Setting them aside, he has many qualifications for the heroic character as Ajax, or even Achilles.

He is as brave, daring, and ruthless; as passionate, as revengeful, as superstitious, as haughty.

He will obey his medicine man, though with fury in his heart and injurious words upon his lips; he will fight to the death for a wife, whom he will afterwards treat with the most sovereign neglect.

He understands and accepts the laws of spoil, and carries them out with the most chivalric precision; his torture of prisoners does not exceed those which formed part of the "triumphs" of old; his plan of scalping is far neater and more expeditious than that of dragging a dead enemy thrice round the camp by the heels.

He loves splendor, and gets all he can of it; and there is little essential difference, in this regard, between gold and red paint, between diamonds and wampum.