neighbours, which, on account of their remote situation and ignorance of letters, they can learn only from actual observation. The expenses of these embassies have generally been borne by the government; and every facility has been rendered to the Indians, which could contribute to enlarge their knowledge and promote their comfort during their journeys through the country.

Among those, who have thus visited Washington and our principal cities within the last twenty years, have been the most renowned chiefs and warriors, and other personages of distinction, from nearly all the great tribes inhabiting the western and southern borders of the United States. Proud of their national manners, and disdaining to accommodate themselves to new and strange modes, farther than the necessity of circumstances required, they have generally appeared in their native costume, and adhered to the same habits of painting their faces and decorating their persons, which they practise at home; thus exhibiting not only the original features peculiar to their race, but all the outward characteristics of their savage state.

As early as 1824 the practice was begun, of taking portraits of the principal Indians, who came to the seat of government, and of depositing them with the War Department. The project was approved and aided by the Executive, and, under the active management of Colonel McKenney, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the number rapidly increased, till a very interesting gallery was formed. They were chiefly painted by Mr. King, an artist of high repute in this branch of his profession, who, by his long residence in Washington, and frequent opportunities of studying the subjects of his pencil, has been remarkably successful in transferring to his canvas the strong lineaments of the Indian

countenance.

Having this rare and curious collection before him, Colonel McKenney conceived the plan of making it more valuable to the world by publishing a series of engraved portraits, exactly copied and colored from these paintings, and accompanied by biographical sketches and historical facts. This enterprise, the first of the kind that has been undertaken in this country, and indeed in any country on so comprehensive a scale, and with such a completeness of design, he has carried forward with a perseverance and success, that justly de

mand the admiration and praise of every one, who knows the difficulty of such a task, and properly estimates its importance. The North American Indians are a strongly marked race of men, constituting a distinct class, and maintaining their identity as such, and their peculiarities in every vicissitude of existence, which neither circumstances nor time have conquered. Wasted by wars, consumed by want, driven by the iron arm of civilization from his native soil, and the places endeared to him by hallowed associations, the Indian is the same that he was when the white man first invaded his forests; unchanged and unchangeable in his nature, his habits, his physical constitution, and distinctive traits of intellect. If he has yielded too easily to the vices of his unwelcome neighbours, yet even these have not subdued his indomitable spirit, nor weakened his sense of dignity as a man, nor worn off the deep traces of his original character.

Colonel McKenney's design, therefore, of collecting and presenting to the world authentic memorials of this race, in a form to give them perpetuity, while the race itself is fast dwindling away, is as praiseworthy as it is arduous and difficult in the execution. And, fortunately, no person living is better qualified for this task, both from the opportunities he has had of personal observation and inquiry, and from the genuine enthusiasm with which he has overcome, and continues to overcome, the many obstacles that obstruct his progress. In his official capacity, besides his frequent intercourse with the chiefs and warriors, who have visited the seat of government from time to time, he has travelled much among the Indians, holding treaties at their council fires, discussing with them their political relations with the United States and with each other, and examining minutely into their social condition and manner of life; thus accumulating a rich store of facts, which he is enabled to use to the greatest advantage in illustrating this work. With each portrait is connected a biographical sketch of the individual, whom it is intended to represent, drawn from original materials, and interspersed with anecdotes and narrations, many of which

In the year 1826, Colonel McKenney made a tour to the Upper Lakes, of which he published an account, in a volume entitled, "Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes, of the Character and Customs of the Chippeway Indians, and of Incidents connected with the Treaty of Fond du Lac." A notice of this volume may be found in the North American Review, Vol. XXV. pp. 334 et seqq.

are spirited and strikingly graphic. Eight numbers, constituting the first volume, have already been published.

Some of the first numbers of the work, in addition to the biographical sketches, contain a historical account of the various tribes of Indians within the borders of the United States, and particularly of those situate to the eastward of the Mississippi River. This essay forms a rare and valuable contribution to Indian history. It describes the situation and extent of the territories, which the tribes respectively inhabit, their population, their affinities with each other, their forms of government, and their general and local customs, habits, and peculiarities. It is also valuable and curious, as affording an instructive comparison with what has been written by the early travellers, and showing how completely the Indians have preserved all their original features of character, modes of existence, and habits of thought and action.

Colonel McKenney has also an accomplished coadjutor in Judge Hall, of Cincinnati, who is associated with him in the literary part of the enterprise. Judge Hall's well known grace and liveliness of style, and his knowledge of events in the West, and of the Indian character as unfolded in the wars of recent times, besides the advantage he derives from his proximity to the scenes he describes, enable him to make contributions, which will adorn and give additional value to the work.

