WHITE INDIAN CAPTIVES. 7 



Indians, and were skilled in all the arts of the Red 

 man. Nearly every Indian tribe numbered a certain 

 proportion of Whites among its adherents. Still more 

 remarkable were the cases of those who were forcibly 

 carried off into captivity by the Indians. Many of 

 these, when they were, after long years, recaptured 

 by the conquering Whites, were found to have grown 

 so attached to the Indian mode of life, that they refused 

 to quit their red companions; and actually had to be 

 carried back to the settlements by force. Instances of 

 this will be given further on in these pages. 



These things are notorious, and American historical 

 writers are unanimous in admitting it; but we have not 

 been able to find a single instance where an Indian 

 has adopted the white man's mode of life, except under 

 compulsion: "The Indian," says Mr. Parkman, "is a 

 true child of the forest and the desert. The wastes 

 and solitudes of Nature are his congenial home." * 



The history of Australian and African exploration 

 gives results practically identical, and shows that not- 

 withstanding all its dangers, hardships, and uncertainties, 

 the adventurous life of an explorer possesses extraordinary 

 attractions. "Once an explorer (it has been said), 

 always an explorer" and in spite of years, and failing 

 health, etc., we constantly find the same men venturing 

 again and again upon fresh enterprises, until finally, 

 in many cases, they have left their bones in the wilderness. 

 It would be easy to quote quite a long list of such 

 instances. Charles John Andersen, the well-known 

 Swedish naturalist and traveller, for instance, lived for 

 nearly a quarter of a century in his waggon in the 



* The Conspiracy of Pontiac, by Francis Parkman, 1885, Vol. i, p. i. 



