art of breeding stock. The bulls are in general ugly, and no use is made of them till after they are five years old. In rearing a bullcalf no more attention is paid to him than to others. Taking all the circumstances of management together, I had some reason to be surprised to find the cattle upon the whole so handsome. The cows in general yield a considerable quantity of milk, many of them ten or twelve quarts per day, and some a good deal more. Milk is usually made into what is called skier, which has been already mentioned,

Sour whey, mixed with water, is a favourite beverage of the IceJanders, and they seldom travel without a supply of it. Butter, however, is the chief article among the products of the farm, and of this the Icelanders eat a surprising quantity. They value it most after it has been barrelled, without salt, and kept several years, It is wonderful how well butter keeps in this manner; it arrives at a certain degree of rancidity, beyond which it does not pass. The smell and taste of the sour butter are very disagreeable to English palates, though Icelanders delight in it. When there is a scarcity of butter, the people eat tallow. The former was not very plentiful last summer, and consequently little tallow was brought to market; and I have seen children eating lumps of it with as much pleasure as our little ones express when sucking a piece of sugar-candy. When people go to the northern districts for the purpose of cutting hay, they are paid for their work in butter, at the rate of 30lbs. per week. It is made in churns of the form

most common in this country, in which the cream is agitated by the perpendicular motion of a plunger. Sometimes two are worked by one handle fastened to a cross piece of wood, to which the plungers are connected by projecting arms, the cross piece forming the angle between them and the handle, and turning on two pivots. There is not much cheese made in Iceland, and they do not begin to manufacture it till late in the season. It is of very inferior quality. The manufacture of butter and sour whey employs the farmer's wife during his absence, while he is engaged in fishing. In some parts of the country the servants or children are employed in gathering lichen and angelica root. The former is carefully dried and packed for use; and the latter is buried, and used more as an article of luxury than of subsistance.

The sheep of Iceland appear to be the same with the old Scotch highland sort, which is now nearly extinct. They are larger, however, and the wool is long and soft, but not fine. Many of them are entirely black, and a great proportion are black and white. The wool is never shorn, but pulled off. Much of it is lost before it is taken off; and what remains, after hanging for a time on the animal's back, becomes spoiled and felted by the rain. The sheep are very much infested by vermin, known in England by the name of ticks and keds. The lambs are early restrained from sucking and the ewes are milked, and butter is made from the produce.

It is part of the employment of the women, during winter, to pick and clean the wool, and to spin it.

A con

a considerable quantity is exported; and it is so valuable an article in Denmark, that it sells in Iceland for as much as coarse wool in the north of Scotland.

About the year 1756, an attempt was made to improve the wool in Iceland, by the introduction of Spanish rams; but, owing to negligence, it was unsuccessful. With that zeal for bettering the condition of his country which distinguishes him, Mr. Stephenson of Indreholm brought a few Merino rams and ewes from Norway in the year 1808. Their wool is to lerably fine, but by no means so good as that of the Merinos in England. I saw the lambs of the first cross between them and the Iceland ewes, and they promised very well. If Mr. Stephenson perseveres in his laudable exertions, and if the people can be made sensible of the advantages to be derived from improving the wool, he will have the satisfaction of having begun a most beneficial improve

ment.

The gathering of the sheep from the mountains before the commencement of winter, is a very important part of the business of an Iceland farmer. As soon as the hay harvest is over, and when the Hreppstiore, or parish officer, thinks that the farmers are ready, he informs the Sysselman of the district, who causes a notice to be given in the churches, that on a certain day the gathering of the sheep shall commence, and, at the same time, appoints a place of rendezvous. Every farmer who has a considerable part of his stock feeding on the mountains, must send one man; or, if the number of his sheep be very smali, he

