THE AMERICAN FAMILY. 75 



steps; and that they could even detect the nation to which their enemy belonged,* 

 " I observed," says Dobrizhoflfer, " that almost all the Abipones (of Paraguay) had 

 black but rather small eyes ; yet they see more acutely v^ith them than we do 

 with our large ones, being able clearly to distinguish such minute and distant 

 objects as would escape the eye of the most quicksighted European."t The 

 singular absence of physical deformity has been noticed by all travellers. Such 

 defects as arise in childhood are, for obvious reasons, less likely to happen in savage 

 than in civilised life. But on the other hand, the various congenital defects 

 probably occur in an equal ratio in both conditions ; but it is well known that the 

 Indians destroy such of their children as labor under these misfortunes, on the 

 plea that they would be helpless, and of course dependent members of the 

 community. This kind of infanticide is an almost universal usage among the 

 barbarous tribes, who attribute physical deformity to the workings of an evil 

 spirit, and children of delicate and unpromising constitutions often suffer the same 

 fate. 



How idle is that theory which attributes to these people less hardiness of 

 constitution than belongs to the European ! What, in truth, can exceed their 

 endurance of fatigue, of hunger, of thirst and of cold ? By day and by night, in 

 summer and winter, over mountains, and through rivers and forests, they pursue 

 their determined course, whether the object be revenge on an enemy, or food for 

 their families at home. It has been assumed in evidence of their weakness that 

 they sunk under the labor of the mines much sooner than either Europeans or 

 Negroes : but it must be borne in mind that the Indian is incapable of servitude, 

 and that his spirit sunk at once in captivity, and with it his physical energy ; 

 w^hile, on the other hand, the more pliant Negro, yielding to his fate, and accom- 

 modating himself to his condition, bore his heavy burthen with comparative ease. 

 Thus it was that a moral influence destroyed thousands of Indians in Hispaniola, 

 until the race of islanders became extinct, while their fellow laborers lived and 

 multiplied in defiance of oppression. 



Dr. Robertson has been at some pains to prove the physical inferiority of the 

 American Indians; and yet, in a note, he quotes from Godin ample evidence 

 that the seeming weakness of these people is not a natural defect, but the mere 

 result of an inactive life. "The Indians in warm climates," says Godin, "such as 

 those on the coasts of the South Sea, on the River of Amazons, and the river 



* Selden, Archseolog. Amer. I, p. 426. t Hist, of the Abipones, II, p. 13. 



