SPORT AND TRAVEL 261 



handkerchief tied round the head, with a wide-awake 

 hat and gloves, in cold weather completed their 

 costume. In complexion none of the Indians I saw 

 were of a rich enough colour to suggest the epithet 

 " red." Some were dark and swarthy like Griquas 

 or dark-coloured Hottentots, others of a pale sickly 

 yellow exactly like the pale variety of the Hottentot. 

 Most of those I saw were certainly under five feet nine, 

 but though none were tall, none were very short. As 

 a rule they were strongly built, though some of them 

 appeared very fleshy. Graham, however, told me that 

 twenty years ago a fat Indian was very rare, and 

 thought they get fat now because they no longer 

 lead a hard, wearing life, but are well fed by the 

 United States Government without having to do any 

 kind of work for their living. 



In 1898, on my second visit to the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, I met an American gentleman who had lived 

 out West for more than twenty-five years, and been 

 in close contact with the Indians for the greater 

 portion of that time, especially with the Crows, whose 

 speech he had learnt, as well as the wonderful sign 

 language, which, though now fast dying out, used 

 once, it is said, to be understood by every Indian 

 tribe in North America, from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific. He considers the Crow Indians to be a 

 dying race, destined soon to disappear from the face 

 of the earth, as the women bear but few children. 

 They are, too, he averred, the reverse of a moral 



