boss’ (if you will have it that way) is a Mr. Catlin, who I expect here in a few hours.” Finding that Daniel and the bears were from America, of which country he had heard some vague accounts, he very innocently enquired who was the King in America at that time, apologizing, that by the treacherousness of his memory he had lost the run of them. Daniel told him that they had no king in America. He then said “he well recollected when the old fellow died, but he had equally forgotten the name of the Queen; he recollected to have read of the King of New York.” Daniel soon put his recollection right, and in doing so had given umbrage to the poor man, which led to the long and excited political debate with which I found Daniel so much exasperated when I arrived.
Daniel had, in the beginning of this affair, explained to the bystanders around him the difference between a King and a President, and then had provoked his landlord by amusingly and pleasantly repeating the anecdote of “King Jefferson” (which is current in America) in reply to his questions about the “King of New York;” and in the following manner:—
“During the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, who lived in the city of Washington, two poor emigrants from the county of Cork, in my own country, made their way to America in a vessel which landed them in Philadelphia; they got ashore, and as they were taking their first stroll through the streets in the ‘land of liberty and equality,’ without a shilling in their pockets, they began to ‘sing out’ ‘Huzza for King George!’ This of course excited too much opposition to last long in the streets of a republican city, and a gentleman very kindly stopped the poor fellows, and to their great surprise informed them that he feared they would get into difficulty if they continued to huzza for the king, as King George was not the king of the country they were now in. He informed them that Mr. Jefferson was the great man in America—that he was President of the United States, and that it would not do for them to huzza for King George. They thanked him, and as they proceeded on they increased the volume of their voices in huzzas for ‘King Jefferson!—huzza for King Jefferson!’ This soon excited the attention of the police, who silenced their bawling by ‘putting them in the jug!’”
CHAPTER III.
Letters of introduction—Driving a friend’s horse and chaise—Amusing accidents—English driving—“Turn to the right, as the law directs”—A turn to the left—A fresh difficulty—Egyptian Hall—Lease for three years—Arrangement of collection—Bears sold and removed to Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens—Their fates.
Having landed all my effects safely at the terminus in London, the next thing was the final locale; and to decide on this, my letters of introduction, or a part of them at least, should be delivered; and for this and other dodgings about through the city for a few days, the first gentleman to whom I delivered a letter had the kindness to insist on my using his horse and chaise during certain portions of the day, when he did not use them himself. This was the kindest thing that he could have done for me, and I shall never forget the obligation he laid me under by doing so. His footman, who accompanied me, relieved me from all anxiety about the horse, which was a noble animal; and my long errands through the mud were most delightfully abridged.
As the fatalities of life seem to bring us more or less trouble in every step we take in it, I had mine, even in this new and independent arrangement. In my first dash through the streets with all the confidence and tact I had acquired from my boyhood in driving a similar vehicle in my own country, I was suddenly in the midst of fresh misfortune by “turning to the right, as the law directs” (the regulation and custom of the United States), which brought my horse into the most frightful collision with a pair that were driven by a gentleman, and who had reined in the same direction under the English custom of “turn to the left.”
This affair was not only one of imminent danger of harm, which we had all luckily escaped, but one of exceeding mortification to me from the circumstances which immediately followed.
The extreme care and skill in driving, with the fine training of horses in England (of which we have little idea in the United States), render accidents in the streets of London so exceedingly rare, that when they do occur they immediately attract an immense crowd, and into the midst of such an one was I thrown by the unfortunate accident which my ignorance rather than carelessness had just been the cause of.
