And all unprejudiced observers bear testimony, that the Indians, until broken from their old anchorage by intercourse with the whites,--who offer them, instead, a religion of which they furnish neither interpretation nor example,--were singularly virtuous, if virtue be allowed to consist in a man's acting up to his own ideas of right.
My friend, who joined me at Mackinaw, happened, on the homeward journey, to see a little Chinese girl, who had been sent over by one of the missionaries, and observed that, in features, complexion, and gesture, she was a counterpart to the little Indian girls she had just seen playing about on the lake shore.
The parentage of these tribes is still an interesting subject of speculation, though, if they be not created for this region, they have become so assimilated to it as to retain little trace of any other.

To me it seems most probable, that a peculiar race was bestowed on each region,[A] as the lion on one latitude and the white bear on another.
As man has two natures,--one, like that of the plants and animals, adapted to the uses and enjoyments of this planet, another which presages and demands a higher sphere,--he is constantly breaking bounds, in proportion as the mental gets the better of the mere instinctive existence.

As yet, he loses in harmony of being what he gains in height and extension; the civilized man is a larger mind, but a more imperfect nature, than the savage.
[Footnote A: Professor Agassiz has recently published some able scientific papers tending to enforce this theory .-- ED.] We hope there will be a national institute, containing all the remains of the Indians, all that has been preserved by official intercourse at Washington, Catlin's collection, and a picture-gallery as complete as can be made, with a collection of skulls from all parts of the country.

To this should be joined the scanty library that exists on the subject.
A little pamphlet, giving an account of the massacre at Chicago, has lately; been published, which I wish much I had seen while there, as it would have imparted an interest to spots otherwise barren.

It is written with animation, and in an excellent style, telling just what we want to hear, and no more.