is a fine appreciation here of the intimate relation of dependence and a link in destiny, at least as concerns vast numbers of the old hunting tribes and the beast which furnished them pastime and subsistence.
I have quoted these evidently overdrawn pictures of Catlin while fully aware of his deficiencies as an observer, and of his unrestrained enthusiasm in description. His richness of fancy was offset by lack of judgment. He writes more like a child than a well-balanced man.
Major J. S. Campion, in his “Life on the Frontier,”[1] shows himself a most intelligent and discriminating observer of Indian life and character, of which he had large experience. He says: —
“That there is a radical mental difference between the races
is as certain as that there are physical ones. The dog and wolf —
as we are told mankind had — may have had one pair of ancestors;
but the dog is naturally a domestic animal: so is the white
man, and so are some of the American tribes. The wolf still is,
he always will be, a savage; so has been, so always will be, the
Apache. The philanthropist sees no apparent reason why, with
proper culture, the Apache should not become a useful member
of society. I see no apparent reason why the wolf should not
become as domestic as the dog; but he won't. The reason is a
mental difference. Therein is the root of endless misunderstandings,
of mutual injustice, between the races. But if the earth was
made for man to increase and multiply thereon, and have possession,
as it requires a greater number of square miles to support one
Apache than a square mile will support of civilized families, his
extinction is justified by the inevitable logic of the fitness of things.
He cannot be developed into a civilized man: he must give place
to him. Circumstances and early training will sometimes make a
white boy into a first-rate savage; but that is no argument to prove
the converse, — only a case of reversion. Our remote ancestors
were painted savages. The cleverest collie is a descendant of dogs
that lived like wolves and foxes. Every country has, perhaps, had
its true wild men, — tribes incapable of civilization: some coun-
- ↑ London ed., 1878, p. 355 et seq.
