"Instead of our wants having been anticipated, as we had naturally
supposed, the whole tribe immediately set up a discordant yell.
Believing that we were still misunderstood, we resolved on asking for
food, and assuring them of our peaceable intentions in all the languages
we were masters of. One of the Lancers who had, during foreign service,
picked up a few expressions of the Cherokee Indians, and also a
knowledge of their habits, proposed addressing them. A consultation
being held, and the result being favourable, he advanced; and, in the
Cherokian language, asked for food, invoked at the same time the great
spirit, which he did by spitting on his hands (an Indian custom), and
holding up his right foot for the purpose of his auditor kissing it, as
a token of conciliation. The person whom he addressed, in an uncouth,
but certainly melodious language, answered in these words:

"'Dom hew-er hies, gie us none o' hew-er-jaw.'


"Another, whom I had willingly entreated in my native tongue for a place
of shelter, answered in the following couplet, which convinced me of the
truth of the supposition of Mr. Thomas Campbell, the intended lecturer
of poetry to the London University, that mankind in an aboriginal state
is essentially poetical, and express their ideas either in rhythmical or
figurative language--

"'Hax hay-bout,
An find it hout.'

"Others shouted with a peculiar strength of lungs, _Bedlam! Bedlam!
ha! ha!_ These words appeared to be instantly caught up by the