208 SPOKT IN NORTH AMEEICA. 



New World (beside which the largest forests of 

 Europe are but thickets), have no need to deepen 

 the shadows of the picture to make it stand out 

 more conspicuously. The reality is too sublime 

 and too terrible to afford exaggeration. The Indian 

 may not have profited by civilization, but then he 

 has avoided a great deal of its contamination. In 

 my opinion, boasting and exaggeration are strong 

 proofs of weakness, and these two proofs of dege- 

 neracy have not yet reached the far off prairies of 

 North America. 



Generally speaking, the true hunter, whether he 

 belong to the white or the copper-coloured race, 

 has extraordinary gifts of sight, touch, smell, and 

 hearing, which practice developes every day. An 

 unfortunate man, who is blind, deaf, and dumb, can 

 clothe, feed, and take care of himself by the sense of 

 touch ; he can recognise his friends in the same 

 wa}', for it is through this single sense that his 

 instinct is constantly acting. So the trapper of the 

 backwoods has a power of vision rendered so perfect 

 by practice, that the lightest trace upon the leaves, 

 the barks of the trees, or the soil, presents traces 

 clearly perceptible and intelligible to him, showing 

 him a track which to all others would be as invi- 

 sible as that which a bii'd leaves in the air as it flies 

 through space. 



It is this sense which guides the Indian in his 

 pursuit after man or beasts of the chase ; it is this 



