feelings and affeftions, if a body aftive and enduring, a paffion for fports, 

 a love for manly pleafures, if contempt of danger, the firm grafp of 

 friendfliip, the fire of eloquence, the devotion to a country, if the com- 

 binations more or lefs varied of thefe aftive, heroic, and focial virtues, 

 arc the charafterifticks of a man, I do from my foul believe the Indian 

 teflimony ; the man of the land is a man, a real man, and not of that in- 

 firior race of men, conceived by the philofophers. Obferve too at what 

 time this eftimate of Indian talent is made, while the Indian is yet in 

 his infancy, and in the griftle ; with a fcanty agriculture, no paftoral 

 riches, his refource the wildernefs : lefs advanced in the paths of civilized 

 life^ than the half-lettered Greek tribes, when they firfl united under 

 the banners of Agamemnon ; thofe very tribes who a few centuries after- 

 wards replaced the names of Achilles, Ulyffes, and Neftor, with thofe 

 of Epaminondas, Plato, and Homer. I have named Homer but cer- 

 tainly without any profane allufion, the fimple reduftions here communi- 

 cated are the firft dawnings of genius ; fuch tales and fables as might have 

 paffed current at the fcasan gate, or beguiled the hours at the flaips, or 

 under the tents at the Scamander. Though the age of Homer would have 

 difclaimed them, may they not refemble the amufements of the age of 

 Homer's heroes, the precurfors of Homer ? 



Sect. ii. 

 THE SOLITARY HUNTER, 



A SERIOUS TALE OF THE INDIANS. 



A certain man feparated himfelf from the fociety of his fellows, and 

 took up his abode in a defart place, in a remote part of the wildernefs. 

 His praftice was to hunt by day, and to retire at night to his fequellered 

 wigwam. He kept a brother the only one of his race with whom he had 

 any conneiflion, confined in a gloomy cave, which he had hollowed out 



O2 for 