may join with another whose case is similar, and together they send one. When the men destined for this service assemble, they chuse one who has had much experience, whom they agree to obey, and they give him the title of king, and the power of selecting two associates as counsellors. On the appointed day they meet at the place fixed upon, perhaps to the number of 200, on horseback. Having pitched their tents, and committed their horses to the care of children who have accompanied them, the king, on horseback, gives his orders, and sends the men off two and two, strictly enjoining them not to lose sight of their comrades. Having collected as many sheep as they can find, they drive them towards the tents; and then shift their quarters. Thus they go on during a week, when they take all the sheep to one of the large pens constructed for the purpose, which consist of one large enclosure, surrounded by a number of smaller ones, for the purpose of separating the sheep belonging to different persons. This business is quite a rural festival; but the merriment is often mingled with the lamentations of those who have lost some of their sheep, or the quarrels of others who have accidentally fixed upon the same mark for their property. The search for sheep is repeated about the middle, and again about the end, of October. At this last time, those only who have failed in recovering their sheep on the former occasions, are engaged. Every animal that is unproductive, or which cannot be used, must, by a law which is strictly enforced, be sent to the mountains about the

end

end of May, in order that as much fine grass as possible may be saved for the milch cows and ewes, and for making hay.

Mention has been made in the Journal, of the excellence of the riding horses of this country. When a young horse is thought to promise well, his nostrils are slit up, the Icelanders believing, that when exercised, or ridden hard, this operation will allow him to breathe more freely. I do not suppose that the horses of Iceland could run on our roads at the great rate at which I have seen them go, for any length of time. They are accustomed to scramble slowly through the bogs and over rocks, and to dart rapidly forward whenever they come to dry and smooth ground. In travelling, a man has generally two or three horses with him, and he changes from one to another as they become tired.

The saddle for the use of women resembles an elbow-chair, in which they sit with their feet resting on a board. Some of them are highly ornamented with brass, cut into various figures. The common people all ride in the same way, with the legs astride, the women having their feet raised so high, that their knees are considerably above the back of the horse.

For grinding corn, the Icelanders use small handmills, the same with those known in Scotland by the name of quero.

Though there is little encouragement from the climate, yet there are some parts of Iceland where experiments might be made in cultivating barley, potatoes, and turnips. Along the shores, where

the soil is sandy, and where seaweeds can be procured in abundance, something in this way might be done. But nothing can be effected without the superintendance of some active and intelligent person, able to combat the prejudices, and to encourage the exertions, of the na tives.

ON THE OSAGE INDIANS. From Major Pike's Exploratory Travels in North America.

The Osage Indians appear to have emigrated from the north and west, and from their speaking the same language with the Kanses, Ottoes, Missouries, and Mahaws, together with one great similarity of manner, morals, and customs, there is left no room to doubt, that they were originally the same nation; but separated by those great laws of nature, self-preservation, the love of freedom, and the ambition of various characters, so inherent in the breast of man.

The government of the Osages is oligarchical, but still partakes of the nature of a republic; for al though the power is nominally vested in a smail number of chiefs, yet they never undertake any matter of importance without first assembling the warriors, and proposing the subject in council, there to be discussed and decided on by a majority. Their chiefs are hereditary in most instances, but there are many men who have risen to more influence than those of illustrious ancestry, by their activity and boldness in war. Although there is no code of laws, yet there is a tacit acknowledg

meut

ment of the right which some have to command on certain occasions; whilst others are bound to obey, and even to submit to corporal punishment, as was in stanced in the affair related in my diary of the 29th of July, when Has-ha-ke-da-tungar (or the Big Soldier) whom I had made a partizan to regulate the movements of the Indians, flogged a young Indian with arms in his hands. On the whole, the government may be termed an oligarchical republic, where the chiefs propose, and the people decide on all public acts.

