st spontaneously. He detests labor, and will
sometimes sit for whole days together without uttering a word or
changing his posture. Neither the hope of reward nor the prospect of
future want can overcome this inveterate indolence.

Among the northern tribes, however, dwelling under a rigorous climate,
some efforts are employed, and some precautions taken, to procure
subsistence; but the necessary industry is even there looked upon as a
degradation: the greater part of the labor is performed by women, and
man will only stoop to those portions of the work which he considers
least ignominious. This industry, so oppressive to one half of the
community, is very partial, and directed by a limited foresight. During
one part of the year they depend upon fishing for a subsistence, during
another upon the chase, and the produce of the ground is their resource
for the third. Regardless of the warnings of experience, they neglect to
apportion provision for their wants, or can so little restrain their
appetites, that, from imprudence or extravagance, they often are exposed
to the miseries of famine like their ruder neighbors. Their sufferings
are soon forgotten, and the horrors of one year seem to teach no lesson
of providence for the next.

The Indians, for the most part, are very well acquainted with the
geography of their own country. When questioned as to the situation of
any particular place, they will trace out on the ground with a stick, if
opportunity offer, a tolerably accurate map of the locality indicated.
They will show the course of the rivers, and, by pointing toward the
sun, explain the bearings of their rude sketch. There have been recorded
some most remarkable instances of the accuracy with which they can
travel toward a strange place, even when its description had only been
received through the traditions of several generations, and they could
have possessed no personal knowledge whatever of the surrounding
country.

The religion of the natives of America can not but be regarded with an
interest far deeper than the gratification of mere curiosity. The forms
of faith, the rites, the ideas of immortality; the belief in future
reward, in future punishment; the recognition of an invisible Power,
infinitely surpassing that of the warrior or the chief; the dim
traditions of a first parent, and a general deluge--all these, among a
race so long isolated from the rest of the human family, distinct in
language, habits, fo