SPORT AND TRAVEL 263 



desire to give their enemies the opportunity of prov- 

 ing that they too were possessed of the one quality in 

 human nature which the red man admires above all 

 others, the ability to bear physical pain without 

 wincing. This theory, I must confess, appears to me 

 untenable, and I am not surprised that during two 

 hundred years of constant warfare between the white 

 man and the red, the higher motives of the latter, when 

 inflicting ingenious tortures upon the unfortunate pale 

 faces who have from time to time fallen into his 

 hands, have been invariably misunderstood and merci- 

 lessly revenged. 



Mr. B. accompanied the first party of American 

 troops which visited the scene of the massacre of 

 General Custer and his force. Every corpse, he in- 

 formed me, had been stripped naked and mutilated, 

 with the exception of that of General Custer himself, 

 which had been left untouched as a mark of respect 

 for a man who was personally known to his foes as 

 a man of superb personal courage. Should a fight 

 take place, my friend told me, in the neighbourhood 

 of an Indian village, as was the case in the Custer 

 massacre, and should the attacking party get the 

 worst of the fight, it is the women who take the 

 chief part in the mutilation of their dead enemies. 

 The sight of their own dead is said to work these 

 emotional creatures into a state of such sublime 

 fury that not only do they hack their enemies to 

 pieces and pound their senseless heads to pulp with 



