To Richard Wilby,Esq.,Eton College,Windsor.
My Dear Dick,--It is very good of you,among your severe studies at Eton,to write to your Uncle.I am extremely pleased to hear that your football is appreciated in the highest circles,and shall be happy to have as good an account of your skill in making Latin verses.
I am glad you like "She,"Mr.Rider Haggard's book which I sent you.
It is "something like,"as you say,and I quite agree with you,both in being in love with the heroine,and in thinking that she preaches rather too much.But,then,as she was over two thousand years old,and had lived for most of that time among cannibals,who did not understand her,one may excuse her for "jawing,"as you say,a good deal,when she met white men.You want to know if "She"is a true story.Of course it is!
But you have read "She,"and you have read all Cooper's,and Marryat's,and Mr.Stevenson's books,and "Tom Sawyer,"and "Huckleberry Finn,"several times.So have I,and am quite ready to begin again.But,to my mind,books about "Red Indians"have always seemed much the most interesting.At your age,I remember,I bought a tomahawk,and,as we had also lots of spears and boomerangs from Australia,the poultry used to have rather a rough time of it.
I never could do very much with a boomerang;but I could throw a spear to a hair's breadth,as many a chicken had occasion to discover.When you go home for Christmas I hope you will remember that all this was very wrong,and that you will consider we are civilized people,not Mohicans,nor Pawnees.I also made a stone pipe,like Hiawatha's,but I never could drill a hole in the stem,so it did not "draw"like a civilized pipe.
By way of an awful warning to you on this score,and also,as you say you want a true book about Red Indians,let me recommend to you the best book about them I ever came across.It is called "ANarrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner,during Thirty Years'Residence among the Indians,"and it was published at New York by Messrs.Carvill,in 1830.
If I were an American publisher,instead of a British author (how Iwish I was!)I'd publish "John Tanner"again,or perhaps cut a good deal out,and make a boy's book of it.You are not likely to get it to buy,but Mr.Steevens,the American bookseller,has found me a copy.If I lend you it,will you be kind enough to illustrate it on separate sheets of paper,and not make drawings on the pages of the book?This will,in the long run,be more satisfactory to yourself,as you will be able to keep your pictures;for I want "John Tanner"back again:and don't lend him to your fag-master.
Tanner was born about 1780;he lived in Kentucky.Don't you wish you had lived in Kentucky in Colonel Boone's time?The Shawnees were roaming about the neighbourhood when Tanner was a little boy.
His uncle scalped one of them.This made bad feeling between the Tanners and the Shawnees;but John,like any boy of spirit,wished never to learn lessons,and wanted to be an Indian brave.He soon had more of being a brave than he liked;but he never learned any more lessons,and could not even read or write.
One day John's father told him not to leave the house,because from the movements of the horses,he knew that Indians were in the woods.
So John seized the first chance and nipped out,and ran to a walnut tree in one of the fields,where he began filling his straw hat with walnuts.At that very moment he was caught by two Indians,who spilled the nuts,put his hat on his head,and bolted with him.One of the old women of the tribe had lost her son,and wanted to adopt a boy,and so they adopted Johnny Tanner.They ran with him till he was out of breath,till they reached the Ohio,where they threw him into a canoe,paddled across,and set off running again.
In ten days'hard marching they reached the camp,and it was worse than going to a new school,for all the Indians kicked John Tanner about,and "their dance,"he says,"was brisk and cheerful,after the manner of the scalp dance!"Cheerful for John!He had to lie between the fire and the door of the lodge,and every one who passed gave him a kick.One old man was particularly cruel.When Tanner was grown up,he came back to that neighbourhood,and the first thing he asked was,"Where is Manito-o-geezhik?""Dead,two months since."
"It is well that he is dead,"said John Tanner.But an old female chief,Net-ko-kua,adopted him,and now it began to be fun.For he was sent to shoot game for the family.Could anything be more delightful?His first shot was at pigeons,with a pistol.The pistol knocked down Tanner;but it also knocked down the pigeon.He then caught martins--and measles,which was less entertaining.Even Indians have measles!But even hunting is not altogether fun,when you start with no breakfast and have no chance of supper unless you kill game.
The other Red Indian books,especially the cheap ones,don't tell you that very often the Indians are more than half-starved.Then some one builds a magic lodge,and prays to the Great Spirit.
