o "gild refined gold or paint the lily."

Somehow, now that it is there, the quotation does not seem to fit--but no
matter, let it stay, anyhow. I think it is a graceful and attractive
thing, and therefore have tried time and time again to work it in where
it would fit, but could not succeed. These efforts have kept my mind
distracted and ill at ease, and made my narrative seem broken and
disjointed, in places. Under these circumstances it seems to me best to
leave it in, as above, since this will afford at least a temporary
respite from the wear and tear of trying to "lead up" to this really apt
and beautiful quotation.

CHAPTER XIX.

On the morning of the sixteenth day out from St. Joseph we arrived at the
entrance of Rocky Canyon, two hundred and fifty miles from Salt Lake.
It was along in this wild country somewhere, and far from any habitation
of white men, except the stage stations, that we came across the
wretchedest type of mankind I have ever seen, up to this writing. I
refer to the Goshoot Indians. From what we could see and all we could
learn, they are very considerably inferior to even the despised Digger
Indians of California; inferior to all races of savages on our continent;
inferior to even the Terra del Fuegans; inferior to the Hottentots, and
actually inferior in some respects to the Kytches of Africa. Indeed, I
have been obliged to look the bulky volumes of Wood's "Uncivilized Races
of Men" clear through in order to find a savage tribe degraded enough to
take rank with the Goshoots. I find but one people fairly open to that
shameful verdict. It is the Bosjesmans (Bushmen) of South Africa. Such
of the Goshoots as we saw, along the road and hanging about the stations,
were small, lean, "scrawny" creatures; in complexion a dull black like
the ordinary American negro; their faces and hands bearing dirt which
they had been hoarding and accumulating for months, years, and even
generations, according to the age of the proprietor; a silent, sneaking,
treacherous looking race; taking note of everything, covertly, like all
the other "Noble Red Men" that we (do not) read about, and betraying no
sign in their countenances; indolent, everlastingly patient and tireless,
like all other Indians; prideless beggars--for if the beggar instinct
were left out of an Indian he would not "go," any more than a clock
without a pendulum; hungry, always hungry, and yet never refusing
anything that a hog would ea