THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 505 



green, enameled fields, as boundless and free as the ocean's wave, nature's proudest, 

 noblest men have pranced on their wild horses, and extended, through a series of 

 ages, their strong arms in orisons of praise and gratitude to the Great Spirit in the 

 sun for the freedom and happiness of their existence. The land that was beautiful 

 and famed, but had no chronicler to tell — where, while civilized, was yet in embryo, 

 dwelt the valiant and the brave, whose deeds of chivalry and honor have passed 

 away like themselves, uuembalnied and untold ; where the plumed war-horse has 

 pranced in time with the shrill-sounding war-cry, and the eagle calumet as oft sent 

 solemn and mutual pledges in fumes to the skies. I siieak of the neutral ground (for 

 such it may be called), where the smoke of the wigwam is no longer seen, but the 

 bleaching bones of the buffaloes and the graves of the savage tell the story of times 

 and days that are passed — the laud of stillness, on which the red man now occasionally 

 re-treads, in sullen contemplation, amid the graves of his fathers, and over which 

 civilized man advances, filled with joy and gladness. 



THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI AXD 3IISS0URI. 



Such is the great valley of the Mississippi and Missouri, over almost every part of 

 which I have extended my travels, and of which and of its future wealth and im- 

 provements I have had sublime contemplations. 



THE INDIAJSr AT HOME. 



I have viewed man in the artless and innocent simplicity of nature, in the full en- 

 joyment of the luxuries which God had bestowed upon him. I have seen him happier 

 than kings or princes can be, with his pipe and little ones about him. I have seen 

 him shrinking from civilized approach, which came with all its vices, like the dead 

 of night, upon him : I have seen raised, too, in that darkness religion's torch, and 

 seen him gaze and then retreat like the frightened deer, that are blinded by the light ; 

 I have seen him shrinking from the soil and haunts of his boyhood, bursting the 

 strongest ties which bound him to the earth and its pleasures ; I have seen him set 

 fire to his wigwam and smooth over the graves of his fathers; I have seen him (it is 

 the only thing that will bring them), with tears of grief sliding over his cheeks, clap 

 his baud in silence over his mouth, and take the last look over his fair hunting- 

 grounds, and turn his face in sadness to the setting sun. All this I have seen per- 

 formed in nature's silent dignity and grace, which forsook him not in the last ex- 

 tremity of misfortune and despair; and I have seen as often the approach of the 

 bustling, busy, talking, whistling, hopping, elated, and exulting white man, with the 

 first dip of the ploughshare, making sacrilegious trespass on the bones of the valiant 

 dead. I have seen the skull, the pipe, and the tomahawk rise from the ground 

 together in interrogations which the sophistry of the world can never answer. I 

 have seen thus, in all its forms and features, the grand and irresistible march of 

 civilization. I have seen this splendid juggernaut rolling on and beheld its sweep- 

 ing desolation, and held converse with the happy thousands, living as yet beyond 

 its influence, who have not been crushed, nor yet have dreamed of its approach. 



I have stood amidst these unsophisticated people, and contemplated with feelings 

 of deepest regret the certain approach of this overwhelming system, which will in- 

 evitably march on and prosper, until reluctant tears shall have watered every rod of 

 this fair land ; and from the towering cliffs of the Rocky Mountains, the luckless 

 savage will turn back his swollen eye over the blue and illimitable hunting-grounds 

 from whence he has fled, and there contemplate, like Caius Marius on the ruins of 

 Carthage, their splendid desolation. 



THE FUTURE GREATNESS OF THE WEST. 



Such is the vast expanse of country from which nature's men are at this time 

 rapidly vanishing, giving way to the modern crusade which is following the thou- 

 sand allurements and stocking with myriads this worhl of green fields. This splen- 



