296 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



I saw the glistening lances which seemed to lay across them, their blades were blaz- 

 ing in the stm till dipped in blood, and then I lost them. In other parts (and there 

 were many) the vivid flash of fire-arms was seen, their victims fell too, and over 

 their dead bodies hung suspended in air little clouds of whitened smoke from under 

 which the flying horsemen had darted forward to mingle again with, and deal death 

 to, the trampling throng. 



So strange were men mixed (both red and white) with the countless herds that 

 wheeled and eddied about that all below seemed one vast extended field of battle — 

 whole armies, in some places, seemed to blacken the earth's surface ; in other parts, 

 regiments, battalions, wings, platoons, rank and file, and Indian file, all were in mo- 

 tion, and death and destruction seemed to bo. the watch-word amongst them. In their 

 turmoil they sent up great clouds of dust, and with them came the mingled din of 

 groans and trampling hoofs, that seemed like the rumbling of a dreadful cataract or the 

 roaring of distant thunder. Alternate pity and admiration harrowed up in my bosom 

 and my brain many a hidden thought, and amongst them a few of the beautiful notes 

 that were once sung, and exactly in point, " Quadrupedante putrem sonilu quatitungnla 

 campum." Even such was the din amidst the quadrupeds of these vast plains; and from 

 the craggy cliffs of the Rocky Mountains also were seen descending into the valley 

 the myrid Tartars who had not horses to ride, but before their well-drawn bows the 

 fattest of herds were falling. Hundreds and thousands were strewn upon the plains, 

 they were flayed, and their reddened carcasses left, and about them bands of wolves 

 and dogs and buzzards were seen devouring them. Contiguous, and in sight, was the 

 distant and feeble smoke of wigwams and villages, where the skins were dragged 

 and dressed for white man's luxury; where they were all sold for whisky, and the 

 poor Indians laid drunk and were crying. I cast my eyes into the towns and cities 

 of the East, and there I beheld buffalo robes hanging at almost every door for traffic ; 

 and I saw also the curling smoke of a thousand stills, and I said, "Oh, insatiable man, 

 is thy avarice such ! wouldst thou tear the skin from the back of the last animal of this 

 noble race, and rob thy fellowman of his meat, and for it give him poison ! * * * 



Many are the rudenesses and wilds in nature's works which are destined to fall 

 before the deadly ax and desolating hands of cultivating man; and so amongst her 

 ranks of living, of beasts and human, we often find noble stamps, or beautiful colors, 

 to which our admiration clings ; and even in the overwhelming inarch of civilized 

 improvements and refinements do we love to cherish their existence, and lend our 

 efforts to preserve them in their primitive rudeness. Such of nature's works are 

 always worthy of our preservation and protection ; and the further we become sepa- 

 rated (and the face of the country) from that pristine wildness and beauty, the more 

 pleasure does the mind of enlightened man feel in recurring to those scenes, where 

 he can have them preserved for his eyes and his mind to dwell upon. 



Of such " rudenesses and wilds" nature has nowhere presented more beautiful and 

 lovely scenes than those of the vast prairies of the West ; and of man and beast, no 

 nobler specimens than those who inhabit them — the Indian and the buffalo — joint and 

 original tenants of the soil, and fugitives together from the approach of civilized 

 man. They have fled to the great plains of the West, and there, under an equal doom, 

 they have taken up their last abode, where their race will expire and their bones 

 will bleach together. 



It may be that power is right and veracity a virtue, and that these people and 

 these noble animals are righteously doomed to an issue that will not be averted. It 

 can be easily proved — we have a civilized science that can easily do it, or anything 

 else that may bo required, to cover the iniquities of civilized man in catering for his 

 unholy appetites. It can be proved that the weak and ignorant have no rights ; that 

 there can be no virtue in darkness; that God's gifts have no meaning or merit until 

 they are appropriated by civilized man— by him brought into the light and converted 

 to his uec and luxury. We have a mode of reasoning (I forget what it is called) by 

 which all this can be proved, and even more. The word and the system are entirely 



