t thrown into
prison. The government had been much weakened and the well-known
opinions and liberality of the Prince had rendered him so popular with
the Trasteverini, or northern inhabitants of the Tiber, that policy
forbade either his captivity or destruction. He was sentenced to be
banished for (I think) ten years.

During his long banishment, the Prince Seravalle wandered over various
portions of the globe, and at last found himself in Mexico. After a
residence at Vera Cruz, he travelled into the interior, to examine the
remains of the ancient cities of the Western World; and impelled by his
thirst for knowledge and love of adventure, he at last arrived on the
western coast of America, and passing through California, fell in with
the Shoshones, or Snake Indians, occupying a large territory extending
from the Pacific to nearly the feet of the Rocky Mountains. Pleased
with the manners and customs and native nobility of this tribe of
Indians, the Prince remained with them for a considerable time, and
eventually decided that he would return once more to his country, now
that his term of banishment had expired; not to resettle in an
ungrateful land, but to collect his property and return to the
Shoshones, to employ it for their benefit and advancement.

There was, perhaps, another feeling, even more powerful, which induced
the Prince Seravalle to return to the Indians with whom he had lived so
long. I refer to the charms and attraction which a wild life offers to
the man of civilisation, more particularly when he has discovered how
hollow and heartless we become under refinement.

Not one Indian who has been brought up at school, and among the
pleasures and luxuries of a great city, has ever wished to make his
dwelling among the pale faces; while, on the contrary, many thousands of
white men, from the highest to the lowest stations in civilisation, have
embraced the life of the savage, remaining with and dying among them,
although they might have accumulated wealth, and returned to their own
country.

This appears strange, but it is nevertheless true. Any intelligent
traveller, who has remained a few weeks in the wigwams of well-disposed
Indians, will acknowledge that the feeling was strong upon him even
during so short a residence. What must it then be on those who have
resided with the Indians for years?

It was shortly after the Prince's return to Italy to fulfil his
benevolent intentions, that my father