These biographies have an interest beyond the simple narratives. They give us general views of Indian life and Indian character, of no little importance. We see to what a point the aboriginal intellect has advanced, and what have been apparently the stern boundaries fixed by nature to its progress. The narrow circle of Indian ideas has remained essentially the same since their first intercourse with Europeans. The principle of advancement, which has been developed in the earliest periods of all nations, who have carried forward the arts of civilization, has never shown itself among the children of the American forests. There have been of course individual exceptions to this remark; but they are much fewer than we should at first sight imagine. There seems to be an inherent antipathy to the forms of civilized life among them. The progress which the Cherokees are supposed to have made recently cannot as yet be considered as a departure from the general course of Indian affairs. The

labors of missionaries, of such men as Eliot and Brainerd, - have caused a temporary change, and to a limited extent, in the aspect of Indian life. But where are now the villages they formed, the churches they gathered, the schools they opened for the red men? And what permanent consequences have followed the toils and sufferings of the thousand other devoted men, who have spent lives and fortunes in the same holy cause? They have refused to blend themselves with their conquerors, as if there had been some natural repugnance between the white man's and the red man's blood. They have rejected the habits of civilized life, though, in some individual cases, they have proved themselves capable of adopting them. It seems as if they were born to be hunters, and hunters they were determined to die. The Christian religion has made a temporary progress among some of the tribes, but time has always removed the last traces of it from the savage mind; as if the traditions of the Great Spirit, and the hunting-grounds of the departed warriors, had their origin in the natural feelings of the savage heart, and could never be replaced by a purer and sublimer faith. All other people, who have been overrun by a foreign race, have submitted to the common law of conquest, and intermingled with the conquering tribe; but the Indian has maintained his surly independence, looking upon the allurements of civilization with scorn, the religion of the whites with abhorrence, and his own inevitable disasters with a mournful, but unbending, haughti

ness.

Poets and novelists have given the rein to their imagination, in describing the poetical life, and picturesque eloquence, of the Indians. The representations they have given are utterly false. There is nothing pleasing to the imagination in the dirty and smoky cabin of the Indian chief; there is nothing romantic in his custom of sleeping away the days of leisure from the perils of war or the adventures of the chase; there is not a particle of chivalry in the contempt with which he regards his squaw, and the unmanly cruelty by which he binds upon her burdens grievous to be borne. His whole life is surrounded by the dismal accompaniments of poverty, sensuality, ignorance, and vice. In the arts, he has never learned to do more than supply his coarsest animal wants. His taste for ornaments cannot well be more despicable. He rings his nose, as farmers ring their pigs, to keep them out of mischief; he daubs his body over with hideous colors,

which give him the appearance of a devil; he puts horns upon his head, or sticks it all over with gaudy feathers; and then he is a finished specimen of the Indian fine gentleman. In his amusements, his taste is equally refined with his taste in dress. His war dances and funeral dances are mere contortions, exhibiting every form of ungraceful bodily action; and these are accompanied by a species of music consisting of a rude movement in time, and certain unmeaning howls, compared with which, the barking of wolves and the growling of bears are melody itself. His warfare is a compound of cruelty and cowardice. His point of honor is, to entrap his enemy unawares, and with no danger to himself; his glory, on returning to his native village, he places in exhibiting the greatest possible number of scalps, torn bleeding from the heads of his murdered victims. His treatment of a captive enemy, is horrible beyond description. His highest enjoyment consists in taunting him with insults and reproaches in the midst of the fiercest death-agonies, which his diabolical skill enables him to invent. His sagacity is bounded to the discovery of a trail or track; his wisdom consists in a few wise saws handed down from his ancestors, and treasured up by the old women of the village. When in council, he dresses these scanty ideas with a touch or two of forest rhetoric, and that is his eloquence, and his statesmanship. How can it be any thing more? To what circle of experience, to what treasuries of knowledge, can he resort for the enlargement of his mind and the cultivation of eloquence? What occasion has his simple life for any thing more copious in thought, and more polished in language? His religion is founded upon the simple conception of a Supreme Being, and that is always sublime; but what attributes belong to this conception of the Supreme Being, can easily be inferred from the Indian's customs and his conduct. How unworthy of a God, his notions of him are, it is unnecessary to illustrate for it is known to all. His views of another life are distinct enough, but utterly insufficient to produce any exalting tendency in his conduct and character in this. They are low, gross, sensual. They have scarcely a glimmering of the light of imagination to redeem them from the most deplorable darkness.

We have said, the circle of Indian knowledge is extremely narrow and confined, and the materials of his eloquence scanty. Still, he sometimes gives utterance to a brilliant thought, which would be applauded, coming from a cultivated