“Mr. Catlin, combining all the qualities of the traveller, artist, and historian, merits no sparing notice. His two volumes, large octavo, and closely printed, are full of most interesting matter, and contain, besides, upwards of three hundred beautiful illustrations, engraved from the original paintings.”
“Légation des Etats-Unis, Paris, Dec. 8th, 1841.
“Dear Sir,—No man can appreciate better than myself the admirable fidelity of your drawings and book, which I have lately received. They are equally spirited and accurate; they are true to nature. Things that are, are not sacrificed, as they too often are by the painter, to things as in his judgment they should be.
“During eighteen years of my life I was superintendent of Indian affairs in the north-western territory of the United States; and during more than five I was Secretary of War, to which department belongs the general control of Indian concerns. I know the Indians thoroughly; I have spent many a month in their camps, council-houses, villages, and hunting grounds; I have fought with them and against them; and I have negotiated seventeen treaties of peace or of cession with them. I mention these circumstances to show you that I have a good right to speak confidently upon the subject of your drawings; among them I recognize many of my old acquaintances, and everywhere I am struck with the vivid representations of them and their customs, of their peculiar features and of their costumes. Unfortunately they are receding before the advancing tide of our population, and are probably destined, at no distant day, wholly to disappear; but your collection will preserve them, as far as human art can do, and will form the most perfect monument of an extinguished race that the world has ever seen.
“Lewis Cass.
“To Geo. Catlin.”
CHAPTER VI.
The Author’s wife and two children arrive in the British Queen, from New York—First appreciation of London—Sight-seeing—Author lectures in the Royal Institution—Suggests a Museum of Mankind—Great applause—Vote of thanks by members of the Royal Institution—The “Museum of History”—Author lectures in the other literary and scientific institutions of London—Author dines with the Royal Geographical Society, and with the Royal Geological Society—Mrs. Catlin’s travels in the “Far West”—Her welcome, and kind friends in London.