THE AMERICAN RACE. 05 



that would have done honour to a Stoic. Insensible to the 

 charms of beauty and the power of love, they treat their women 

 with coldness and indifference, being at no pains to win their 

 favour by the assiduity of courtship, and still less solicitous to 

 preserve it by indulgence and gentleness. Grave, even unto 

 sadness, they have nothing of that giddy vivacity peculiar to 

 many Europeans. Frequently placed in situations of danger 

 and distress, depending on themselves alone, and wrapped up 

 in their own thoughts and schemes, their minds are tinted 

 with an habitual melancholy. Their attention to others is 

 small, the range of their own ideas narrow. Hence that 

 taciturnity which is so disgusting to men accustomed to 

 exchange their thoughts in social conversation. When not 

 engaged in some active pursuit, the wild Americans often sit 

 whole days in one posture without opening their lips. 



When they go forth to war or to the chase, they usually 

 march in a line at some distance from one another, and without 

 exchanging a word. The same profound silence is observed 

 when they row together in a canoe. It is only when they are 

 animated by intoxicating liquors, or roused by the excitement 

 of the dance, that they relax from their usual insensibility and 

 give some signs of sympathy with their kind. 



All their thoughts intent upon self-preservation, they live 

 only in the present, and seem alike indifferent to the past and 

 the future. Grratitude, friendship, ambition, are sentiments 

 of which they have no idea ; and war or the pursuit of wild 

 animals the only occupations which are able to rouse them 

 from their stolid apathy. 



Many tribes depend entirely upon fishing or the chase for 

 their subsistence ; others rear a few plants, which in a rich 

 soil and a warm climate are soon trained to maturity. With 

 a moderate exertion of industry and foresight the maize, the 

 manioc, and the plantain would enable them to live in abund- 

 ance, but such is their improvident laziness that the provisions 

 they obtain by cultivating the ground are but limited and 

 scanty, and thus when the woods and rivers withhold their 

 usual gifts, they are often reduced to extreme distress. 



The streams and lagunes of South America abound with an 

 infinite variety of the most delicate fish, and Nature seems . 

 to have indulged the indolence of the Indian by the liberality 



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