ing
with us. For although, at the time, it added to the pain naturally felt
at leaving a place which had so long been our home; yet the sincere
affection they evinced towards us and our children was most gratifying.
They wished us to remember them, when far away, with kindness. The
farewell of my friend Checkered Cloud can never be forgotten. She was my
constant visitor for years; and, although a poor and despised Sioux
woman, I learned to look upon her with respect and regard. Nor does my
interest in her and her nation cease, because, in the chances of life,
we may never meet again. It will still be my endeavor to depict all the
customs, feasts and ceremonies of the Sioux, before it be too late. The
account of them may be interesting, when the people who so long believed
in them will be no more.

We can see they are passing away, but who can decide the interesting
question of their origin? They told me that their nation had always
lived in the valley of the Mississippi--that their wise men had asserted
this for ages past. Some who have lived among them, think they crossed
over from Persia in ships--and that they once possessed the knowledge of
building large vessels, though they have now entirely lost it. This idea
bears too little probability to command any confidence. The most general
opinion is the often told one, that they are a remnant of God's ancient
and chosen people. Be this as it may, they are "as the setting sun, or
as the autumn leaves trampled upon by powerful riders."

They are receding rapidly, and with feeble resistance, before the giant
strides of civilization. The hunting grounds of a few savages will soon
become the haunts of densely peopled, civilized settlements. We should
be better reconciled to this manifest destiny of the aborigines, if the
inroads of civilization were worthy of it; if the last years of these,
in some respects, noble people, were lit up with the hope-inspiring rays
of Christianity. We are not to judge the Heathen; yet universal evidence
gives the melancholy fact, that the light of nature does not lead the
soul to God: and without judging of their destiny, we are bound to
enlighten their minds. We know the great Being of whom they are
ignorant; and well will it be for them and for us, in a day that awaits
us all, if yet, though late, sadly late--yet not too late, we so give
countenance and aid to the missionary, that the light of revealed truth
may cheer the remaining period of