to prove how strong these impressions have been on minds above the vulgar and unlearned. To instance one, in the history of the private life of Louis the XV. translated by Justamond, among some particulars of the life of the famous Samuel Bernard, the Jew banker, of the court of France, he says, that he was superstitious {88} as the people of his nation are, and had a black hen, to which he thought his destiny was attached; he had the greatest care taken of her, and the loss of this fowl was, in fact, the period of his own existence, in January, 1739.
Dreams are particularly attended to by the Indians, and sometimes they make an artful use of the veneration that is paid to them, by which they carry a point they have in view: I shall relate an instance for the satisfaction of the reader.
Sir William Johnson, sitting in council with a party of Mohawks, the head chief told him, he had dreamed last night, that he had given him a fine laced coat, and he believed it was the same he then wore; Sir William smiled, and asked the chief if he really dreamed it; the Indian immediately answered in the affirmative: Well then, says Sir William, you must have it; and instantly pulled it off, and desiring the chief to strip himself, put on him the fine coat. The Indian was highly delighted, and when the council broke up, departed in great good humour, crying out, who-ah! which is an expression of great satisfaction among them.
The next council which was held, Sir William told the chief that he was not accustomed to dream, but that since he met him at the council, he had dreamed a very surprising dream; the Indian wished to know it; Sir William, with some hesitation, told him he had dreamed that he had given him a tract of land on the Mohawk River to