By the violence of the concussion I had been landed in the street, and the gentleman, to whose harness I had done some injury, was suddenly in front of me with his whip in his hand; and in the hearing of the crowd that was hovering around, in the most excited manner, demanding of me what I meant by driving against him in that awkward manner, and threatening to hold me responsible for damages done by not turning the right way, whilst I felt every disposition to answer his questions respectfully, as I saw the injury was all on his side. I still felt that a little tenacity was allowable on my side; and I almost as peremptorily demanded of him why he did not rein to the right, as the law requires:—“Rein to the right!” said he, “who the devil ever heard of such a thing as turning to the right? Where are you from, I should like to know?” “I am from a country, sir, where the law directs all vehicles to ‘turn to the right.’” “What country is that, I should like to know?” “North America, sir.” “Ha! just about what I should have thought, sir:—I suppose I shall get pay for my coupling-lines about the time the States pay interest.” “Most likely,” said I, as we were mutually taking our seats, amidst the sullen remarks that I heard in various parts of the crowd as I was driving off—“There’s a Yankee for you!—ee’s a rum-looking fellow, ha?—There’s a Repudiator for you”—“I’ll be bound—” &c., &c., &c.
I drove off from this scene with some satisfaction that I had learned so important a fact at so little expense, and steered my way very safely amidst the thousands of vehicles of various sorts that I was passing and meeting, in which time I was very pleasantly receiving a brief lecture on the subject from my good-natured and very civil footman, who was behind me; in which (having silently learned in the disaster we had just witnessed that I was from a foreign country) he took especial pains to explain to me that “in Hengland it’s holays the abit to turn to the left.” Just at that moment I found myself in a fresh difficulty, and some danger also, by one wheel of my chaise grinding against the curbstone, and a huge omnibus in full press against us, and driving us on to the pavement, where it had at that moment stopped and fastened us, whilst discharging a passenger. I demanded of the driver, a sullen-looking fellow, half covered with an apron or boot which protected him from the weather in front, and something like a feather-bed and bolsters tied around his neck and chin, and half concealing his bloated face, what he meant by reining in upon me in that way, and crowding me upon the pavement? to which he grumly replied as he snapped his whip, “I should like to know what business you have in there?” “Never mind,” said I, “I shall go ahead.” “No you woan’t—ain’t you old enough to know which side of a carriage to pass?” At that moment the conductor of the omnibus cried out “All right!” which was echoed by a policeman who had taken my horse by the bit. I was somewhat relieved, though a little surprised, at the verdict given by the conductor and the policeman at the same instant, that “all” (or both), as I at that moment understood it, “were right.” I sat still of course till the omnibus had left us, nearly crushed, but luckily not damaged, when I said to my footman, “Why, what does this mean?—what do you call the ‘left side’ in this country, I should like to know?” To this he very distinctly as well as amusingly explained, that the invariable custom in England is when meeting a vehicle, to turn to the left, and when passing, to turn to the right. But why did the policeman and the conductor say we were both right or “all right?” “Why, sir, you know wen the homnibus olds up to land a gent or a lady, or to take em hin, it would be wery hawkard to drive off wen the lady ad one leg hin the bus and the other hout; so wen they are both hout or both hin, and all right, the conductor ollows out ‘Holl right!’ and the bus goes hon, d’ye see, sir?“ “Ah, yes, I thank you, Jerry, I understand it now.” I was then growing wiser every moment amongst the incidents that were occasionally taking place in my drives with the goodnatured footman and his fine horse, which I used for several days, much to my satisfaction and amusement, without other accident or incident worth the reader’s valuable time.
I called upon my kind friend the Hon. C. A. Murray, at his office in Buckingham Palace, where I was received with all that frankness and sincerity peculiar to him; and, with his kind aid, and that of Charles D. Archibald, Esq., of York Terrace, to whom I am also much indebted, the arrangements were soon made for my collection in the Egyptian Hall, which I took on a lease, for three years, at a rent of 550l. per annum.
My collection was soon in it, and preparing for its exhibition, while the grizly bears were still howling at the Euston station, impatient for a more congenial place for their future residence. It was quite impossible to give them any portion of the premises I had contracted for in the Egyptian Hall, and the quarters ultimately procured for them being expensive, and the anxieties and responsibilities for them daily increasing upon me as they were growing stronger and more vicious in their dispositions, it was decided that they should be offered for sale, and disposed of as soon as possible. For this purpose I addressed letters to the proprietors of zoological gardens in Liverpool, in Dublin, and Edinburgh, and several other towns, and received, in reply from most of them, the answer that they already had them in their gardens, and that they were so complete a drug in England that they were of little value. One proprietor assured me that he had recently been obliged to shoot two that he had in his gardens, in consequence of mischief they were doing to people visiting the grounds, and to the animals in the gardens.
