These pages describe the adventures of men whom duty or inclination has brought into contact with the Indians of the entire American continent; and, since every day sees the red race diminishing, or abandoning the customs and mode of life once characteristic of it, such adventures must necessarily relate mainly to a bygone generation.

To-day the Indians form a bare sixtieth of the American population, a falling off for which the colonist has been responsible both actively and involuntarily. The history of the red man’s relations to those who ultimately were to be his rulers is a painful one; massacres and cruelties on the one side led to reprisals of a similar nature on the other. Happily the days of persecution and revolt are now ended; some few of the natives have intermarried with whites and have adapted themselves to the conditions of modern civilisation; others have settled down to an inoffensive and gypsy-like life on reserves granted by the white governments. Meanwhile the whole race—particularly in the north—continues to diminish. It is not improbable that in the days of Cortez and Pizarro the Indians were already a dying people; and that collision with the white invaders only hastened their demise. The result of this collision is melancholy, and the author of “Westward Ho!” 8 has put it all into a nutshell. “The mind of the savage, crushed by the sight of the white man’s superior skill, and wealth, and wisdom, loses at first its self-respect, while his body, pampered with easily-obtained luxuries, instead of having to win the necessaries of life by heavy toil, loses its self-helpfulness; and with self-respect and self-help vanish all the savage virtues.”

Bishop Bompas, who spent his life among the Indians of the far north, says, “the whole of the Tenni race seem to be of a sickly habit, and are dwindling in numbers. They are not much addicted to ardent spirits, nor are these now supplied to them, but they have an inveterate propensity to gamble. Though almost wholly free from crimes of violence, and not much inclined to thieve, yet heathen habits still cling to them, and they exhibit the usual Indian deficiency in a want of stability and firmness of character.... In sickness the Indians are very pitiful. They soon lose heart, and seem to die more fro despondency than disease. The constant removals are trying to the weak and infirm, and in times of distress those who cannot follow the band are left behind to perish.... The old women employ themselves in twisting grass or roots or sinew into twine for sewing or fishing-nets. The men and boys are often busied in shaping bows, arrows, snowshoes, and sledges.... Their capacity for civilisation is very limited; none become business men.”