Indian had finished, he turned with a grateful heart to his benefactor, and assured him that he should remember his kindness, and whenever he was able he would recompense it. For the present, he observed, he could only reward him with a story, which he would relate if the landlady would permit him. She having consented, and addressing himself to his benefactor, he said, "I suppose you read the Bible." The man assented. "Well," said the Indian, "the Bible says, God made the world, and then he took him and looked on him, and says its all very good. Then he made light, and took him, and says its all very good. Then he made dry land and water, and sun and moon, and grass and trees, and took him and looked on him, and say its all very good. Then he made man and took him, and looked on him, and say its all very good. Then he made woman, and took him and looked on him, and he no dare say one such word;" after saying which, the Indian withdrew. Some years after, the man who had thus treated the Indian was captured by a native tribe and carried into Canada, where he would have suffered death but for the interference of an old Indian woman, who adopted him in the room of a son that she had lost in the wars. There he lived for an entire winter, and, in the course of the following summer, when one day working alone in the forest, he was accosted by an unknown Indian, who desired him to meet him on a given day, at a place which he pointed out. The fear of fatal consequences deterred him from fulfilling his engagement; but, soon after, he was again accosted by the same Indian, who chided him for not performing his promise. The man apologized, when the Indian told him he would be satisfied if he would meet him at the same place on a future day, which he named. He complied, and found the Indian punctual to his appointment, and provided with two muskets, ammunition, and two knapsacks, which he divided between them. Bending their course towards the south, they travelled for several days, shooting such game as came in their way, and sleeping by night in the forest, at a fire kindled for their preservation, till at length they reached an eminence which presented a cultivated country interspersed with houses, and bearing all the appearance of civilisation. The Indian stopping short, turned to his companion, and asked him if he knew the ground. "Yes!" replied the man eagerly, "there is LichHis guide, who had been mysteriously silent during the course of the journey, then reminded him that many years before he had relieved the wants of a famishing Indian in that town, and exclaimed, “I that Indian, now I pay you! Go home!" Having said this, he

field !"

bade him adieu, and the man joyfully returned to his own home."

"

Dwight, in describing the savages of New England, says, their devotion to strong drink is excessive, and that they will part with every thing they possess for ardent spirits or cider. The pleasures which intoxication excites, vary the dull course of feeling, and impart visions of transport which nothing else seems so well calculated to elicit. To this passion for drink, the poor Indian is chiefly directed by the allurements of the white traders, a great portion of whose profits is derived not only from the sale of the spirits, but from the advantage obtained by them over the natives in the moments of intoxication. To encourage this vice among them seemed a part of their ́trade, and the Indians, becoming familiar with the licentiousness of these traders, imbibed a dislike and a distrust for all Christians; and hence the difficulties which missionaries have had to encounter amongst them. The extravagance and folly which too often occur among the whites, in their intercourse with the natives, have been productive of great mischief to their moral habits:-ever ready to grasp at whatever would afford immediate enjoyment, they held strong drink to be foremost in the comforts of life, calling it, in the language of the Shakers," one of God's good creatures." It was a maxim among the Iroquois, that a drunken man ought not to be held responsible for his actions, nor be accounted as a moral agent; hence at times they became intoxicated, that they might quarrel without disgrace, as they never disputed unless when under the influence of liquor; it being considered scandalous for a man to fight when he was sober. An old chief of this nation, being in Albany upon one occasion, got intoxicated to such excess, that in the morning he found himself lying in the streets naked, and, revolting at his self-degra dation, he resolved never again to deliver himself over to the power of strong water—a resolution he was never known to violate. fatal effects of ardent spirits among the native Americans, are too well known to require further illustration, indeed these liquors have done more mischief than their diseases and wars combined. Humboldt, however, states, that in the forests of Guiana, on the banks of the Orinoco, the Indians shewed an aversion to brandy; and he met with several tribes who were very sober, and whose fermented drinks were too weak to intoxicate. The missionaries have done a great deal towards the reformation of the natives of North America.

The

Some of

them are now preachers, and in many parts of Upper Canada,

* Dwight's Travels in New England and New York, vol. i. pp. 87, 88.

in particular, they will not allow spirits to be vended amongst them.

Kotzebue, in his account of New California, describes the town of Pueblo (a new Russian settlement), as seated in the midst of orchards and hedges of vines bearing luxuriant clusters of the richest grapes; and good wine is consequently obtained. About Ross, another Russian settlement in New California, (lat. 381) he thinks that the vine might be cultivated to great advantage, as wild grapes were found in abundance on the banks of the rivers, the clusters large, the fruit sweet and well-flavoured, and eaten without any inconvenience both by settlers and Indians. The vitis vinifera of the Greeks and Romans was first planted in California by missionaries in 1769, though they found a species of wild vine bearing large grapes of a sour quality. Since that period, good wine is produced in various districts of the country to a considerable extent. The natives manufacture vases from the stalks of rushes, which they render impenetrable to water by a lair or varnish of asphaltes, and in these they carry wine and other liquors to suit their convenience. When the Californians were solicited to carry on a trade with the Mexicans, they resisted the measure nearly in the following words :-" There is amongst us no quarrelling, nor fighting for another man's property; we live happy and contented; we are trained to valour, not to revenge. How different is the conduct of Christians! They drink fire (spirits); they beat their families, assassinate their friends, rob each other, and, under the mask of religion, persecute the helpless, and betray the strong. How then can we suffer Christians to come among us?"