My reply to several of these gentlemen was, that since the death of the famous old grizly bear, that had died a few months before in Regent’s-park, it was quite certain that there had not been one in the kingdom until the arrival of these, “and that if either of those gentlemen would produce me another living grizly bear, at that time, in the kingdom, I would freely give him my pair.” This seemed, however, to have little weight with the proprietors of wild beasts; but I at length disposed of them for about the same price that I had given for them four years before, when they were not much larger than my foot (for the sum of 125l.); and they went to the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park.
A word or two more of them and the reader will have done with the grizlies, who had been much obliged to me, no doubt, for four years’ maintenance, and for a sight of the beauties of the ocean, and as much of the land of comforts and refinements as they were allowed to see through the bars of their cage, while they were travelling from the rude wilds of the Rocky Mountains to the great metropolis, the seat and centre of civilization and refinement. As in their new abode they were allowed more scope and better attendance, it was reasonable to suppose that their lives would have been prolonged, and their comfort promoted; but such did not prove to be the case. From the continual crowds about them, to which they had the greatest repugnance, they seemed daily to pine, until one of them died of exceeding disgust (unless a better cause can be assigned), and the other with similar symptoms, added to loneliness perhaps, and despair, in a few months afterwards.
Thus ended the career of the grizly bears, and I really believe there were no tears shed for them, unless they were tears of joy, for they seemed to extend their acquaintance only to add to the list of their enemies, wherever they went.
CHAPTER IV.
Indian Collection arranged for exhibition—Description of it—The Hon. Charles Augustus Murray—Collection opened to private view—Kindness of the Hon. Mr. Murray—Distinguished visitors—Mr. Murray’s explanations—Kind reception by the Public and the Press—Kind friends—Fatigue of explaining and answering questions—Curious remedy proposed by a friend—Pleasures and pains of a friendly and fashionable dinner.
My business now, and all my energies, were concentrated at the Egyptian Hall, where my collection was arranged upon the walls. The main hall was of immense length, and contained upon its walls 600 portraits and other paintings which I had made during eight years’ travels amongst forty-eight of the remotest and wildest tribes of Indians in America, and also many thousands of articles of their manufacture, consisting of costumes, weapons, &c. &c., forming together a pictorial history of those tribes, which I had been ambitious to preserve as a record of them, to be perpetuated long after their extinction. In the middle of the room I had erected also a wigwam (or lodge) brought from the country of the Crows, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, made of some twenty or more buffalo skins, beautifully dressed and curiously ornamented and embroidered with porcupine quills.
My friend the Honourable C. A. Murray, with several others, had now announced my collection open to their numerous friends and such others as they chose to invite during the three first days when it was submitted to their private view, and by whom it was most of the time filled; and being kindly presented to most of them, my unsentimental and unintellectual life in the atmosphere of railroads and grizly bears was suddenly changed to a cheering flood of soul and intellect which greeted me in every part of my room, and soon showed me the way to the recessed world of luxury, refinements, and comforts of London, which not even the imagination of those who merely stroll through the streets can by any possibility reach.
During this private view I found entered in my book the names of very many of the nobility, and others of the most distinguished people of the kingdom. My friend Mr. Murray was constantly present, and introduced me to very many of them, who had the kindness to leave their addresses and invite me to their noble mansions, where I soon appreciated the elegance, the true hospitality and refinement of English life. Amongst the most conspicuous of those who visited my rooms on this occasion were H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, Duke of Devonshire, Duke of Wellington, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Norwich, Sir Robert and Lady Peel, Lord Grosvenor, Lord Lennox, Duke of Richmond, Duke of Rutland, Duke of Buckingham, Countess-Dowager of Dunmore, Countess-Dowager of Ashburnham, Earl of Falmouth, Earl of Dunmore, Lord Monteagle, Lord Ashley, Earl of Burlington, Sir James and Lady Clark, Sir Augustus d’Este, Sir Francis Head, and many others of the nobility, with most of the editors of the press, and many private literary and scientific gentlemen, of whose kindness to me while in London I shall have occasion to speak in other parts of this work.
