their high stature, and who, it was believed, could assemble eight or ten thousand warriors. Much of his time was spent in his canoe, in which he travelled on rivers many hundreds of miles. The country of the Cherokees and the Choctaws was the next point in his wanderings, which were not always free from dangers, some of the tribes being very suspicious of his objects. At a place called Traverse des Sioux, on the St. Peter's River, about a hundred and fifty armed Indians surrounded the hut in which Catlin and his companions were sheltered, and informed the white men that they were prisoners. They had taken them to be officers sent by the Government to see the value of the country; and it was with great difficulty that Catlin persuaded them of the harmlessness of his intentions, and obtained permission to depart.
In this way, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in his favourite canoe, and frequently sojourning with some tribe until he became almost as one of themselves, Mr. Catlin spent about eight years. It was in the year 1841 that he bent his steps once more eastward, and came again within civilized parts. He brought with him portraits of the principal men and women in each tribe, pictures of their villages, their pastimes, their religious ceremonies, and a collection of their costumes, manufactures, and weapons of war. During this time he had visited forty-eight tribes, mostly speaking different languages. His portraits numbered upwards of three hundred, besides two hundred paintings of their villages, huts, religious ceremonies, dances, races, and other scenes illustrative of Indian life and manners. No artist had ever before started on such a labour; nor
