They suffer however the kinder affections to show themselves occasionally; they in general live happily with their wives, the women are contented with their lot, and we witnessed several instances of strong attachment.

Of their kindness to strangers we are fully qualified to speak; their love of property, attention to their interests, and fears for the future made them occasionally clamorous and unsteady; but their delicate and humane attention to us in a season of great distress at a future period are indelibly engraven on our memories.
Of their notions of a Deity or future state we never could obtain any satisfactory account; they were unwilling perhaps to expose their opinions to the chance of ridicule.

Akaitcho generally evaded our questions on these points but expressed a desire to learn from us and regularly attended Divine Service during his residence at the fort, behaving with the utmost decorum.
This leader indeed and many others of his tribe possess a laudable curiosity which might easily be directed to the most important ends; and I believe that a well-conducted Christian mission to this quarter would not fail of producing the happiest effect.

Old Keskarrah alone used boldly to express his disbelief of a Supreme Deity and state that he could not credit the existence of a Being whose power was said to extend everywhere but whom he had not yet seen, although he was now an old man.
The aged sceptic is not a little conceited as the following exordium to one of his speeches evinces: "It is very strange that I never meet with anyone who is equal in sense to myself." The same old man in one of his communicative moods related to us the following tradition: The earth had been formed but continued enveloped in total darkness, when a bear and a squirrel met on the shores of a lake; a dispute arose as to their respective powers, which they agreed to settle by running in opposite directions round the lake, and whichever arrived first at the starting point was to evince his superiority by some signal act of power.

The squirrel beat, ran up a tree, and loudly demanded light which, instantly beaming forth, discovered a bird dispelling the gloom with its wings; the bird was afterwards recognised to be a crow.