The kindness of my friend Mr. Murray on this occasion can never be forgotten by me. He pointed out to my illustrious visitors the principal chiefs and warriors of the various tribes, with many of whom he was personally acquainted; explaining their costumes, weapons, &c., with all of which his rambles in the Indian countries beyond the Mississippi and Missouri had made him quite familiar. He led Duchesses, Countesses, and Ladies in succession upon his arm, into the wigwam of buffalo-hides, where he descanted, to the great satisfaction and amusement of his friends, upon the curious modes of Indian life into which he had been initiated, and which he had long shared with these simple people, whilst he resided with them under roofs of buffalo-hides (like the one now over their heads) on the vast plains and prairies of the wilds of America.
This was evidently an opportunity affording him great satisfaction, of illustrating to his friends the styles of primitive life which he had witnessed in America, whilst his explanations and descriptions were exceedingly entertaining and amusing to them, and at the same time the strongest corroboration of the fidelity with which I had made them, and therefore the best recommendation of them and me to the consideration of the English community.
He was fully employed, as he led alternately the Duchess of Sutherland (with her lovely daughters by her side), and the Duchess of Buccleuch on his arm, and a numerous group around him, while he commented upon the features and disposition of his old friend Wee-ta-ra-sha-ro, who had taken him under his immediate protection and saved his life from the designs of some young men who had laid their plans to destroy him when in the country of the Pawnees.
He explained to them and the Bishops of London and Norwich, who were following in the wake of the ladies and giving ear, the religious ceremony of the Indians, their modes of warfare, of hunting, and throwing the lasso in catching the wild horse. He showed them the Indian cradles in which the squaws carry their pappooses, slung on their backs. He took in his hands the lasso, and illustrated the mode of throwing it, with which he was familiar. He took also in his hands their war-clubs, their tomahawks and scalping knives, and then the scalps from the heads of enemies slain in battle, and ably explained them all. With these he made lasting and thrilling impressions; but with more satisfaction to himself, and to the fair and tender Graces, whose sylph-like gracefulness formed a halo of loveliness around him, he pointed to my paintings of the ever verdant and enamelled prairies—to the very copses and lawns through which, with his unerring rifle, he had stalked the timid antelope or the stately elk and shaggy bison, and, after quieting his raving stomach with their broiled delicacies, he had straightened his wearied limbs upon his spread buffalo robe, and, with the long, waving grass and bowing lilies stooping over his head, he had reflected upon London, upon Palaces and friends, as he had glided into that sweet forgetfulness that belongs peculiarly to the wearied huntsman, whose rifle has catered for his stomach, and whose quiet conscience starts him not at the rustling of the sweetened winds that are gently breezing over him.
I was also constantly engaged with surrounding groups, who were anxious to know the meaning and moral of this strange and unintelligible collection, while my man Daniel, with his rod in his hand, was enlightening another party at the end of the room, by pointing out the leading personages of the various tribes, explaining their costumes, weapons, &c., and answering the thousand questions which were put to him, and which several years of familiarity with the subject had abundantly qualified him to do.
Thus passed my first interview with the English aristocracy. I was in the midst and the best of it; and by it, on all sides, was met with the kindliest feelings and condescension, while I received compliments from all (in the most undoubted sincerity) for the successful efforts I had thus made to perpetuate the records of an abused and dying race of human beings.
