THE PAMPAS INDIANS. 



125 



them. Besides this, the experience and history of 

 the old world instruct us that the rise and fall of 

 nations is a subject far beyond the scrutiny of man, 

 and that, for reasons which we are unable to com- 

 prehend, the wild and despised tribes of our own 

 world have often rushed from the polar towards 

 the equatorial regions, and like the atmosphere 

 from the north, have chilled and checked the luxury 

 of the south ; and therefore, however ill it may 

 suit our politics to calculate upon such an event as 

 the union of the Araucana and Pampas Indians, 

 who can venture to say that the hour may not be 

 decreed, when these men, mounted upon the de- 

 scendants of the very horses which were brought 

 over the Atlantic to oppress their forefathers, may 

 rush from the cold region to which they have been 

 driven, and with irresistible fury proclaim to the 

 guilty conscience of our civilised world, that the 

 hour of retribution has arrived ; that the sins of 

 the fathers are visited upon the children ; that the 

 descendants of Europeans are in their turn tram- 

 pled under foot, and, in agony and torture, in vain 

 are asking mercy from the naked Indians ? 



What a lesson this dreadful picture would afford ! 



