something more is wanted. Similarly in Hindostan, though the natives knew that the British army numbered hundreds of thousands, every petty independent prince thought himself fit to take the field against the intruder, till the failure of the attempt suggested to him some respect for les gros bataillons.
The Sioux differ greatly in their habits from the Atlantic tribes of times gone by. The latter lived in wigwams or villages of more stable construction than the lodge; they cultivated the soil, never wandered far from home, made their expeditions on foot, having no horses, and rarely came into action unless they could "tree" themselves. They inflicted horrid tortures on their prisoners, as every English child has read; but, Arab-like, they respected the honor of their female captives. The Prairie tribes are untamed and untamable savages, superior only to the "Arab" hordes of great cities, who appear destined to play in the history of future ages the part of Goth and Vandal, Scythian, Bedouin, and Turk. Hitherto the rôle which these hunters have sustained in the economy of nature has been to prepare, by thinning off its wild animals, a noble portion of the world for the higher race about to succeed them. Captain Mayne Reid somewhere derides the idea of the Indian's progress toward extinction. A cloud of authorities bear witness against him. East of the Mississippi the savage has virtually died out, and few men allow him two prospective centuries of existence in the West, unless he be left, which he will not be, to himself.
"Wolves of women born," the Prairie Indians despise agriculture as the Bedouin does. Merciless freebooters, they delight in roaming; like all equestrian and uncivilized people, they are perfect horsemen, but poor fighters when dismounted, and they are nothing without their weapons. As a rule they rarely torture their prisoners, except when an old man or woman is handed over to the squaws and pappooses "pour les amuser," as a Canadian expressed it. Near and west of the Rocky Mountains, however, the Shoshonees and the Yutas (Utahs) are as cruel as their limited intellects allow them to be. Moreover, all the Prairie tribes never fail to subject women to an ordeal worse than death. The best character given of late years to the Sioux was by a traveler in 1845, who writes that "their freedom and power have imparted to their warriors some gentlemanly qualities; they are cleanly, dignified and graceful in manners, brave, proud, and independent in bearing and deed."
The qualities of the Sioux, and of the Prairie tribes generally, are little prized by those who have seen much of them. They ignore the very existence of gratitude; the benefits of years can not win their affections. After boarding and lodging with a white for any length of time, they will steal his clothes; and, after receiving any number of gifts, they will haggle for the value of the merest trifle. They are inveterate thieves and beggars;
