THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 731 



From the eveuts of tLose two days I foresaw the difficulties ahead of mo aud was 

 nearly discouraged. The shores of this mighty river, lined with tens of thousands of 

 human beings unchanged by civilization, and in their simple, native habits and in 

 their own homes, the most interesting display of savage life that could appear to me 

 during my existence, and for which alone I was a voluntary and unknown exile to 

 this distant land, and my project to be lost or to be achieved by a maneuver. 



A council was held, and it was resolved that my sketches must be made (if made at 

 all), without their knowledge and without exciting their suspicions. 



Our boat was afterwards anchored in front of their villages and encampments some 

 four or five yards from the shore, bringing the excited groups with their toes to the 

 water's edge, when I took my pick of them at full length, as my portfolio was screened 

 from their view by the bulwark of the boat or by the transparent sides of the cupola, 

 whilst Smyth, conspicuous in his scarlet capot, riveted their attention by discharging 

 cylinder after cylinder of my revolver rifle, the first ever seen on that river ; and if 

 the seance was not long enough for my object the boatman held them amused with 

 his fiddle, which often set them to dancing and at other amusements, or displayed on 

 the bulwark of his boat a variety of bright-colored cotton shawls and other attractive 

 objects with which, as a trader, he was supplied, and struck up a trade for fish, fruit, 

 and turtles' eggs, with which we were in this way abundantly supplied. 



Our halts were more often in front of their encampments and fishing parties than 

 before their villages, for there my plans were not impeded or learned by the inquisi- 

 tive gaucho population, who live in or contiguous to most of the -Indian villages. 



By this means, during the sixty-nine days which took us to Obidos, I obtained what 

 I never could have obtained in any other way. I saw and made my sketches amongst 

 thirty different tribes, containing many thousands of those simple people, in their 

 canoes, at their fishing occupations, and in groups at the river's shore ; and our little 

 boat, being subject to my own control, enabled me to run into the coves and lagoons 

 inaccessible to steamers, and to see and sketch the unknown grandeur of those soli- 

 tudes — the gloomy but decorated abodes of reptiles and alligators. 



By the mode explained (and by that mode alone) I was sure of obtaining their por- 

 traits, and sure of bringing them away, and as sure of losing their unimportant names, 

 after having painted my pictures ; for to have demanded their names would have ex- 

 cited their suspicions and superstitions, and defeated my object. And if asked for 

 and given, no correct translation could have been obtained through our signs manual. 



My portraits and sketches of scenery in South America, have nearly all been made 

 in boats or canoes, alike on the Amazon, the Uruguay, and the Yucayali, or in the 

 open air of the Pampas or Llanos, as seen in my numerous paintings, without inter- 

 pretations, that would authorize me to hold myself responsible for the correctness of 

 any names thus procured. 



These timid and superstitious people would not give their real names to stranger^ 

 passing them in a boat, and would be very great fools if they did. 



I had too much character and type constantly before me to think much of Indian 

 names, and of those which my men picked up on the shore, correctly or incorrectly 

 given, and which I had registered, I have struck out many, and for the correctness of 

 the rest (not to mislead any one), I am unwilling to vouch, being under the conviction 

 that more or less of them are wrong. 



In my travels in North America also, in my remotest wanderings, when I have met 

 and painted Indians in the prairies, away from their villages, I have had no faith in 

 their names given, as all Indians, away from home, on war parties or hunting excur- 

 sions, refuse to give their real names to strangers whom they meet, and if they have 

 an interpreter with them, he is instructed, at the peril of his life, to keep their indi- 

 vidual identity unknown. 



In that hemisphere, also, where the Indians are more intelligent, less superstitious, 

 and more warlike, and their names more celebrated and more important, when I have 

 l)ainted them in their villages or in the trading establishments, I have generally ob- 



