us, on first entering into our society, strongly displayed the
latter quality: when they were led into our respective houses, at once to
be astonished and awed by our superiority, their attention was directly
turned to objects with which they were acquainted. They passed without
rapture or emotion our numerous artifices and contrivances, but when they
saw a collection of weapons of war or of the skins of animals and birds,
they never failed to exclaim, and to confer with each other on the subject.
The master of that house became the object of their regard, as they
concluded he must be either a renowned warrior, or an expert hunter. Our
surgeons grew into their esteem from a like cause. In a very early stage of
intercourse, several natives were present at the amputation of a leg. When
they first penetrated the intention of the operator, they were confounded,
not believing it possible that such an operation could be performed without
loss of life, and they called aloud to him to desist; but when they saw the
torrent of blood stopped, the vessels taken up and the stump dressed,
their horror and alarm yielded to astonishment and admiration, which they
expressed by the loudest tokens. If these instances bespeak not nature and
good sense, I have yet to learn the meaning of the terms.

If it be asked why the same intelligent spirit which led them to
contemplate and applaud the success of the sportsman and the skill of the
surgeon, did not equally excite them to meditate on the labours of the
builder and the ploughman, I can only answer that what we see in its remote
cause is always more feebly felt than that which presents to our immediate
grasp both its origin and effect.

Their leading good and bad qualities I shall concisely touch upon. Of
their intrepidity no doubt can exist. Their levity, their fickleness, their
passionate extravagance of character, cannot be defended. They are indeed
sudden and quick in quarrel; but if their resentment be easily roused,
their thirst of revenge is not implacable. Their honesty, when tempted
by novelty, is not unimpeachable, but in their own society there is good
reason to believe that few breaches of it occur. It were well if similar
praise could be given to their veracity: but truth they neither prize nor
practice. When they wish to deceive they scruple not to utter the grossest
and most hardened lies.* Their attachment and gratitude to those among us
whom they have professed to love hav