DEPARTURE FROM BIRMINGHAM.
145
attachments formed during our short stay in the beautiful
town of Birmingham.
For what befel these good fellows in Nottingham and
Leeds there will probably be no historian, as I was not with
them. I commenced with them in York, where I became
again the expounder of their habits and mysteries, and was
delighted to meet them on classic ground, where there is so
much to engage the attention and admiration of civilized or
savage. I had visited York on a former occasion, and
had the most ardent wish to be present at this time, and to
conduct these rude people into the noble cathedral, and on
to its grand tower. I had this pleasure ; and in it accom-
plished one of my favourite designs in accompanying them
on their northern tour.
On my return from London I had joined the Indians
at Leeds, where they had been exhibiting for some days,
and found them just ready to start ftir York. I was their
companion by the railway, therefore, to that ancient and
venerable city ; and made a note or two on an occurrence
of an amusing nature which happened on the way. When
we were within a few miles of the town the Indians were
suddenly excited and startled by the appearance of a party
of fox-hunters, forty or fifty in number, following their
pack in full cry, having just crossed the track ahead of the
train.
This was a subject entirely new to them and unthought of
by the Indians ; and, knowing that English soldiers all wore
red coats, they were alarmed, their first impression being that
we had brought them on to hostile ground, and that this
was a " war-party" in pursuit of their enemy. They were
relieved and excessively amused when I told them it was
merely a fox-hunt, and that the gentlemen they saw
riding were mostly noblemen and men of great influence
and wealth. They watched them intensely until they were
out of sight, and made many amusing remarks about them
, after we had arrived at York. I told them they rode with-
out guns, and the first one in at the death pulled off the
VOL. II.                                                                                          T