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Show 196 WESTERN WILDS. they've a whole family of nearly half- bloods. Old Injuns say it comes back on J em sonietines after people have done forgot they had any Injun blood in ' em." Even so Europeans resident in Asia often have children that look like little Asiatics. Our preacher was a white man, but a citizen of the Cherokee Na-tion ; and the society was Baptist, as are a majority of Cherokee Christians. The Methodists, Presbyterians, Moravians, and Episco-palians also have churches in the Territory. The Senccas alone, of all the located tribes, retain their aboriginal heathenism. That entire tribe numbered then but ninety persons, including one baby. They occupy a township in the north- eastern part of the Cherokee country, where sacrifices, incantations, and a separate priesthood arc still main-tained. They stroke their faces to the moon ; and once a year burn a certain number of dogs to propitiate the spirit of evil. These, with offerings of fruits, serve them instead of incense and holy water. Traveling northward through the Cherokee country, I reached the Kansas line at Chetopa, and witlr amazing suddenness passed from a wilderness to a thickly settled country. - From east to west, far as the eye can see, extends a marked line of division between State and " Nation : " on the south an unbroken prairie, on the north farms, orchards, neat dwellings, and thriving villages. If one side of Broad-way should utterly vanish, leaving a vacant plain, the other side re-maining as it is, the contrast could scarcely be greater. It is a power-ful argument, and one in constant use in favor of congressional action to open the Territory to white settlement. Thence, after a short visit, I took the southward train on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, having meanwhile been joined by Mr. C. G. De Bruler, of the Cincin-nati Times. The road was then completed but ninety miles into the Territory, and at midnight we stopped at the new town of Muscogee, in the Muskokee or Creek Nation. We opened our eyes next morning upon a long, straggling, mis-erable railroad town, the exact image of a Union Pacific " city," in the last stages of decay. Some two hundred yards from the railroad, a single street extended for nearly a quarter of a mile ; the buildings were rude shanties, frame and canvas tents, and log cabins, open to the wind, which blew a hurricane for the thirty- six hours we were there. If Mr. Lo, " the poor Indian," does in fact " see God in the clouds and hear Him in the wind" as the poet tells us, he has a simple and benign creed which gives him an audible and ever- present deity in this country, for the wind is constant and of a character to prevent forgetful ness. The weather is mild and pleasant enough, but walking |