The manners of the Osage are different from those of any nation I ever saw, (except those beforementioned of the same origin) having their people divided into classes, all the bulk of the nation being warriors and hunters, the terms being almost synonymous with them; the rest are divided into two classes, cooks and doctors, the latter of whom likewise exercise the functions of priests or magicians, and have great influence on the councils of the nation, by their pretended divinations, interpretation of dreams, and magical performances, an illustration of which will be better given by the following ineident, which took place during my stay. Having had all the doctors, or magicians, assembled in the lodge of Ca-haga-tonga, (or Cheveu Blanc) and about five hundred spectators, they had two rows of fires prepared, around the spot where the sacred band was stationed. They commenced the tragic comedy, by putting a large butcher's knife down their throats, the blood appearing to run during the opera

tion very naturally. The scene was continued by putting sticks through their nose, swallowing bones, and taking them out of the nostrils, &c.: at length one fellow demanded of me what I would give if he would run a stick through his tongue, and let another person cut off the piece? I replied, a shirt: he then apparently performed his promise seemingly with great pain, forcing a stick through his tongue, and then giving a knife to a bye-stander, who appeared to cut off the piece, which he held to the light for the satisfaction of the audience, then joined it to his tongue, and by a magical charm, healed the wound immediately. On demanding of me what I thought of the performance? I replied, I would give him twenty shirts, if he would let me cut off the piece from his tongue. This disconcerted him a great deal, and I was sorry I made the observation.

The cooks are either for the general use, or attached particularly to the family of some great man; and what is the more singular is, that frequently persons who have been great warriors, and brave men, having lost all their families by disease or in war, and themselves becoming old and infirm, frequently take up the profession of a cook, in which they do not carry arms, and are supported by the public, or by their particular patron. They likewise exercise the functions of town criers, calling the chiefs to council, or to feasts; and if any particular person is wanted, you employ a crier, who goes through the village calling his name, and informing him he is wanted at such a lodge.

When

When received into the Osage village, you immediately present yourself at the lodge of the chief, who receives you as his guest, where you generally eat first, after the old patriarchal style; you are then invited to a feast by all the great men of the village, and it would be a great insult not to comply, at least so far as to taste of their victuals. In one instance I was obliged to taste of fifteen different entertainments in the same afternoon. You will hear the cooks crying, Come and eat, such a one gives a feast, come and cat of his bounty. Their dishes were generally boiled sweet corn in buffalo grease, or boiled meat and pumpkins; but Sans Oreille (or Tetobah) treated nae with some tea in a wooden dish, new horn spoons, boiled meat and crullers; he had been in the United States.

Their towns hold more people in the same space of ground than any place I ever saw; their lodges being posted with scarcely any regularity, each individual building in the manner, direction and dimensions that suit him best; by which means they frequently leave only room for a single man to squeeze between them. Added to this, they have pens for their horses, all within the village, into which they always drive them at night, in case they think there is any reason to believe an enemy to be lurking in the vicinity. The Osage lodges are generally constructed with upright posts, put firmly in the ground, about twenty feet in height, with a crotch at the top. They are generally about twelve feet distant from each other. In the crotch of these posts are put the ridge poles, over

which are bent small poles, the ends of which are brought down and fastened to a row of stakes, of about five feet in height; these are fastened together with three horizontal bars, and form the flank walls of the lodge. The gable ends are generally broad slabs, and rounded off to the ridge pole. The whole of the building and sides is covered with matting made of rushes of two or three feet in length, and four feet in width, which are joined together, and entirely exclude the rain. The doors are in the side of the building, and there is generally one on each side: the fires are made in boles in the centre of the lodge, the smoke ascending through appertures left in the roof for the purpose. At one end of the dwelling is a raised platform about three feet from the ground, which is covered with bear skins, and generally holds all the little choice furniture of the master, and on this repose his honourable guests. In fact, with neatness and a pleasing companion, they compose a very comfortable and pleasant summer habitation; but they are left in the winter for the woods; they vary in length from thirtysix to one hundred feet.

The Osage nation is divided into three villages, and in a few years you may say nations, viz. the Grand Osage, the Little Osage, and those of the Arkansaw. The Little separated from the Grand Osage about two years since; and their chiefs, on obtaining permission to lead forth a colony from the grand council of the nation, moved on to the Missouri; but after some years, finding themselves too hard pressed by their enemies,