stic regions, found
guides and shelter amid the children of the soil, and recognized in a
form so new and of such varied, yet simple, charms, the tie of
brotherhood.

But these, even Sir William Johnston, whose life, surrounded by the
Indians in his castle on the Mohawk, is described with such vivacity by
Mrs. Grant, have been men better fitted to enjoy and adapt themselves to
this life, than to observe and record it. The very faculties that made
it so easy for them to live in the present moment, were likely to unfit
them for keeping its chronicle. Men, whose life is full and instinctive,
care little for the pen. But the father of Mrs. Schoolcraft seems to
have taken pleasure in observation and comparison, and to have imparted
the same tastes to his children. They have enough of European culture to
have a standard, by which to judge their native habits and inherited
lore.

By the premature death of Mrs. Schoolcraft was lost a mine of poesy, to
which few had access, and from which Mrs. Jameson would have known how
to coin a series of medals for the history of this ancient people. We
might have known in clear outline, as now we shall not, the growths of
religion and philosophy, under the influences of this climate and
scenery, from such suggestions as nature and the teachings of the inward
mind presented.

Now we can only gather that they had their own theory of the history of
this globe; had perceived a gap in its genesis, and tried to fill it up
by the intervention of some secondary power, with moral sympathies. They
have observed the action of fire and water upon this earth; also that
the dynasty of animals has yielded to that of man. With these animals
they have profound sympathy, and are always trying to restore to them
their lost honors. On the rattlesnake, the beaver, and the bear, they
seem to look with a mixture of sympathy and veneration, as on their
fellow settlers in these realms. There is something that appeals
powerfully to the imagination in the ceremonies they observe, even in
case of destroying one of these animals. I will say more of this
by-and-by.

The dog they cherish as having been once a spirit of high intelligence;
and now in its fallen, and imprisoned state, given to man as his
special companion. He is therefore to them a sacrifice of peculiar
worth: whether to a guardian spirit or a human friend. Yet nothing would
be a greater violation than giving the remains of a sacrificial feast to
the