The Californians intoxicate themselves by a species of beverage made from an herb, which they chew in the same way as some of the South Sea Islanders inebriate themselves with ava. They also make use of drink from the infusion of the pod of the mosquite tree steeped in water. It is naturally of a saccharine nature, and, when fermented, readily intoxicates. Wine is made in some parts of California from the grape, and a spirit from the Mezcal, a species of socotrine aloe. In making this spirit, the green leaves of the mezcal are cut off to prevent them from giving a bad taste to the spirits. The heart of the plant is roasted in an oven, which is merely a hole three or four feet deep, and twelve feet in diameter. This hole is heated by wood until reduced to charcoal, when stones are spread over it, and when they become hot the prepared hearts of the mezcal plant are piled on them, and then covered with grass to keep in the heat. When sufficiently roasted, they are taken out and thrown into leathern sacks,

into which is poured a proportionable quantity of water which produces fermentation. In the course of six or eight days, the liquor is fit for the still, and, after double distillation, acquires great strength and is then marketable. The wild bears are so fond of the fermented mezcal, that they often visit a distillery to obtain a draught of it, on which a watchman is ever on the look out to prevent their depradations. The vine yields excellent fruit, producing wine resembling Canary. Here also maize and the jatropha manihot flourish luxuriantly. Roquefeuil, in his Voyage round the World, describes that portion of California along the San Sacramento river as very fertile, vines growing spontaneously, and maize so productive, as hardly to require any attention. Jewett, in his account of the inhabitants of Nootka Sound, says, that they were unacquainted with ardent spirits before their intercourse with the whites; but they soon became fond of rum, and preferred it to any other liquor. From a people so extremely rude, that their choicest viands are eaten with a profusion of train-oil for sauce, not excepting even the most delicate fruit, strawberries and raspberries, little can be expected, particularly as they knew no other mode of boiling them than that of throwing burning stones into the water. The yama, a species of berry that grows on bushes, like currants, of about two or three feet high, is black and about the size of a pistol-bullet, of an oblong shape, and open at top like the blue whortle-berry. The taste is sweet, mixed with a little acidity. The women gather them chiefly on the mountains: great quantities are collected, and, to preserve them, they are pressed, dried, and laid up in baskets for use. Strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries abound; from all of which it is singular that the natives have never discovered the art of extracting any inebriating liquor.*

Leaving the Western World, the first islands of any consideration in the wine and brandy trade in the Atlantic Ocean, are the Azores and the Canary Islands. The Azores are fruitful in grain, and the vine is cultivated so extensively, that the island of Pico alone, according to Captain Mundy, produces 20,000 pipes of wine annually.† The chief vineyards in this island are planted on the sides and base of the peak, which is a conical mountain, giving name to the island, and rising to the height of 7,000 feet above the level of the sea. As the peak was generated by the eruption of fire from the bottom of the ocean, its soil is decomposed lava lying on a stratum of lavatic

Jewett's Adventures and Sufferings among the Savages of Nootka Sound,

8vo. 1824.

† Pen and Pencil Sketches of a Tour in India, vol. ii. p. 371.

stone. Here the vines grow luxuriantly, and nothing can exceed the grandeur of the decorations on the sides and base of this majestic cone, consisting of gardens, vineyards, and corn-grounds, with groups of people perpetually occupied, exhibiting a wonderful contrast to the rude uncultivated summit of its snow-topt apex. This extraordinary volcanic production has the singular property, that when the peak is struck accidentally, or intentionally, it reverberates sounds causing sensations as if the vibrations were issuing from unfathomable caverns equally unknown as the depths of the ocean that surrounds it.

The wine is of the colour and flavour of Madeira, is cheaper by 50 per cent., and held in great estimation in the West Indies, from its superiority over the wines in a hot climate. On this acccount the colonial merchants keep an agent at Fayal, who contracts for the principal portion of each vintage of the island; some of these are so fertile as to afford two crops in the year, and the export of grain and provisions is so considerable, as, in good seasons, to freight 70 vessels, each from 80 to 100 tons burden. For the preservation of corn, pits are dug with an entrance large enough to admit a man, and to receive about three lasts of corn, each containing 108 bushels of 40lbs. a bushel. Here the grain is stored in July, and secured by a stone-lid with a lock, which is then carefully covered with earth to keep it airtight. In this manner it is preserved to suit the convenience and meet the wants of the inhabitants. A spurious spirit is frequently imported into these islands from the Brazils, which the common people use in preference to their own wine; but the consumption has been nearly counteracted by the pure West India rum and the liquors of their own distillation.*

The Canaries, which at one time had large sugar plantations, and were the only settlements likely to cope with our colonies in the West Indies, have been long devoted to the cultivation of the vine. The brandies distilled in those islands, particularly in that of Grand Canary, are in great demand in the foreign settlements of the Spaniards and in North America. The island of Teneriffe alone, produces about 25,000 pipes of white wine annually, of which the greater portion is exported, and the remainder is kept either for home consumption, or to be manufactured into brandy.† M. Bory estimates the average produce of wine in this island to be but 22,000 pipes, while the whole of the Canaries are said to yield 40,000 pipes. Among the Teneriffe wines is to be included the vin de malvasia, or malmsey, a very rich and luscious sack, which was, in the seventeenth century, a great