erves for pasture to a thousand
herds of animals. Here are seen elks (a kind of deer of the largest
size), and buffaloes (a species of wild ox), by thousands, and even
horses, which, having been originally brought over by the Spaniards,
have escaped from their settlements and multiplied in the woods."

"Dear!" said Tommy, "that must be a fine country, indeed, where horses
run wild; why, a man might have one for nothing." "And yet," said Mr
Merton, "it would be but of little use for a person to have a wild
horse, who is not able to manage a tame one."

Tommy made no answer to his father; and the man proceeded. "But the
greatest curiosity of all this country is, in my opinion, the various
tribes or nations which inhabit it. Bred up from their infancy to a life
of equal hardiness with the wild animals, they are almost as robust in
their constitutions. These various tribes inhabit little villages,
which generally are seated upon the banks of rivers; and, though they
cultivate small portions of land around their towns, they seek the
greater part of their subsistence from the chase. In their persons they
are rather tall and slender, but admirably well-proportioned and active,
and their colour is a pale red, exactly resembling copper. Thus
accustomed to roam about the woods, and brave the inclemencies of the
weather, as well as continually exposed to the attacks of their enemies
they acquire a degree of courage and fortitude which can scarcely be
conceived. It is nothing to them to pass whole days without food; to be
whole nights upon the bare damp ground, and to swim the widest rivers in
the depth of winter. Money, indeed, and the greatest part of what we
call the conveniences of life, they are unacquainted with; nor can they
conceive that one man should serve another merely because he has a few
pieces of shining metal; they imagine that the only distinctions arise
from superior courage and bodily perfections, and therefore these alone
are able to engage their esteem. A celebrated traveller relates that, on
one occasion, while he was engaged in finishing a drawing, he was
suddenly interrupted by three of these curious-looking persons entering
the room in which he was. At first he feared that they intended to
attack him; but he soon found that he was mistaken, for, upon their
seeing the representation of themselves upon a sheet which he had taken
the day before, and which one of them took up, they immediately burst
into a lou