The reception that myself and my works met on these days, amongst the highest critics, the most refined and elevated of the world, was beyond description pleasurable to me, as I had arrived a stranger in a foreign land, where I had risked everything upon the value that should be set upon my labours; and that, where I had been told that national prejudices would labour to defeat me. My life had been a tissue of risks and chances, and I resolved to hazard again; and I am now pleased (and bound) to acknowledge that I was frankly met with the most unprejudiced and congenial feelings; and, even more than that, with a settled and genuine sympathy for the benighted people whom my works were representing, and a disposition to reward my labours by kind and unexpected invitations to the hospitable boards of those who fill the highest and most enviable stations in life.
To this general feeling it affords me pleasure to respond in general terms, in this place; and I shall have occasion, in other parts of this work, to return my personal thanks for such spontaneous kindness, which my lasting gratitude will make it my duty to allude to.
The editors of the leading literary and scientific journals of London, and of the daily newspapers, were chiefly there, and with their very friendly and complimentary notices of my collection, with the usual announcements by advertisements, I opened it for the inspection of the public on the first day of February, 1840.[2]
Its commencement was flattering, from the numbers and high respectability of my visitors, and I was pleased, from day to day, to meet the faces and friendly greetings of those whom I had seen there at the private view.
I was pleased also with the freedom which is granted to exhibitions in London, leaving them entirely independent of tithing or taxation, as well as of licences to be obtained from the police, as is the case in France and some other countries. Under such auspices I very pleasantly commenced, with a rent of 550l. per annum, and continued it with reasonable success for the space of four years. The vicissitudes and incidents of that time it is not the object of this work to detail; but I shall connect the links of my narrative better, and, I trust, do no injustice to my readers, by reciting a few of the incidents that transpired in that time: and, while I am doing so, endeavouring to do the justice which gratitude prompts, to those persons whose kindness has laid me under peculiar obligations.
Amongst those kind friends I must be allowed at present to mention the names of the Hon. C. A. Murray, Sir Augustus d’Este, Charles D. Archibald, Esq., Sir James Clark, Sir Thomas Phillips, Mr. Petty Vaughan, Dr. Hodgkin, Capt. Shippard, Sir Francis Head, Lord Monteagle, John Murray, A. M. Perkins, and Sir David Wilkie; and there were many others with these who were very frequently at my rooms; and for their friendly and constant efforts to promote my interest they have my sincerest thanks.
Several of these gentlemen, and others, whose visits were so frequent to my rooms, having formed an acquaintance with the Indians in their own country, or, from feelings of sympathy for them, taken so deep an interest in the subject, relieved me much of my time from the fatiguing task which I had adopted of explaining around the rooms such subjects as I considered most curious and instructive, and of answering the thousands of questions which were naturally put in every part of the room for information on so novel and exciting a theme.
I had entered upon this, at first, not as a task but an amusement, from which I drew great pleasure whilst I was entertaining my visitors and cultivating their pleasing acquaintance. From an over desire and effort on my part to explain the peculiar and curious modes of those wild people, and from a determination on the part of my visitors to get these explanations from my own lips (although I had my man Daniel and several others constantly in the rooms for the same purpose), I was held in my exhibition rooms almost daily from morning until night.
My men were able to explain the meaning of everything in the collection, but this did not satisfy the public whilst I was present. All inquired for me: “Where’s Mr. Catlin? he’s the Lion; his collection is wonderful; but I would give more to see him than all the rest.” “He is yonder, Madam, at the farther end of the room, where you see a crowd of people around him.”
I was generally in the midst of a crowd, who were densely packed around me; moving about the rooms whilst, with a rod in my hand to point with, I was lecturing or answering the numerous questions which were naturally put relative to these strange people and their modes. To lecture or to explain all day, following the current of one’s thoughts, would have been a thing feasible, though fatiguing; but to stand upon one’s feet and all day long to answer to interrogations, and many of those fifty times over, to different parties who were successively taking me in tow, I soon found was far more fatiguing than my travels and labours in the Indian wilderness; and I at length (at a much later period than my friends and my physician advised) gradually withdrew from the scene and this suicidal course, just before it might have been too late to have saved anything useful of me.
