Indian frontiers, who has lived all his life to eat and drink, to buy and sell, and has grown old in this devotion to the means necessary to secure the material necessaries of life is not easily roused up to intellectual ardor.  I find this to be the case with my present interpreter, and he is, perhaps, not inferior to the general run of paid interpreters.  But as I find, in my intercourse, the growing difficulties of verbal communication with the Indians on topics at all out of the ordinary routine of business, I begin to feel less surprised at the numerous misapprehensions of the actual character, manners, and customs of the Indians, which are found in books.  I speak as to the communication of exact ideas of their beliefs.  As to literal exactitude in such communications, my inquiries have already convinced me that there must be other and higher standards than a hap-hazard I-au-ne-kun-o-tau-gade, or trade interpreter, before the thing can be attempted.  Fortunately, I have, in my kind and polite friend Mr. Johnston, who has given me temporary quarters at his house, and the several intelligent members of his family, the means of looking deeper into the powers and structure of the language, and am pressing these advantages, amidst the pauses of business, with all my ardor and assiduity.

The study of the language, and the formation of a vocabulary and grammar have almost imperceptibly become an absorbing object, although I have been but a short time at the place, and the plan interests me so much, that I actually regret the time that is lost from it, in the ordinary visits of comity and ceremony, which are, however, necessary.  My method is to interrogate all persons visiting the office, white and red, who promise to be useful subjects of information during the day, and to test my inquiries in the evening by reference to the Johnstons, who, being educated, and speaking at once both the English and Odjibwa correctly, offer a higher and more reliable standard than usual.

Mr. Johnston’s family consists of ten persons, though all are not constantly present.  He is himself a native of the county of Antrim, in the north of Ireland, his father having possessed an estate at Craige, near the Giant’s Causeway.  He came to America in the last presidential term of General Washington, having a brother at that time settled at Albany, and after visiting Montreal and Quebec, he fell into company with the sort of half-baronial class of north-west fur traders, who struck his fancy.  By their advice, he went to Michilimackinack and Lake Superior, where he became attached to, and subsequently married the younger daughter of Wabojeeg, a northern Powhatan, who has been before mentioned.  There are four sons and four daughters, to the education of all of whom he has paid the utmost attention.  His eldest son was first placed in the English navy, and is now a lieutenant in the land service, having been badly wounded and cut in the memorable battle