In personal appearance the Indians were strongly marked. In stature they were nearly all below the average of Europeans. The Esquimaux are rarely five feet high, but are generally thick-set and heavy. The Algonquins are taller and lighter in build; a straight and agile race, lean and swift of foot. Eyes jet-black and sunken; hair black and straight; beard black and scant; skin copper-colored, a red dish-black, cinnamon-hued, brown; high cheek bones; forehead and skull variable in shape and proportion; hands and feet small; body lithe but not strong; expression sinister, or rarely dignified and noble :-these are the well-known features and person of the Indian. A NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN.* Though generally sedate in manners and serious in behavior, the Red men at times gave themselves up to merry-making and hilarity. The dance was universal-not the social dance of civilized nations, but the dance of ceremony, of religion, and of war. Sometimes the warriors danced alone, but frequently the women joined in the wild exercise, circling around and around, chanting the weird, monotonous songs of the tribes. Many other amusements were common, such as running, leaping, wrestling, shooting at a mark, racing in canoes along swift rivers or placid lakes, playing at ball, or engaging in intricate and exciting games, performed with small stones resembling checkers or dice. To this latter sport was not unfrequently added the intoxication of gambling, in which the warriors, under the influence of their fierce passion, would often hazard and * An authentic portrait of the celebrated Black Hawk, chief of the Sacs and Foxes. lose their entire possessions. In soberer moments, the Red men, never inclined to conversation, would sit in silence, communing each with his own thoughts or lost in a dream under the fascination of his pipe. The use of tobacco was universal and excessive; and after the introduction of intoxicating liquors by the Europeans the Indians fell into terrible drunkenness, only limited in its extent by the amount of spirits which they could procure. It is doubtful whether any other race has been so awfully degraded by drink. Such is a brief sketch of the Red man-who was rather than is. The only hope of the perpetuity of his race seems now to center in the Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks and Chickasaws of the Indian Territory. These nations, numbering in the aggregate about forty-eight thousand souls, have attained a considerable degree of civilization; and with just and liberal dealing on the part of the Government the outlook for the future is not discouraging. Most of the other Indian tribes seem to be rapidly approaching extinction. Right or wrong, such is the logic of events. Whether the Red man has been justly deprived of the ownership of the New World will remain a subject of debate; that he has been deprived, can be none. The Saxon has come. His conquering foot has trodden the vast domain from shore to shore. The weaker race has withered from his presence and sword. By the majestic rivers and in the depths of the solitary woods the feeble sons of the Bow and Arrow will be seen no more. Only their names remain on hill and stream and mountain. The Red man sinks and fails. His eyes are to the West. To the prairies and forests, the hunting-grounds of his ancestors, he says farewell. He is gone! The cypress and the hemlock sing his requiem. PART II. VOYAGE AND DISCOVERY. A. D. 986-1607. CHAPTER II. THE ICELANDERS AND NORWEGIANS IN AMERICA, HE western continent was first seen by white men in A. D. 986. THE A Norse navigator by the name of HERJULFSON, sailing from Iceland to Greenland, was caught in a storm and driven westward to Newfoundland or Labrador. Two or three times the shores were seen, but no landing was made or attempted. The coast was low, abounding in forests, and so different from the well-known cliffs of Greenland as to make it certain that another shore hitherto unknown was in sight. On reaching Greenland, Herjulfson and his companions told wonderful stories of the new lands seen in the west. Fourteen years later, the actual discovery of America was made by LIEF ERICKSON. This noted Icelandic captain, resolving to know the truth about the country which Herjulfson had seen, sailed westward from Greenland, and in the spring of the year 1001 reached Labrador. Impelled by a spirit of adventure, he landed with his companions, and made explorations for a considerable distance along the coast. The country was milder and more attractive than his own, and he was in no haste to return. Southward he went as far as Massachusetts, where the daring company of Norsemen remained for more than a year. Rhode Island was also visited; and it is alleged that the hardy adventurers found their way into New York harbor. What has once been done, whether by accident or design, may easily be done again. In the years that followed Lief Erickson's discovery, other companies of Norsemen came to the shores of America. THORWALD, Lief's brother, made a voyage to Maine and Massachusetts in 1002, and is said to have died at Fall River in the latter state. Then another brother, THORSTEIN by name, arrived with a band of followers in 1005; and in the year 1007, THORFINN KARLSEFNE, the most distinguished mariner of his day, came with a crew of a hundred and fifty men, and made explorations along the coast of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and per NORSE EXPLORATIONS. haps as far south as the capes of Virginia. Other companies of Icelanders and Norwegians visited the countries farther north, and planted colonies in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Little, however, was known or imagined by these rude sailors of the extent of the country which they had discovered. They supposed that it was only a portion of Western Greenland, which, bending to the north around an arm of the ocean, had reappeared in the west. The settlements which Commerce was an ima few wretched savages were made, were feeble and soon broken up. possibility in a country where there were only with no disposition to buy and nothing at all to sell. The spirit of adventure was soon appeased, and the restless Northmen returned to their own country. To this undefined line of coast, now vaguely known to them, the Norse sailors gave the name of VINLAND; and the old Icelandic chroniclers insist that it was a pleasant and beautiful country. As compared with their own mountainous and frozen island of the North, the coasts of New England may well have seemed delightful. The men who thus first visited the shores of the New World were a race of hardy adventurers, as lawless and restless as any that ever sailed the deep. Their mariners and soldiers penetrated every clime. The better parts of France and England fell under their dominion. All the monarchs of the latter country after William the Conqueror himself the grandson of a sea-king-are descendants of the Norsemen. They were rovers of the sea; freebooters and pi- He plows with his boat the roaring deep; During the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries occasional voyages continued to be made; and it is said that as late as A. D. 1347 a Norwegian ship visited Labrador and the north-eastern parts of the United States. The Norse remains which have been found at Newport, at Garnet Point, and several other places seem to point clearly to some such events as are here described; and the Icelandic historians give a uniform and tolerably consistent account of these early exploits of their countrymen. When the word America is mentioned in the hearing of the Icelandic schoolboys, they will at once answer, with enthusiasm, "Oh, yes; Lief Erickson discovered that country in the year 1001." The A NORSE SEA-KING OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. An event is to be weighed by its consequences. From the discovery of America by the Norsemen, nothing whatever resulted. world was neither wiser nor better. Among the Icelanders themselves the place and the very name of Vinland were forgotten. never heard of such a country or such a discovery. Historians have until late years been incredulous on the subject, and the fact is as though it had never been. The curtain which had been lifted for a Europe |