ers of strength and speed. Some may deem this amount of delay impossible. I confess my belief that the Anglo-Americans can, within any but the extremest limits, accomplish any thing they please—except unity.
The other necessity will be the raising of native regiments. The French in Africa have their Spahis, the Russians their Cossacks, and the English their Sepoys. The American government has often been compelled, as in the case of the Creek battalion, which did good service during the Seminole campaign, indirectly to use their wild aborigines; but the public sentiment, or rather prejudice, which fathers upon the modern Pawnee the burning and torturing tastes of the ancient Mohawk, is strongly opposed to pitting Indian against Indian in battle. Surely this is a false as well as a mistaken philanthropy. If war must be, it is better that Indian instead of white blood should be shed. And invariably the effect of enlisting savages and barbarians, subjecting them to discipline, and placing them directly under the eye of the civilized man, has been found to diminish their ferocity. The Bashi Buzuk, left to himself, roasted the unhappy Russian; in the British service he brought his prisoner alive into camp with a view to a present or promotion. When talking over the subject with the officers of the United States regular army, they have invariably concurred with me in the possibility of the scheme, provided that the public animus could be turned pro instead of con; and I have no doubt but that they will prove as leaders of Irregulars—it would be invidious to quote names—equal to the best of the Anglo-Indians, Skinner, Beatson, and Jacob. The men would receive about ten dollars per man, and each corps number 300. They would be better mounted and better armed than their wild brethren, and they might be kept, when not required for active service, in a buffalo country, their favorite quarters, and their finest field for soldierlike exercises. The main point to be avoided is the mistake committed by the British in India, that of appointing too many officers to their Sepoy corps.
We left Kearney at 9 30 A.M., following the road which runs forty miles up the valley of the Platte. It is a broad prairie, plentifully supplied with water in wells two to four feet deep; the fluid is cool and clear, but it is said not to be wholesome. Where the soil is clayey pools abound; the sandy portions are of course dry. Along the southern bank near Kearney are few elevations; on the opposite or northern side appear high and wooded bluffs. The road was rough with pitch-holes, and for the first time I remarked a peculiar gap in the ground like an East Indian sun-crack—in these latitudes you see none of the deep fissures which scar the face of mother earth in tropical lands—the effect of rain-streams and snow-water acting upon the clay. Each succeeding winter lengthens the head and deepens the sole of this deeply-gashed water-cut till it destroys the road. A curious mi-
