534 THE NORTH AMERICAN TRIBES. 



skulls discovered by Mr. Lund in the caves of Brazil associated with 

 the bones of extinct animals." 



Spite of this diversity of type, we may divide the Indians of 

 America into two races, of which one at least, the Red Skins, is 

 remarkable for its complete homogeneity. The Red Skins were 

 formerly distributed over all the upper portion of the American con- 

 tinent -that is, over the territory of Canada and the United States, 

 and the northern districts of Mexico. In the sixteenth century they 

 numbered a million and a half of souls. They are now reduced to a 

 few thousand families. A few years more, and American rifles, 

 brandy, and poverty, will have completed the extermination of this 

 indomitable race, which has deserved at least the respect and the 

 recognition due to honourable courage of those who have dispossessed 

 them from the immense territories they formerly enjoyed. It is true, 

 however, that we must not take our estimate of the Red Skins from 

 the romantic pages of Chateaubriand or Fenimore Cooper. We 

 must not delude ourselves into a belief that the North American 

 tribes are or were composed of Deerskins, Hawkeyes, and Leather- 

 stockings. Yet we cannot refuse to them a character of real grandeur 

 and true nobility. Their contempt of death and suffering, their 

 stoical composure under the severest tortures, their disdain of civiliza- 

 tion, their horror of foreign supremacy, their haughtiness, and even 

 their cold and reflective ferocity, are so many traits which place them, 

 in a moral sense, far above the majority of the other savage races. 

 A hundred times in romance, song, and drama have been described 

 the manners of the Red Skins, their stratagems in war and the chase, 

 the perseverance with which they hunt down their enemy or their 

 prey, their cunning, their impassiveness, their vengeance. Who 

 among us has not eagerly followed them in their long journeys 

 across the rolling savannahs and through the primeval forests ? Who 

 has not listened eagerly, when, seated round the watch-fire, with the 

 calumet to their lips, they have deliberated gravely on peace and 

 war ? Who has not seen them with alarm dashing to the combat on 

 their nimble chargers, brandishing the tomahawk and scalping their 



