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Show MEDICINAL PLANTS----THE DELAWARE INDIANS. 35 echoed from the neighbouring wood. After our return, I accompanied old Dutot to see his house and his family. He himself had nearly forgotten his native language, and his family knew nothing of it. We found in this house a delightful view into the ravine of the Delaware below, and afterwards took the way to the romantic wild tract which we passed through on the preceding evening. Several plants were here pointed out to me, to the roots of which the inhabitants of the country ascribe great medicinal virtues % for instance, the snake root, perhaps Aristo-lochia serpentaria, which is said immediately to stanch the most violent bleeding of any wound ; and, above all, the lion's heart (Prenanthes rubicunda), which is commended as a sovereign remedy against the bite of serpents. Old Dutot related a number of successful cures which he had performed with this root. This plant has a tall flower stem with many flowers, and large arrow-shaped leaves; its root is partly tuberous, partly long, pretty large, and branching, of a reddish yellow colour, and contains a milky juice. It is boiled with milk, and two table-spoonfuls are taken as a dose. The swelling, caused by the bite of the reptile, is said speedily to disappear, after chewing the root. The Delaware Indians, who formerly inhabited all Pennsylvania, made this remedy known to an old man, from whom it was inherited by the family of Dutot. The latter had himself been among the Indians, and gave me some information respecting them. They, as well as the river, were called after an English nobleman, but they named themselves Lent Lenape, that is, the aboriginal, or chief race of mankind, and they called the river Lenapewi-hittuck (river of the Lenape). They are the Loups, or Abenaquis of the French, inhabited Pennsylvania, New Jersey, &c, and were formerly a powerful tribe. A great part of them dwelt, subsequently, on the White River, in Indiana, after they had been much reduced by the whites; but, in 1818, they were compelled to sell the whole of this tract of country also, to the Government of the United States, and lands have been allotted to them beyond the Mississippi, where some half-degenerate remnants of them still live. They are said to have previously dwelt between fifty and sixty years in the territory of the present state of Ohio. They buried their dead in the islands of the Delaware, which are now partly in possession of old Dutot, but wholly uncultivated, and of little importance. It is said that human bones are still constantly met with on turning up the ground, and that, formerly, Indian corpses were found buried in an upright position, which, however, seems to be uncertain, and with them a quantity of arrow-heads and axes of flint; but all these things were disregarded and thrown away, nor had Dutot anything remaining but a thin, smoothly polished stone cylinder, with which those Indians used to pound their maize. I was filled with melancholy by the reflection that, in the whole of the extensive state of Pennsylvania, there is not a trace remaining of the aboriginal population. O ! land of liberty! Our excursion was extended to the public-house situated on the other side of the Delaware Gap, where we found a live specimen of the red fox of this country (Canisfulvus, Desm.), which we had not before met with. Loaded with plants, and other interesting objects, we returned to |