I followed the advice of my physician by going to my rooms at stated hours, but soon departed from it by failing to leave them with punctuality, and take recreation in the open air. The partial change I had adopted, however, was of advantage to me—talking part of the day and breaking off and leaving my men to do the talking for the other half.
Like most adventurers in wilderness life I was fond of describing what I had seen; and, having the works of several years around me, in their crude and unfinished condition, spread before the criticising world, and difficult to be appreciated, I was doubly stimulated to be in the collection, and with all the breath I could spare, to add to the information which the visitors to my rooms were seeking for. Under these conflicting feelings I struggled to keep away from my rooms, and did so for a part of the day, and that, as I soon found, only to meet a more numerous and impatient group when I re-entered.
All of the above-mentioned kind friends, and many others, repeatedly called to impress upon me the necessity of leaving my exhibition to my men, “to save my lungs—to save my life,” as they said. Some snatched me away from the crowd, and in the purest kindness hurled me through the streets in their carriages, still yelling answers to their numerous questions as we were passing over the noisy pavements; and then at their kind and festive boards, to which I had been brought as places of refuge and repose, I was, for an instance, presented as—“My dear, this is Mr. Catlin! (Plate No. 3, next page.)—Mother, you have heard of Mr. Catlin?—Cousins Lucy and Fanny, here’s the celebrated Mr. Catlin you have heard me speak of so often. Poor fellow! I have dragged him away from his exhibition, where they are talking him to death—he must have repose—and here we can entertain and amuse him. Here, my little chicks—come here all of you—here’s Mr. Catlin!—here’s the man who has been so long among the wild Indians! he will tell you a great many curious stories about them. Where’s sister Ellen, and Betty?” “Oh, they are in the garden with Mr. S. and his son, who has just returned from New Zealand.“ “Good, good; run for them, run for them, quick! Send the carriage for aunt W——n as swift as possible, and don’t let her fail to stop on the way and bring Lady R——e: you know how fond she is of the Indian character—she was three years, you know, in Canada—and the poem she is now writing on the Indians! What a treat this will be to her! Won’t it be delightful to see her and Mr. Catlin come together? She told me the other day she had a thousand questions she wished to put to Mr. Catlin—how interesting! Have the dinner up at six—no, say at seven; it will give us the more time for conversation, and for Professor D., the phrenologist, to get here, and whom I have invited—he’s always behind the time—and this treat will be so rich to him—I would not miss him for anything in the world.”
My lecturing lungs and stomach being under a running engagement for dinner at three o’clock, the sound of “six”—then, “no, seven,” with the words “Indian poem,” “phrenologist,” &c., produced a most rebellious and faltering sensation in my chest; the one entirely exhausted from its customary exertions until three o’clock, and the other, at that moment, completely in a state of collapse. The difficult trials I had lived through with the latter, however, in my wild adventures in the Indian wilderness, and the more recent proofs in the Egyptian Hall, of the elasticity of the other, inspired me with courage to enter upon the ordeal that was before me, and (even in distress) justly to appreciate what was so kindly preparing for me.
I here instantly forgot my troubles as the party entered from the gardens, when I was thus presented by my good friend:—“Ellen, my dear, and Betty, here’s Mr. Catlin; and, Mr. S——n, I have the extreme pleasure of presenting to your acquaintance the famous Mr. Catlin, whose name and whose works are familiar to you: and now, Catlin, my dear fellow, I introduce you to Mr. J. S., the son of the gentleman with whom I have just made you acquainted. Mr. J. S. has just returned from amongst the natives of New Zealand, where he has spent three or four years; and your descriptions of all the modes and customs of the North American Indians, compared with his accounts of the New Zealanders, will be so rich a treat to us!——But, Catlin, you look pale! Are you not well? You look so fagged!” “Yes, yes; I am well.” “Oh, that plagued exhibition of yours—it will be the death of you! You must keep away from it, or you will talk yourself to death there! My good friends, come, take seats! Catlin, my dear fellow, come, join us in a glass of good old sherry—it will give you an appetite for your dinner—Is it to your liking?” “I thank you, it is very fine.” “Will you take another?” “No, I am much obliged to you.” “My dear, look at the clock—what time is it?” “Quarter past five.” “Ah, well, I didn’t think it was so late—be sure to have the dinner up at seven—do you hear?”
