78 ROBBER PLAINSMEN. 



and degenerate examples of the red man still linger 

 upon the scenes of their former exploits; but as the 

 wild hunter of the prairie the Bedouin of the West 

 the Indian may be said to have vanished with the buffalo. 

 Many of his supposed representatives at the present 

 time are people of mixed blood, who it is to be feared 

 inherit most of the vices of the white man, with but 

 few or none of his virtues and it is not a little 

 remarkable to find that this is generally so with 

 savage half-breeds everywhere: they rarely inherit 

 either the physical or moral good qualities of either 

 parent, but are an essentially degenerate race. 



In connection with these and also other nomadic 

 plainsmen, it is worthy of note that history shows 

 that the natives of almost all the great plains regions 

 in the world consist of fierce bands of robber horse- 

 men, whose predatory forays have made them dreaded 

 with the surrounding nations. Upon the great plains 

 of North America these banditti are represented by 

 the Red Indian prairie tribes ; in South America, they 

 are represented by the Patagonian savages and other 

 pampas tribes, whose periodical irruptions from the 

 southwards were the scourge of the pampas region 

 until within quite the last few years; while the great 

 plains of Central Asia were under the domination of 

 the Turkoman and Tartar hordes, whose incursions 

 into India and into Eastern Europe have frequently 

 been recorded in history. Some of the invasions of 

 these fierce barbarians were also marked by about the 

 most fearful massacres that have been chronicled in 

 human annals. Then in North Africa, and Arabia, 

 the robber tribes of wandering Arabs have also left 

 imperishable records of their scarcely less barbarous 



