close to it. He
gets as much warmth as the white hunter without half the labour, and does
not burn more than a fiftieth part of the wood. The Indian considers the
forest his own, and is careful in using and preserving every thing which
it affords. He never kills more than he has occasion for. The white
hunter destroys all before him, and cannot resist the opportunity of
killing game, although he neither wants the meat nor can carry the skins.
I was particularly struck with this wanton practice, which lately
occurred on White river. A hunter returning from the woods, heavily laden
with the flesh and skins of five bears, unexpectedly arrived in the midst
of a drove of buffalos, and wantonly shot down three, having no other
object than the sport of killing them. This is one of the causes
of the enmity existing between the white and red hunters of
Missouri".--_Schoolcroft's Tour in Missouri_, page 52.

[17] Does the General include among the arts of civilization, that of
systematically robbing the Indians of their farms and hunting grounds? If
so, no doubt _these arts of civilization_, must inevitably "destroy the
resources of the savage," and "doom him to weakness and decay."

[18] The Indians apply the term "Christian honesty," precisely in the
same sense that the Romans applied "_Punica fides_."

[19] There is an old Indian at present in the Missouri territory, to whom
his tribe has given the cognomen of "much-water," from the circumstance
of his having been baptized so frequently.

[20] Heriot says (page 320), "They have evinced a decided attachment to
their ancient habits, and have _gained_ less from the means that might
have smoothed the asperities of their condition, than they have _lost_ by
copying the vices of those, who exhibited to their view the arts of
civilization."

[21] This letter was dictated by Red-jacket, and interpreted by Henry
Obeal, in the presence of ten chiefs, whose names are affixed, at
Canandaigua, January 18, 1821.

[22] "The attachment which savages entertain for their mode of life
supersedes every allurement, however powerful, to change it. Many
Frenchmen have lived with them, and have imbibed such an invincible
partiality for that independent and erratic condition, that no means
could prevail on them to abandon it. On the contrary, no single instance
has yet occurred of a savage being able to reconcile himself to a state
of civilization. Infants have been taken from among the natives,