Among the Red Indians

To-day the Indians form a bare sixtieth of the American population, a falling off for which the colonist has been responsible both actively and involuntarily. The history of the red man's relations to those who ultimately were to be his rulers is a painful one; massacres and cruelties on the one side led to reprisals of a similar nature on the other. Happily the days of persecution and revolt are now ended; some few of the natives have intermarried with whites and have adapted themselves to the conditions of modern civilisation; others have settled down to an inoffensive and gypsy-like life on reserves granted by the white governments. Meanwhile the whole race--particularly in the north--continues to diminish. It is not improbable that in the days of Cortez and Pizarro the Indians were already a dying people; and that collision with the white invaders only hastened their demise. The result of this collision is melancholy, and the author of "Westward Ho!" has put it all into a nutshell. "The mind of the savage, crushed by the sight of the white man's superior skill, and wealth, and wisdom, loses at first its self-respect, while his body, pampered with easily-obtained luxuries, instead of having to win the necessaries of life by heavy toil, loses its self-helpfulness; and with self-respect and self-help vanish all the savage virtues."