y in a few
localities, among the more enlightened tribes. The migration of the
latter either took place at a period before even his Asiatic father had
discovered its use, or the accidents which brought him to this
continent, were such as to preclude importing domesticated animals; and
the lapse of a few generations was sufficient to obliterate even the
recollection of such knowledge. "And," says Prescott,[6] "he might well
doubt, whether the wild, uncouth monsters, whom he occasionally saw
bounding with such fury over the distant plains, were capable of
domestication, like the meek animals which he had left grazing in the
green pastures of Asia." To this leading distinction--the adoption and
neglect of pastoral habits--may be referred most of the diversities
among races, unquestionably of one stock.

Reasoning from the effects upon human character, produced by the face of
different countries, we might expect to find, in the Indian, among other
things, a strong tendency toward poetical thought, embodied, not in the
mode of expression usually denominated poetry, but in the style of his
addresses, the peculiarities of his theories, or the construction of his
mythology, language, and laws. This expectation is totally disappointed;
but when we examine the _degree_ and _character_ of his advancement,
and recollect a few of the circumstances, among which the poetry looked
for would be obliged to grow, our disappointment loses its element of
surprise. The contemplation of Nature in her primitive, terrible, and
beautiful forms--the habit of meditation, almost the necessary
consequence of solitude--the strange, wild enchantment of an adventurous
life--have failed to develop in the Indian, any but selfish and sensual
ideas. Written poetry was, of course, not to be expected, even from the
indigenous civilization of Mexico and Peru; yet we might, with some
ground for hope, seek occasional traces of poetical thought and feeling.
We look in vain for any such thing.

"Extremes meet," says one of the wisest of adages; and the saying was
never more singularly and profoundly vindicated, than in its application
to civilization and barbarism. The savage rejects all that does not
directly gratify his selfish wants--the highly-civilized man is, in like
manner, governed by the principle of _utility_; and, by both, the merely
fanciful and imaginative is undervalued. Thus, as Mr. Macaulay[7]
ingeniously says, "A great poem, in a highly-polish