or Cacique of its own, and having little to do with one another either in the way of friendship or of war. They dwelt in stone houses, and lived chiefly by tillage, depending but little either on hunting or fishing. They seem to have had most of the comforts of life and to have shown some skill in handicrafts; but, scattered as they were in small groups, they could accomplish nothing like the great works and buildings of Mexico and Peru. They were kindly and well-disposed people, peaceable among themselves and hospitable to strangers. But they were weak in body and mind, and in no way fit to resist an enemy that came against them in any force. For they had neither the strength of the civilized man which lies in fortresses and military engines, nor that of the savage in hardihood and cunning and being able to leave his home at a moment's notice and plunge into the forest. So these islanders were at the mercy of any civilized nation that attacked them, and might almost be called born slaves.

13. The Red Indians.—The third group contains those with whom the English settlers had to deal, and it is therefore needful that we should have a clear idea of what manner of people they were. In judging of what they were when the settlers came among them, we must be careful not to be misled by those who have only seen them in later times; for those white men who have had most to do with the Indians have been traders whose only object was to make money out of them, and who have seldom scrupled to cheat and injure them. sionaries, and those who wished well to the Indians, have for the most part only seen them after the traders had brought in drunkenness and other vices, and taught them to distrust all white men as enemies and knaves, so that we can only learn the real character of the Indians from the first explorers who saw them before any white men had come among them,

Even the Mis

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THE RED INDIANS.

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and from those travellers who have been in districts where the traders had scarcely made their way. The account that we have from these writers is very different from, and on the whole much more favourable than, that generally given. Nothing could be more different than the life of these northern nations from that of the civilized races of America. The Indians were divided into a vast number of tribes, the largest of which numbered about forty or fifty thousand, while most of them were much smaller. Each of these tribes had its own territory, and was quite independent of the rest, and only in one instance do they seem to have attempted to unite in larger bodies. In the northern countries on each side of the Canadian lakes there was a league or confederacy, consisting at one time of five and at another of six of the most powerful and warlike nations. But this seems to have been the only attempt of the kind. All the tribes of any size were subdivided into villages, which were almost independent, each managing its own affairs under its own chief. Each tribe was governed by a hereditary head chief, but, as is always the case where there are no written laws and scarcely a fixed system of government, the authority of these head chiefs varied greatly. An able and ambitious chief was really the king of the nation, and arranged matters after his own will; but with a weak or easy-tempered head, the under-chiefs, or sachems, as they were called, governed their own villages much as they pleased. In no case however did the chief either of a tribe or of a nation govern by his own arbitrary will, but all important matters were settled by public meetings, at which every man renowned either for wisdom or courage was entitled to be heard. As might be supposed, a people living in this scattered fashion had none of the arts of life but in the simplest and rudest forms. They tilled the soil, after a fashion, and grew scanty crops of corn and vegetables; but this labour was considered disgraceful and left entirely to the

C

women; they knew nothing about building in stone, but lived, some in huts made of timber daubed with mud, such as is often used now in English farm-buildings, and most of them in tents made of poles and skins. Yet it seems as if they neglected all useful industry rather because their mode of life did not need it, and could not indeed have been much bettered by it, than from any incapacity. For they showed themselves in no way unskilful in those few handicrafts to which they did apply themselves. Living in a country full of lakes and rivers, they needed boats, and these they made with great skill. Some tribes indeed hollowed them out of single logs by a slow and toilsome process, but others made them of wicker-work covered with birch bark skilfully sewn together. Many of their articles, such as hatchets, bows, lances, shields and pipes, were cleverly constructed, and often tastefully ornamented; and they showed great skill in dressing skins for their clothes, and decorating their robes and headdresses with feathers. As the woods swarmed with game, which gave them all they wanted in the way of food and clothing, it is not easy to see what need they had for mechanical arts, or in what way such knowledge would have made them happier. For we must not suppose that the degraded and unhappy life which they have been seen leading in modern times is anything like their natural condition. On the contrary, they seem to have been a remarkably happy and cheerful people, fond of amusements and games, and clever in contriving them. Besides the games of ball in which the whole tribe joined, they had public dances and sham fights, both conducted with regular movements, which could only be learned by careful study and drill. One matter in which all the tribes seemed to have resembled one another more or less, was their religion. There were various points of difference, and some tribes had different modes of worship from others. yet all alike believed in one supreme God, or Great

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THE RED INDIANS.

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Spirit, as they called Him. They believed that He watched all their actions and rewarded and punished them, and they sought to please Him by penances, and prayers and fastings, and by great public feasts, though not, as it seems, by human sacrifices as the Mexicans did. They also believed that men would live again after death, and be happy or miserable according as they deserved well or ill in this world. Though they were so far behind the other nations of America in mechanical skill, yet in sagacity and political cleverness they were probably in advance of them; for, living as they did in small bodies, where each man had a voice in affairs, every man's wits were called out to the utmost, and no one was suffered to become a mere machine. Their two chief pursuits, hunting and war, had the same effect. For hunting, especially when done not for sport but to get food, not only makes men strong and active and quickens their eyesight, but teaches them readiness and patience. And their system of war was not like that of civilized soldiers, where only one man in a thousand has to think and the rest have little more to do than to obey, but they went out in small parties, sometimes of two or three; and there was scarcely any hand-to-hand fighting, but everything lay in outwitting and surprising the enemy. They did not think mere strength and courage without wit enough for a ruler, for in many tribes there were two chiefs, one to govern in peace and the other to lead in war; and in some cases chiefs who had lost the use of their limbs, but whose wisdom was highly valued, still kept their power,--and we even read of women chiefs. Speaking generally, they seem to have been good friends and dangerous foes, kind and hospitable to strangers so long as they suspected no guile, but utterly merciless when they had once begun a quarrel. For of their faults cruelty was by far the worst, and in war they spared neither women nor children, and not content with killing their prisoners, they put them to dreadful

tortures. Yet it must be said that, if they were ready to inflict torture, they were likewise ready to bear it; and indeed an Indian prisoner would have felt insulted if he had been merely put to death without a chance of showing what torments he could undergo quietly. Nor must we forget that it is only quite lately that civilized men in Europe have ceased to inflict sufferings on one another fully as great, both in war and in the execution of cruel laws.

Such a people as this, one can easily see, would be stubborn foes for any strangers to deal with. Their country too was ill-suited for civilized troops. For as there were no cities or storehouses, and scarcely any crops, it would be hardly possible for large bodies of men who did not know the country to maintain themselves. Moreover, the two great advantages which civilized men possess in war, horses and fire-arms, would be of much less value in such a country. For among rivers and forests horses are of little use, and, without horses and waggons to carry ammunition, fire-arms lose half their value. So altogether, settlers in such a country might look for a very different resistance from that to be found in the islands, or even in Peru and Mexico.

It has been necessary to say as much as this about the various races of natives, for without having a clear idea of them we cannot understand the differences that there were between the various European Colonies.