1^5 THE HORSE AND ITS RIDER. ["18^3. 



Indians Da-lia-dinnies and Gamers V,575 enters the coimtry* If we cliarge it, in the case of the Gamer, lo 



Northern Indians of the A «<cA^^l stock 6,082 the unbounded Hcentiousness which prevails amono- them, We 



E hu.y-u-wnk Indians of he Plains . . 23,400 Iiave to account for the same causes not having had the same 



Chipeways and Crees, exclusive of the abo^■e.. . ..... 8,675 efiect at earlier periods; tor, with the sole exception of the In- 



Inc bans ot tlie Seaboard and Islands of the Pacific .... 63,840 dians of Virginia, boundless licentiousness appeal^ to have been 



Indians of New Galedonia-Intenor 2,000 the rule among the natives on our first acquaintance with them. 



Indians ot Canada 13^000 The travels of Lewis and Clerk beyond the Mississippi, only half 



p 1 T f 1 ^ century ago, fully corrob8rate the accounts of all travellers of 



urand J, otal 124,518 the seventeenth century in Canada and the more Eastern regions, 



Or to drop the appoai-ance of precision conveyed by the broken ^'^ respect to this characteristic. 



numbers, 125,000, beino; barelv double the number at which de la -n i ii i •■,•,.-, , 



Hontan estimated the ^x Nat ons of the Iroquoisdone 1690 ti .^T^'?^^^' "^""t <='''"f,^, <=*»" ^^ ^^^'g"^^ which tend to reduce 



iiuquojb aione, m ioju. the phj^sical stamina of the race— such as the substitution of in- 



I am conscious that this number, for the gross population of ^T°'' ^^^''opean clothing for their native robes of fur; the use of 



so large a poi-tion of the whole Continent, may appear almost stimulants, tobacco almost universally, alcohol partially ; the 



incredibly small. Ingoing over carefully and re-considerino- the de- g'"idual loss of native arts and appliances, without the acqnire- 



tails, I do not believe them to be, upon the whole, under estimated ; '"®'^' °^ anything better ; the introduction of new forms of dis- 



no important region of the British territory appears to be omit- ^'''^^' ^ marked deterioration in their dwellings, from the skins 



ted. It IS presented, therefore, as an approximation, which may °^ which they were formerly made, acquiring a market value, 



at least serve to direct further attention to the subject. It is, ^"*' '^®'"S exchanged for nothing so essential to their health, 



of coui-se, to be taken as representing only a portion of the race. There are also moral causes tending to depress the race — such as 



I have no means of estimating the native population of Russian ^^'^ consciousness of decline; the pressure of new necessities; the 



America, and we have not considered the native population of ^^opeless sense of inferiority to the whites in many respects, 



the United S ates, Texas, Mexico and Oregon. Thefirst of these '"''^i'^t, with all their reputed pnde, is a general feeling among 



was estimated in 1835 at 330,000, which, however, I take to be the Indians. Lastly, we must add the influence of practices 



too high. Mr. Cuthbertson, a naturalist travelling for the Smith- ""'li'di liay^ a ''"S'l'*'"' P''*^™'^^'^® '"^ certain districts. I mean 



sonian Institution at Washington, gives the followino- for the ^^'^ administration of potions destined sometimes to produce 



probable number of Indians on the Upper Missouri, and its tri- al^ortion, sometimes to cause absolute sterility, in females. Dr. 



butaries, in 1850. (Fifth Annual Repoi-t of Board of Regents Hodder, in an Essay on the Poisonous Plants of Canada, read 



1851.) since the date of this paper, has alluded to tiie former as one of 



Sioux 30 000 -^^ secrets of the Indians in Canada, which he has not succeeded 



Cheyene '.'////." _[ s'ooo ^" discovering, but to which he attributes, in a very great degree, 



Anccaree.".".y.r.'.".l l'500 their decrease in number. Many instances of the latter were- 



Mandan . _ .".".'.".".".'".V." 'l50 related to me in the interior — the Crees, more particularly, have 



Gros Ventres. '700 a bad eminence as medicine men, which, shews a general dispo- 



Assiniboine ..'.'. .""J '"^ 4 800 sition among tiiem to these unnatural arts. In fact they are 



Crow.. 4'soO stated to be among the commonest resources of jealousy and re- 



Blackfoot --'""l'"r. '_ 9000 venge. However, some of these causes have not been " found to 



I check the reproductiv«^ness of other races ; and it may be doubted 



Total _ 54 550 whether any or all of them are adequate to explain the broad 



"■ "" ' feet, the final solution of wdiich can probably be found only in 



Among whom, appear to be included, some of those frequenting the supposition of a design of Providence to make way for one 



the British trading posts, and previously reckoned. It is scarcely race by removing the other. 



possible that the Indians of tiie Lower Missouri, Texas and ■ 



Mexico, can make up even an approximation to the 330,000 of * I canuot avoid refenios Temperance advocates to the .amusing 



the Baptist Committee. (Religion in America, p. 56.) Putting Essay, " Sur 1' Yvrognerie des Sauvages," in the Histoire de I'eau-de- 



the whole together, it would scarcelv seem that the present ™™ ,Cauada, 1705 , re-priuted by the Literary and Historical Society 



aggregate can be placed so high as 250,000, instead of tie two r^cuJ^ ^Z:!ot^e^:'^st:2:, '^::;Z^';Lf:!r'' 



millions of Gatlin. > y r 



To this remnant, then, has been reduced a race supposed to 

 have numbered from ten to twenty millions, not more than three The IIorsD and its Riaer. 



centiiries ago. " War, death or sickness hath laid siege to it," 



and is still laying .seige at a rate in no degree less rapid than at nr j. bailey irnNER, esq., Quebec. 



any former period. Not to mention the cruel destruction effected 



by the American fur traders and trappers in the South ; by utter It may as well be mentioned here, that tiie several orijrinal 



lawlessness and wanton disregard of humanity; by Florida wars breeds or stocks of the horse are evidently, thouQ-h cui-sorily 



and wholesale deportations; we find that even in regions where alluded to in se\'er,al jilnces in Scripture, both' in the vision of the 



the more obviously depopulating agencies have b'een lield in ancient Hebrew Projihets, and in the Revelations of St. John, 



great restraint, the process goes on. The Indians themselves are In the 1st chapter of Zechariah, and the Sth verse, the bay 



fully aware of it, and fully conscious also that the whites cannot Syrian race, the white Armeno-Persian, and tiie piebald Mace- 



aUv.ays be directiy charged with it. Sir John Richardson has donian, are cvidentiy referred to in these words: — "I saw by 



given us a curious mythological tradition which serves to <ac- night, and behold a" man riding upon a red horse, and ho stood 



count for it to the Kiitchin (p. 239.) A iriend of mine, who ainong tiie myrtie trees that were in tiie bottom, and behind 



conferred on tiui subject with a sage old native of New C.aledo- him were there red horses, speckled, and white." Aoa'n, in 



nia, found that his only tiicory was that the white men's tobacco tiie 6th chajiter of (he Revelations, wo have tiie white horse, tho 



poisoned them. The white's fire water in this case, and through- red, tiie black, and the ]ialo horse; again, tho Persian, the Syrian 



out tiie Hudson's Bay Territoiy, is happily guilti&=s, for none with tiie Melian and Scythian, or Roman — types of the four 



