ting with bear's grease, is strikingly similar to the Jewish
custom. Every family has a small lodge expressly for this purpose, and
when any one of the family are ready for it, it is erected within a few
rods, and meat is carried to her, where she dwells, and cooks and eats
by herself, an object of superstitious dread to every person in the
village.

"The absence of every species of idolatry amongst the North American
Indians, affords also a striking proof of the ceremonial law, and stamps
them at once, in one respect, at all events, differing from all other
savage tribes of which we have any knowledge."

What are, I may ask, the characters of these people? On the discovery
of America by Columbus, nearly 2,000 years after the dispersion of the
Hebrew tribes, the whole continent is found peopled, not with a race of
wild men, of cannibals, of savages, but with a race of intellectual,
moral, innocent persons, divided into many hundred nations, and spread
over 8,000 miles of territory. "I swear to your majesties," said
Columbus, writing to Ferdinand and Isabella, "that there is not a better
people in the world than these; more affectionate or mild. They love
their neighbours as themselves; their language is the sweetest, the
softest and the most cheerful, for they always speak smilingly." Major
Long says, "they are the genuine sons of nature; they have all the
virtues nature can give, without the vices of civilisation. They are
artless, fearless, and live in constant exercise of moral and Christian
virtues, though they know it not."

Charlevoix gives his testimony in their behalf. "They manifest," says
he, "much stability in their engagements, patience in affliction, and
submissive acquiescence in what they apprehend the will of Providence.
In all this they display a nobleness of soul and constancy of mind, at
which _we_ rarely arrive, with all our philosophy and religion."

Du Pratz contends that they have a greater degree of prudence,
faithfulness, and generosity than those who would be offended with a
comparison with them. "No people," says he, "are more hospitable and
free."

Bartram, who lived many years in the Creek nation, says, "Joy,
contentment, love and friendship without guile or affectation, seem
inherent in them, or predominant in their vital principle, for it leaves
them but with their breath. They are," says he, "just, honest, liberal
and hospitable to strangers considerate and affectionate to t