THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 773 



quarter of a century afterward, in his native land, but far from my own. The latter 

 incident happened in 1871, when Mr. Catlin, having returned to the United States 

 after a long absence, exhibited a large collection of paintings representing Indians 

 and scenes of Indian life, at the Somerville Art Gallery in New York. One morning 

 in November I visited that place in company with my late friend, Dr. Carl Hermann 

 Berendt, who, like myself, was anxious to see the paintings as well as to make the 

 acquaintance of Mr. Catlin. We remained several hours with him, asking many 

 questions relating to his experiences among the Indians, which were answered by 

 him promptly and intelligently, and in the fluent language of one who is accustomed 

 to impart information. However, I must not omit to state that Mr. Catlin was quite 

 deaf at that time, for which reason we had to write our questions on tablets kept by 

 him for that purpose. Ho was a man of medium height and good proportions, exhib- 

 iting a physique well calculated to endure the hardships encountered by him in the 

 course of his long wanderings in every portion of the American continent, from Tierra 

 del Fuego to the high North, and even extending as far as the coast of Northern Asia. 

 His face expressed the energy required for such fatiguing exertions. At that time he 

 had reached the age of seventy-live, but still presented a remarkably vigorous ap- 

 pearance, insomuch that I was rather surprised when I learned the news of his death 

 a year afterward. During our interview Mr. Catlin expressed himself little satisfied 

 with his reception in this country, and complained in particular of the high rents he 

 had to pay for the rooms in which he exhibited his paintings, and he specially men- 

 tioned in that connection a hall in Boston, the name of which has escaped my mem- 

 ory. In the large cities of Europe, he said, authorities and private associations had 

 met him half way, and had facilitated his exhibitions, in view of their instructive 

 character; in bis own country, on the other hand, he had generally experienced in- 

 difference and a tendency to obtain from him as much money as possible. 



On the day after our visit I addressed to Mr. Catlin a letter, in which I asked for 

 information concerning certain stone implements still in use among the Indians, and 

 received a fully satisfactory answer a short time afterward.* 



The paintings exhibited in 1871 in the Somerville Art Gallery were not those after 

 which the designs in Catlin's principal work, " Illustrations of the Manners and 

 Customs and Condition of the North American Indians," are made, but for the most 

 part smaller sketches, executed, I believe, on pasteboard, evidently in haste, and with- 

 out much attention to details. His original portraits of Indians and scenes of Indian 

 life, the character of which has become familiar to thousands of readers by the etch- 

 ings in the before-mentioned work, are now in the United States National Museum, 

 and form one of its most attractive features. Measured by the standard of art, these 

 paintings leave much to be desired, being often incorrect in design and deficient in 

 aesthetic conception. The portraits, however, bear the stamp of faithfulness, while 

 the scenic representations exhibit a certain " dash" peculiar to the artist. Thus the 

 shortcomings of Catlin's pictures detract in no way from their ethnologic value, 

 which, great as it is at the present time, cannot fail to grow in coming years, when 

 the facilities for obtaining likenesses of full-blooded Indians will be lessened by the 

 gradual decrease of the tribes and their intermixture with the white race and others. 



The most prominent feature characterizing Catlin's writings is his great philan- 

 throphy toward the Indian. He is, indeed, the great champion of the red man. 

 Yet, while he brings his virtues into bold relief, and covers his bad qualities with the 

 mantle of human kindness, he invariably states exactly what he witnessed, and thus 

 leaves to the reader sufficient margin for drawing his own inferences. For the. rest, 

 his descriptions, though of a somewhat rambling character, are full of animation, and 

 keep the reader's attention constantly on the alert. While Catlin was not a scientific 

 ethnologist in the modern sense, he has done more than any other man to present the 

 North American Indian in his every-day aspect, and his great popularity as an author 

 is evidenced by the many editions through which his principal work has gone. 



*A part of his reply is published in the Smithsonian Report for 1872, p. 363, and in No. 440 of Smitn- 

 Bonian publications ("Articles on Anthropological Subjects"), p. 102. 



