CHAPTER, NINETEEN 
THE INDIANS 
HEN a nation has perished, it arouses 
W the interest of posterity, and historians 
and antiquarians exhaust themselves in 
researches as to the character of such a 
race. But the existence of a people 
that is merely near extinction, however 
characteristic its life may be, and however instructive 
its history as bearing on the study of the development 
of the human race, does not seem to call forth similar 
interest. This may be one of the reasons why we 
have not as yet, so far as I know, any adequate his- 
tory of this race of man, once spread so far, which 
had the whole continent of America in its possession, 
until the advancing Caucasian race crowded them 
back. I do not deny the difficulties besetting such an 
undertaking, on account of our want of knowledge 
of many Indian languages, their own ignorance con- 
cerning their origin and history, the continuing hos- 
tility of many tribes toward all whites, and the hard- 
ships involved in traveling and living among them; 
