e is practiced. They seize their
antagonist and snap like enraged dogs, they wield the sword and club,
the bone shatters beneath their fall and they drop the prey of unsparing
vengeance.

Too justly, as my observations teach me has Hobbes defined a state of
nature to be a state of war. In the method of waging it among these people,
one thing should not, however, escape notice. Unlike all other Indians,
they never carry on operations in the night, or seek to destroy by ambush
and surprise. Their ardent fearless character, seeks fair and open combat
only.

But enmity has its moments of pause. Then they assemble to sing and dance.
We always found their songs disagreeable from their monotony. They are
numerous, and vary both in measure and time. They have songs of war, of
hunting, of fishing, for the rise and set of the sun, for rain, for thunder
and for many other occasions. One of these songs, which may be termed
a speaking pantomime, recites the courtship between the sexes and is
accompanied with acting highly expressive. I once heard and saw Nanbaree
and Abaroo perform it. After a few preparatory motions she gently sunk on
the ground, as if in a fainting fit. Nanbaree applying his mouth to her
ear, began to whisper in it, and baring her bosom, breathed on it several
times. At length, the period of the swoon having expired, with returning
animation she gradually raised herself. She now began to relate what she
had seen in her vision, mentioning several of her countrymen by name, whom
we knew to be dead; mixed with other strange incoherent matter, equally new
and inexplicable, though all tending to one leading point--the sacrifice of
her charms to her lover.

At their dances I have often been present; but I confess myself unable to
convey in description an accurate account of them. Like their songs, they
are conceived to represent the progress of the passions and the occupations
of life. Full of seeming confusion, yet regular and systematic, their wild
gesticulations, and frantic distortions of body are calculated rather to
terrify, than delight, a spectator. These dances consist of short parts,
or acts, accompanied with frequent vociferations, and a kind of hissing,
or whizzing noise. They commonly end with a loud rapid shout, and after a
short respite are renewed. While the dance lasts, one of them (usually
a person of note and estimation) beats time with a stick on a wooden
instrument held in the left hand, accompany