4 o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



edge of some great author of his "being and the universe ; in dread 

 of whose displeasure he constantly lives, with the apprehension 

 before him of a future state, where he expects to be rewarded or 

 punished, according to the merits he has gained or forfeited in 

 this world." He found him the worshiper of a spiritual God, 

 with no idolatry. He discerned the evil of allowing traders to 

 go among the Indians to corrupt them, and thought that, if they 

 were obliged to come to the settlements to do their trading, they 

 would enjoy the advantages of competition, and see the better 

 features of our civilization. His theories respecting the origin of 

 the Indians do not seem to have taken settled shape. He believed 

 that the primary race did not come here from abroad, but origi- 

 nated here on the soil independently of other races ; although wan- 

 derers from other lands may have mingled with it. He found 

 reasons for supposing that there may have been a Jewish element 

 in the race, but not that the race was derived from the Jews ; and 

 he speculated upon the possible derivation of the Mandans from 

 a Welsh colony under Prince Madoc in the early part of the four- 

 teenth century. There are not many scientific observations in his 

 itineraries. His journal at Fort Gibson, in 1834, contains a notice 

 of the death of Mr. Beyrich, a Prussian botanist, who had made 

 an immense collection of plants, and died at Fort Gibson while 

 engaged in changing and drying them. 



Mr. Catlin supported himself in his journeys by painting por- 

 traits and by the sale of his books. It was his custom to leave 

 the Indian country in the fall and go in his canoe down to St. 

 Louis or New Orleans. There he would select some place prom- 

 ising good custom and settle himself as a portrait-painter for the 

 winter. His collections having become large enough to form a 

 museum and gallery, he took them to Europe and exhibited them 

 at the principal capitals. His first adventure of this kind was 

 fairly successful, and he returned home with a competence. His 

 visit to France, from 1845 to 1848, led to pecuniary disaster, and 

 was saddened by the loss of his wife and son ; and in 1852 he 

 suffered a financial wreck in London, from which he never re- 

 covered. 



Between 1852 and 1857 Mr. Catlin made three voyages from 

 Paris to South and Central America. He found great difficulty 

 in getting the Indians of the Amazon to sit for their pictures, but 

 by catching them unawares and sketching from his boat while 

 they were detained on the shore by some pretext of entertainment, 

 he was able to make sketches among thirty different tribes, on the 

 Amazon, the Uruguay, the Yucayali, and in the open air of the 

 pampas and llanos, containing many thousand people, in their 

 canoes, at their fishing occupations, and in groups on the river's 

 shore. 



