194
OLD HICKS THE GUIDE.
They wore upon the hody a close shirt of buckskin, which was dressed of a dark brown color, not unlike that of their own cuticle and the skirt of which reached nearly down to the top of the fringed leggins. This shirt was without sleeves, and they wore over it and about the waist, a belt of the same material, plaited in a wide braid : in this they carried long sheath-knives.
Some of them still wore their quivers, which were suspended to the back by a belt of the same make, which passed over the left shoulder and the bust, meeting the waist-belt.
In nearly every group of forty or fifty there was one who wore for distinction a half circle of hawk or eagle feathers, which stood up erect from the brow ; then here and there I could perceive two or three prominent figures, upon the heads of which these half circles were extended into crowns of large feathers from the eagle's wings, to which were attached the quaint addenda of tails, composed of bunches of the feathers of birds of gaudy colors and different sizes, placed at intervals of several inches along a string of over two feet in length, at the end of which was a broad blossom of flaming feathers.
As the half circles seemed to mark inferior dignitaries, the feather crowns with their long tails appeared to mark the chief of a tribe or a section of a tribe.
At least, they were evidently important personages, for a cluster of followers was gathered round each, and the meat which was "passed to them was handed on by several obsequious hands, from those of the presiding squaw, which seemed emulous enough to hasten its progress to those honored lips.
The uniformity of equipment, and the faint approach it made to that of civilized warriors, first arrested my attention, and excited my astonishment. They were altogether unlike any Indians I had ever seen in the South, both in costume, and the comparative orderly quiet and discipline which seemed to prevail.                      i
The great gate of this yard was thrown wide open, and through