Oh, Time and Paper! I will not tax you with the pains of kindness I was at that moment entering upon—I, who had been for eight years eating at the simple Indians’ hospitable boards, where eating and talking are seldom done together; or taking my solitary meals, cooked by my own hand; where I had no one to talk with—but will leave it to Imagination’s exhaustless colours, which, for a harmless pastime, will paint the pleasures, perhaps, of the dragging hours of my lifetime that I sighed through from that until twelve o’clock at night (the last half-hour of which I had stood upon my feet, with my hat in my hand, taking affectionate leave, with, “My dear, charming Sir, you can’t tell how happy we have all been—your accounts have been so interesting! You must come another evening and dine with us, and we will have Mr. G. and Mr. and Mrs. L——n; they will be so impatient to hear you tell all you have told us. Good night!—good night!—we shall all be in a party at your exhibition to-morrow at an early hour, at ten o’clock—mind, don’t forget the hour—and it will be so delightful to hear you explain everything in your collection, which my dear husband has seen so often, and says are so curious and interesting. Poor fellow! he is quite knocked up—he has been up all day, and constantly talking, and was so completely worn out that he went off to bed an hour ago—you will know how to excuse him. We ladies can often entertain our friends long after his powers of conversation are fagged out. Good night—good night, my dear Sir—farewell!”
Thus and at that hour I took leave, when the busses and cabs were all still, and I had, from necessity, a solitary walk of three miles to my lodgings; and before I laid my head on my pillow, from an equal necessity, to feed my poor stomach with some substitute for dinner, which had been in abundance before my eyes, but which the constant exercise of my lungs had prevented me from eating. Such a rendezvous as had been appointed for ten o’clock the next day, and by so fair and so kind a lady, even the rough politeness of a savage would have held sacred.
At twelve o’clock on the following morning, and when I had nearly finished my descriptions of Indian modes to the ladies, my kind friend who had taken me to his house the day before, and having a little overslept himself on that morning had taken a late breakfast at eleven, entered the rooms with three or four of his friends, and quite rapidly addressed his wife in the following manner:—“Come now, my dear, you and your party have kept poor Catlin talking and answering questions quite long enough; you will kill him if you don’t let him rest once in a while. See how pale the poor man is. Go off and get home as quick as possible. See all this crowd waiting around to talk him to death when you are done with him. I have brought Mr. C., the famous mineralogist, and the two Mr. N.’s, the geologists, to whom I want him to explain the mineralogy and geology of those boundless regions, of the Missouri and Rocky Mountains, and I was to have had the famous botanist, Mr. D. S—, but he may come by and by; and after we have done here, I am going to take him, that he may have a little relaxation and repose, to the British Museum, which he has not seen yet, and to the Geological Society’s rooms; and after that, I have got for him an invitation to dine with the Reverend Mr. O., who will have several reverend gentlemen, and the famous Miss E. and Mrs. W., who you know are all so anxious to learn about the Indians’ religion and modes of worship.” I was then introduced to my friend’s three or four companions, but a few moments after was reminded, by one of my men, of an engagement which took me off for the remainder of that day.
CHAPTER V.
Author’s illness from overtalking in his collection—Daniel’s illness from the same cause—Character of Daniel—His labour-saving plan for answering one hundred questions—His disappointment—Daniel travels to Ireland for his health—Author prepares to publish his Notes of Travel amongst the Indians—John Murray (publisher)—His reasons for not publishing the Author’s work—His friendly advice—Author’s book published by himself at the Egyptian Hall—Illustrious subscribers—Thomas Moore—Critical notices in London papers.
In this manner passed the time from day to day, from week to week, and from month to month; and as I was daily growing richer, I was daily growing poorer—i. e. I was day by day losing my flesh, not from the usual cause, the want of enough to eat, but from derangement of the lungs and the stomach, both often overworked, with a constant excitement and anxiety of the mind, the seat of which was not far distant.
