APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER—WARS. 953 
mento, taller and less pudgy, partly, no doubt, because they engaged in 
the chase more than the latter. There is more rugged and stolid strength 
of feature than in the Shastika now living; cheek-bones prominent; lips 
generally thick and sensual; noses straight as the Grecian, but depressed 
at the root and thick-walled; a dullish, heavy cast of feature; eyes fre- 
quently yellow where they should be white. They are true Indians in their 
stern immobility of countenance. 
What is singular, men as well as women paint their faces excessively 
and every day with various pigments made of rotten wood, ocher, clay, 
&e., so that they present a grotesque appearance. 
On the whole, they are rather a cloddish, indolent, ordinarily good- 
natured race, but treacherous at bottom, sullen when angered, notorious 
for keeping Punic faith. But their bravery nobody can impeach or deny; 
their heroic and long defense of their stronghold against the appliances of 
modern civilized warfare, including that arm so awful to savages—the 
artillery—was almost the only feature that lent respectability to their 
wretched tragedy of the Lava Beds. As in the case of the Shastika, their 
women often participate in the battle. It is said that in one of the forlorn, 
fool-hardy assaults on the Lava Beds in the spring of 1873, a soldier was 
killed by a Modok woman. 
Like several of their neighbor tribes, they generally fight in couples, 
one going in advance to draw the enemy’s fire, while his comrade creeps 
along behind him. When the one in front succeeds by stratagem and false 
appearances in inducing the enemy to unload his bow or his gun, the latter 
is apt to step out from concealment or from the smoke to reconnoiter for the 
effect of his shot, and then it is that the seconder, having retained his fire, 
has him at deadly disadvantage. 
The story of the wars waged between the Oregonians and the Modok, 
extending at intervals for a quarter of a century, is frightful to contemplate, 
but it is not the province of this work to enter into its details. There are 
no more black and infamous massacres recorded in history than those of the 
immigrants in 1852 and 1864, and that of General Canby and Commis- 
sioner Thomas in 1873. But it is well not to forget that the butchery per- 
petrated by Ben. Wright, even as related by a friendly countryman, was’ 
