464 



The Andes and the Amazons. 



the primeval men dwelling by the Great River were wiser 

 than their descendants. And now new causes are at work 

 arresting any attempt at development — in fact, dooming 

 the race to final extinction. When the white man comes 

 with his rum and disease, his law and license, the red man 

 disappears. "Every stroke of the settler's axe will be as 



Maue Indian. (From a Photograph.) 



a nail driven into the coffin of the native; for at every 

 such stroke he will be thrust farther away from the main 

 sources of his life — the pnncipal rivers and hunting- 

 grounds near them ; and, as soon as the shrill whistle of 

 the locomotive shall sound through the clearing and proud 

 steamers rock on the rivers, he will be totally undone."" 



* Keller's Amazon and Madeira. , 