I endeavoured, however, and gradually succeeded in dividing my time and my thoughts, giving a proper proportion to the public in my rooms, a portion to my friends, and (as it was then becoming a matter of necessity for the preparation of my notes of eight years’ travel, which were soon to be published) decidedly the greater part to myself, leaving my exhibition mostly to the management of my men, of whom I had several, and all familiar enough with the meaning of everything in the collection to give a lucid description of its contents.
As I was gradually receding from the exhibition, the arduous duties began to thicken more strongly upon my man Daniel, of whom I have before often spoken. He had been longest associated with me and my collection, and having it more by heart than the rest, was the foremost man in illustrating it, of which he had been curator for seven or eight years. I have before mentioned that he was of a quick and irascible disposition, exceedingly tenacious of national feelings, and those national prejudices mostly in favour of the country I said he had some twenty years since adopted—the United States. Though he was quick-tempered and violent in his prejudices, there was always the redeeming trait at the end, that his anger was soon over, and there was good nature and civility at the bottom.
Though I had often complaints made to me of the want of politeness or of the rudeness of my man Daniel, I generally found that they were instances where he had been provoked to it by some unnecessary allusions to the vices of his own country, or by some objections to his political opinions relative to the institutions of the United States, upon which subjects he holds himself exceedingly punctilious and very well prepared for debate. With whatever foibles he has, I have found him invariably and strictly an honest man; and many of his highest offences alleged to have been given to the public in my rooms, were given strictly in obedience to my orders for the support of the regulations of my exhibition, or for the protection of my property and the advancement of my interest. To those who entered my rooms respectfully for information, he was civil and communicative, and all such drew valuable information from him, and many became attached to him. His lungs were now labouring for me, while mine were getting a little rest; and from morning to night of every day he was conducting individuals and parties around the rooms, pointing out and explaining the leading peculiarities of the museum, and answering the thousand questions that were asked by all classes of society relative to the looks, the modes, and habits of the Indians—the countries they lived in—and also of Mr. Catlin, the proprietor and collector of the museum, whom all were anxious to see, and many of whom had been led to believe was himself an Indian.
In my own answering of these questions, many of which were natural to be raised on so new and exciting a subject, I was often amused, and as often surprised at the novelty and ignorance of many of them, even amongst a polite and well-clad and apparently well-educated class of people. Many of the questions, which only excited a smile with me, elicited broad laughter from Daniel, which he could not help, and having laughed, could not well avoid expressing his surprise at, and his detection of, which gave umbrage, and sometimes was another cause of difficulties that he occasionally though seldom got into.
I observed, after a while, that the same causes which had affected me were emaciating him, and he finally told me that he was talking his lungs out—and that he could not bear it much longer at the rate he was going on. The questions which were constantly put to him in the room were so much of a sort, or class, that there was little variety or novelty in them to please or excite him; almost every person putting the same; much the greater part of them being general, and therefore irksome to him, as they were often asked a hundred or more times in the day and as often answered. He came to me one evening, seemingly much relieved from the painful prospect he had been suffering under, and which was still before him, by the hope that I would adopt a plan he had hit upon for obviating much of the difficulty, and of saving his lungs for the explanations of questions which might be casual, and not exactly reduced to rule. He said he had ascertained that there were about 100 questions which were commonplace—were put (and in the same way precisely) by the greater part of people who came in, and had time to ask them; and that 50 of those, at least, were asked 100 times per day, the answering of which took the greater part of his time and the best part of his strength, which he thought might be reserved for giving more useful information, while these 100 questions, the most of which were extremely simple or silly, and of little importance to be known, might be disposed of by a printed table of answers placed around the rooms for every one to read as they walked, without the loss of time and fatigue consequent upon the usual mode of asking and answering questions. Though I could not consent to adopt his mode, yet I was amused at its ingenuity; and I give here but a small part of his list, which commenced and ran thus:—