THE PRAIRIE INDIANS. 77 



further consideration of the nature and habits of the 

 wild animals which find their home in these broad 

 pastures; until we come to the sections on hunting" 

 and shooting"; where we hope to be able to consider 

 these subjects somewhat in detail. 



Meanwhile we propose to embody in the present 

 section a short account of the Prairie Indians: the wild 

 hunters and warriors who have inhabited the great 

 plains region of North America from a remote period 

 of antiquity. But a few years ago, these fierce and 

 warlike savages used to scour over the billows of this 

 grassy sea in numerous bands resplendent in all the 

 panoply of barbaric paint and feathers, living upon the 

 proceeds of the chase, and following the migrations 

 of the far-famed buffalo, which then swarmed literally 

 in myriads throughout the prairie region of the Far 

 West. And now, both have passed away for ever, 

 as it were like the phantom imagery of a dream- 

 exemplifying in the most striking manner the transi- 

 tory state of our earthly existence, even when applied 

 to whole races of mankind, so graphically described 

 in the Scriptural text, where it is said with dramatic 

 pathos that " Our days on the Earth are as a shadow 

 and there is none abiding." * So also, following the 

 same strain of thought, Shakespeare, our own great 

 master of dramatic description, has expressed this 

 identical idea under a slightly different form, in the 

 well-known passage beginning " Life's but a walking 

 shadow." f And as a shadow accordingly both the 

 Indian and the buffalo have been relegated to the regime 

 of history. Of course, as we know, some few drunken 



* / Chron. xxix, 15. 

 f Macbeth, Act v, Sc. 5. 





