THE AMERICAN FAMILY. 79 



the charms of youth, have no power to check his destroying spirit. His is, in 

 truth, a demoniac love of slaughter w^hich delights in the shriek of the wounded 

 and the groan of the dying. Revenge is his ruling passion, and it is the first 

 lesson a father inculcates in his child. To gratify it he cheerfully meets every 

 difficulty, and encounters every danger ; for to the eye of the Indian no treasure 

 is equal to the scalp of an enemy. He constantly reflects on the impression which 

 his conduct will make on a friend or an enemy : he studies to surprise the one 

 and confound the other; and when neither is before him, he imagines the presence 

 of departed spirits, who watch his actions and recount them in the other world. 



Travellers differ on the question of Indian hospitality. They certainly 

 possess this trait in a limited degree, and qualify it with reserve if not with 

 reluctance. Lewis and Clark aver that after crossing and recrossing the continent 

 of America, and meeting of course with many nations of Indians, they were never 

 sensible of having received a really hospitable reception from more than one tribe, 

 and that was the Chopunnish, or Nez-perces.* It should be recollected, however, 

 that they found some of these nations in want of food; while in other instances the 

 proverbial rapacity of the white man, and a suspicion of the motives of Captain 

 Lewis's party, shut out the kindlier feelings which, for the most part, characterise 

 the unsophisticated Indian. 



Covetousness forms but a minor element in the character of the Indian : we 

 have observed that he is singularly content with the supply of present need, and 

 that his mind is seldom harassed with the idea of future want. He craves not 

 the house nor the land of his neighbor, and shows an entire apathy to those 

 possessions which are most prized in civilised communities. Hence it is that the 

 tumuli of Mexico and Peru, though often immensely rich in the precious metals, 

 were never disturbed by the native inhabitants. It remained for strangers to 

 commit this act of sacrilege. Much of this indifference to property, however, 

 may be ascribed to its uncertain tenure. Among most tribes their daily wants 

 are supplied by mutual exertion, and the fruits of the chase are divided among 

 the many. If a man dies, every one seizes what he wants from among the 

 property of the deceased ; and his wife and children receive nothing, and are left 

 to begin the world anew for themselves, with the certainty that whatever their 

 industry or good fortune may acquire, will be subject to the same predacious 

 violence at their death. 



It must in truth be confessed that the Indian is least to be admired at home ; 



*Exped. II,p. 27.9. 



