ear
of corn--affection is altogether out of the question." They are,
however, very submissive to authority, and seem to entertain great
reverence for chiefs, priests, and masters. No greater indignity can be
offered an individual, than to throw opprobrium on his parents. On this
point of their character I think I have remarked, that, contrary to the
instinct of nature in other races, they entertain less regard for
children than for parents, to whose authority they have been accustomed
to submit. Their character is thus summed up by the travellers quoted:
"The few opportunities we have had of studying their characters, induce
us to believe that they are a simple, honest, inoffensive, but weak,
timid, and cowardly race. They seem to have no social tenderness, very
few of those amiable private virtues which could win our affections, and
none of those public qualities that claim respect or command admiration.
The love of country is not strong enough in their bosoms to incite them
to defend it against a despicable foe; and of the active energy, noble
sentiments, and contempt of danger which distinguishes the North
American tribes and other savages, no traces are to be found among this
slothful people. Regardless of the past, as reckless of the future, the
present alone influences their actions. In this respect, they approach
nearer to the nature of the brute creation, than perhaps any other
people on the face of the globe." Let me ask if this people do not
furnish the very material out of which slaves ought to be made, and
whether it be not an improving of their condition to make them the
slaves of civilized masters? There is a variety in the character of the
tribes. Some are brutally and savagely ferocious and bloody, whom it
would be mercy to enslave. From the travelers' account, it seems not
unlikely that the negro race is tending to extermination, being daily
encroached on and overrun by the superior Arab race. It may be, that
when they shall have been lost from their native seats, they may be
found numerous, and in no unhappy condition, on the continent to which
they have been transplanted.

The opinion which connects form and features with character and
intellectual power, is one so deeply impressed on the human mind, that
perhaps there is scarcely any man who does not almost daily act upon it,
and in some measure verify its truth. Yet in spite of this intimation of
nature, and though the anatomist and physiologist may