subject--
"I cannot bolt this matter to the bran."
It is not, however, the habitual temper of my mind to give up. "The spider," it is said, "taketh hold with her hands, and is in king's palaces;" and should a man have less perseverance than a spider?
4th. A meteor, or fire-ball, passed through the village at twilight this evening. The weather, which has been intensely cold for the last three days, indicates a change this evening. Meteoric phenomena of a luminous character were universally referred to electricity, after Franklin's day. Chemistry has since put forth reasons why several of these phenomena should be attributed to phosphorus or hydrogen liberated by decomposition.
5th. The Chippewa jugglers, or Jassakeeds, as they are called, have an art of rendering their flesh insensible, probably for a short time, to the effects of a blaze of fire. Robert Dickson told me that he had seen several of them strip themselves of their garments, and jump into a bonfire. Voltaire says, in his Essay on History, that rubbing the hand for a long time with spirit of vitriol and alum, with the juice of an onion, is stated to render it capable of enduring hot water without injury.
7th. Acting as librarian for the garrison during the season, I am privileged to fill up many of the leisure hours of my mornings and evenings by reading. The difficulty appears to be, to read with such reference to system as to render it profitable. History, novels, voyages and travels, and various specific treatises of fancy or fact, invite perusal, and like a common acquaintance, it requires some moral effort to negative their claims. "Judgment," says a celebrated critic, "is forced upon us by experience. He that reads many books must compare one opinion, or one style with another, and when he compares must necessarily distinguish, reject, prefer."
Sunday 8th. Quintilian says, "We palliate our sloth by the specious pretext of difficulty." Nothing, in fact, is too difficult to accomplish, which we set about, with a proper consideration of those difficulties, and pursue with perseverance. The Indian language cannot be acquired so easily as the Greek or Hebrew, but it can be mastered by perseverance. Our Indian policy cannot be understood without looking at the Indian history. The taking of Fort Niagara was the first decisive blow at French power. Less than three months afterwards, that is, on the 18th of October of that year, General Wolf took Quebec. Goldsmith wrote some stanzas on this event, eulogizing the heroism of the exploit. England's consolation for the loss of Wolf is found in his heroic example, which the poet refers to in his closing line,
"Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise."
11th. Names are the pegs of history. Velasco, it is said, on visiting the gulf which receives the St. Lawrence, and finding the country cold and inhospitable, cried out aca nada--"there is nothing here." This is said to be the origin of the word Canada. Nothing could be more improbable: Did the Indians of Canada hear him, and, if so, did they understand or respect the language of a foreigner hovering on their coast? We must look to the Iroquois for the origin of this word. Jacques Cartier, in 1534, evidently mistook the Indian word Canada, signifying a town, for the whole country. The Indians have no geographical terms for districts. They name a hill, a river, or a fall, but do not deal in generics. Some à priori reasoning seems constrained, where the facts are granted, as this: All animals at Nova Zembla, it is said, are carnivorous, because there is no grass.
12th. Snow covers everything. We are shut out from the civilized world, and thrown entirely on our own resources. I doubt, if we were in Siberia, or Kamschatka, if we could be so completely isolated.
13th. Ellis, in one of his northern voyages, asserts the opinion that the northern lights kindle and disperse the vapors requisite to the formation of lightning. Hence there is no thunder in high northern latitudes. We admit the fact, but doubt the reasoning. Vapor is but water in a gaseous state. It is a fine medium for the exhibition of electricity, and we cannot say that electricity exists without it.
14th. When Lucas Fox sailed to discover the north-west passage to India, in 1631, he carried a letter from Charles the First to the Emperor of Japan. Such was public information, in Europe, twenty-two years after the discovery of the River Hudson, and the settlement of New England, eleven years later.
15th. The state of the weather, during this month, has exhibited some striking changes. The first three or four days were quite severe. On the fifth it became mild, and continued so for eight or nine days. During this time, nearly all the snow which had previously fallen was carried off by rains, or the heat of the sun. The weather was so mild that I sat in my office, on the 13th, without fire, for about two hours. Two evenings previous, the snow fell from the roofs of buildings at nine o'clock, and it continued thawing through the night. To day, the wind has veered round to a northerly point, and the weather has resumed its wintry temperature.
22d. The River St. Mary's froze over during the night of this day. The stream had been closed below, for about a week previous.
24th. The Tartars cannot pronounce the letter b. Those of Bulgaria pronounce the word blacks as if written Iliacs. The Chippewas in this quarter usually transpose the b and p in English words. They substitute n for l, pronouncing Louis as if written Nouis. The letter r is dropped, or sounded au. P is often substituted for f, b for v, and ch for j. In words of their own language, the letters f, l, r, v, and x, do not occur. The following are their names for the seasons.
| Pe-boan | Winter |
| Se-gwun | Spring |
| Ne-bin | Summer |
| Ta-gwa-ge | Autumn |
Years are counted by winters, months by moons, and days by nights. There are terms for morning, mid-day, and evening. The year consists of thirteen moons, each moon being designated by a descriptive name, as the moon of flowers (May), the moon of strawberries (June), the moon of berries (July), &c. Canoe and tomahawk are not terms belonging to the Chippewa language. From inquiries I think the former is of Carib origin, and the latter Mohegan. The Chippewa equivalents are in the order stated, Cheman and Agákwut.
26th. In going out to dinner at 3 o'clock, a sheet of paper containing conjugations of verbs, which had cost me much time and questioning, had fallen from my table. On returning in the evening, I found my dog, Ponty, a young pet, had torn my care-bought conjugations into small pieces. What was to be done? It was useless to whip the dog, and I scarcely had the courage to commence the labor anew. I consequently did neither; but gathering up the fragments, carefully soaked the gnawed and mutilated parts in warm water, and re-arranged and sealed them together. And before bedtime I had restored the manuscript so as to be intelligibly read. I imposed this task upon myself, but, had it been imposed by another, I would have been ready to pronounce him a madman.
27th. I devoted the day and evening in transcribing words into my "Ojibwa Vocabulary." This is a labor requiring great caution. The language is so concrete, that often, when I have supposed a word had been dissected and traced to its root, subsequent attention has proved it to be a compound. Thus verbs have been inserted with pronouns, or with particles, indicating negation, or the past or future tense, when it has been supposed they had been divested of these appendages. I am now going over the work the third time. The simplest forms of the verb seem to be the first and third persons singular of the imperative mood.
Ennui, in situations like the present, being isolated and shut up as it were from the world, requires to be guarded against. The surest preventive of it is employment, and diversity in employment. It has been determined to-day to get up a periodical sheet, or jeu d'esprit newspaper, to be circulated from family to family, commencing on the first of January. Mrs. Thompson asked me for a name. I suggested the "Northern Light." It was finally determined to put this into Latin, and call it Aurora Borealis.
28th. Visits make up a part of the winter's amusements. We owe this duty to society; but, like other duties, which are largely connected with enjoyment, there is a constant danger that more time be given up to it than is profitable.