122 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



peacefully with tliem, and let them pass. At length the much har- 

 assed and weakened, but still undaunted, band reached a position 

 within thii'ty-five miles of the British boundary. One day's march 

 would have placed them in safety, when a powerful force from Fort 

 Keogh — -cavalry, inf^intry, and artillery — suddenly confronted them 

 and barred the way. Surrounded on all sides, the Nez-percds fortified 

 themselves and stood so resolutely at bay that their pursuers— fortu- 

 nately led by an officer noted for his benevolent disposition, and 

 detesting the task cast upon him — were glad to give them almost their 

 own terms of surrender. " Thus," says General Sherman, in his 

 official report as Commander-in-Chief of the American army, " has 

 terminated one of the most extraordinary Indian wars of which there 

 is any record. The Indians throughout displayed a courage and skill 

 that elicited universal praise ; they abstained from scalping, let cap- 

 tive women go free, did not commit indiscriminate murder of peaceful 

 families, which is usual, and fought with almost scientific skill, using 

 advance and rear guards, skirmish lines, and field fortifications." To 

 this our author adds that when the captives were taken down the 

 Missoui'i River, the people along that stream, who had been used 

 to Indians all their lives, were constantly remarking, " What fine- 

 looking men ! " " How clean they ai-e ! " " How dignified they 

 appear ! " 



To sum up our argument, — if we affirm that the Aryan speech, 

 with its many excellences, could only have originated among a people 

 of singular intellectual capacity — a capacity which, as we proudly, if 

 somewhat vaingloriously, claim that they have transmitted to their 

 descendants — is it not a clearly logical conclusion, from similar 

 jiremises, that the exquisitely fi-amed and admirably expressive 

 Sahaptin tongue was composed by speakers endowed with at least 

 equal genius, which they, too, have bequeathed to their posterity ? 



But the Sahaptin is not the only inflected language of this superior 

 stamp in America. There are others whose excellence is attested by 

 authorities of the highest rank in philological science. Among these' 

 are the languages belonging to the great Algonkin family. This wide- 

 spread family might well be styled the Aryan stock of America — 

 stretching as it does, or did, from Nova Scotia to the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, and from Hudson Bay almost to the Mexican Gulf, and com- 

 prising moi-e than twenty languages as different from, one another as. 



