262 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



people, and far from being physically healthy, as 

 there is much congenital disease amongst them. 



The Sioux, however, a tribe which is made up of 

 eight distinct clans, all of which are now living on 

 reservations in the State of Montana, he looks upon 

 as a splendid race of people physically, and does not 

 think they are decreasing in numbers. Like the 

 Zulus of South Africa, they endeavour to enforce 

 chastity amongst their women by very strict laws. 

 Should a woman be found guilty of adultery, her lips 

 are cut off, often with such barbarous roughness that 

 she loses a piece of her nose as well, during the 

 operation. A woman so disfigured and dishonoured 

 may be sent back to her father, and the ponies l that 

 had originally been paid for her reclaimed, or she 

 may be retained by the aggrieved husband, no longer 

 as a wife, but as his slave and the drudge of his other 

 wives. 



Mr. B. told me many stories illustrative of the 

 stoical indifference with which North American In- 

 dians are capable of bearing physical pain, to which 

 indeed they appear cheerfully to submit in cases where 

 it seems unnecessary. He thought that their horrible 

 cruelties to their enemies were possibly the outcome 

 of their reverence for this Spartan virtue, which would 

 tend to make the more chivalrous amongst them 



1 Amongst the North American Horse Indians, wives are bought 

 with horses, which animals are the chief medium of exchange in this 

 part of the world. 



