224 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
the conquest of Mexico as upon a thread; the acts of the Spaniards, the 
pueblo of Mexico, and its capture, are historical, while the descriptions of Indian 
society and government are imaginary and delusive. These picturesque tales 
have been read with wonder and admiration, as they successively appeared, for 
three hundred and fifty years; though shown to be romances, they will con- 
tinue to be read as Robinson Crusoe is read, not because they are true, but 
because they are pleasing. The psychological revelation is the eager, unde- 
finable interest aroused by any picture of ancient society. It is felt by 
every stranger when he first walks the streets of Pompeii, and, standing 
within the walls of its roofless houses, strives to picture to himself the life 
and the society which flourished there eighteen hundred years ago. In 
Mexico the Spaniards found an organized society several thousand years 
further back of their own than Pompeian society, in its arts, institutions, 
and state of advancement. It was this revelation of a phase of the ancient 
life of mankind which possessed and still possesses such power to kindle 
the imagination and inspire enthusiasm. It caught the imagination and 
overcame the critical judgment of Prescott, our most charming writer; it 
ravaged the sprightly brain of Brasseur de Bourbourg, and it carried up in 
a whirlwind our author at the Golden Gate. 
The commendation these works have received from critical journals 
reveals with painful distinctness the fact that we have no science of Ameri- 
can ethnology. Such a science, resting as it must upon verified facts, and 
dealing with the institutions, arts and inventions, usages and customs, lan- 
guages, religious beliefs, and plan of government of the Indian tribes, would, 
were it fairly established, command as well as deserve the respect of the 
American people. With the exception of an amateur here and there, Ameri- 
can scholars have not been willing to devote themselves to so vast a work. 
It may be truly said at this moment that the structure and principles of 
Indian society are but partially known, and that the American Indian him- 
self is still an enigma among us. The question is still before us as a nation 
whether we will undertake the work of furnishing to the world a scientific 
; exposition of Indian society, or leave it as it now appears; crude, unmean- 
ing, unintelligible, a chaos of contradictions and puerile absurdities. With 
a field of unequaled richness and of vast extent, with the same Red Race 
