ight by making
almost superhuman exertions. He strode over the sands like an ostrich
of the desert, and clambered up the cliffs and over the rocks--looking,
in his hairy garments, like a shaggy polar bear. The thought of his
young and pretty bride a captive in the hands of his bitterest foes, and
doomed to a life of slavery, almost maddened him, and caused his dark
eye to flash and his broad bosom to heave with pent-up emotion, while it
spurred him on to put forth exertions that were far beyond the powers of
any member of his tribe, and could not, under less exciting
circumstances, have been performed even by himself. As to what were his
intentions should he overtake the Indians, he knew not. The agitation
of his spirits, combined with the influence of his wound, induced him to
act from impulse; and the wild tumult of his feelings prevented him from
calculating the consequences or perceiving the hopelessness of an attack
made by one man, armed only with knife and spear, against a body of
Indians who possessed the deadly gun.

Alas! for the sorrows of the poor human race. In all lands they are
much the same, whether civilised or savage--virtue and vice alternately
triumphing. Bravery, candour, heroism, in fierce contest with
treachery, cowardice, and malevolence, form the salient points of the
record among all nations, and in all ages. No puissant knight of old
ever buckled on his panoply of mail, seized his sword and lance, mounted
his charger, and sallied forth singlehanded to deliver his mistress from
enchanted castle, in the face of appalling perils, with hotter haste or
a more thorough contempt of danger than did our Esquimau giant pursue
the Indians who had captured his bride; but, like many a daring spirit
of romance, the giant failed, and that through no fault of his.

On arriving at the rocky platform beside the spring where we first
introduced him to the reader, the Esquimau sat down, and, casting his
spear on the ground, gazed around him with a look of despair. It was
not a slight matter that caused this feeling to arise. Notwithstanding
his utmost exertions, he had been unable to overtake the Indians up to
this point, and beyond this point it was useless to follow them. The
mountains here were divided into several distinct gorges, each of which
led into the interior of the country; and it was impossible to ascertain
which of these had been taken by the Indians, as the bare, rocky land
retained no m