[41] “They have probably as much curiosity [as the white], but a more stern perseverance in repressing it.”—Flint's Geography, vol. i., p. 124.
[42] “The enemy is assailed with treachery, and, if conquered, treated with revolting cruelty.” * * “A fiendish ferocity assumes full sway.”—Conquest of Canada, vol. i., p. 206.
[43] It is perhaps not very remarkable, however, that the women are most cruel to the aged and infirm—the young and vigorous being sometimes adopted by them, to console them for the loss of those who have fallen.—Idem, p. 210.
[44] “We consider them a treacherous people, easily swayed from their purpose, paying their court to the divinity of good fortune, and always ready to side with the strongest. We should not rely upon their feelings of to-day, as any pledge for what they will be to-morrow.”—Flint's Geography, vol. i., p. 120.
[45] “Geography of the Mississippi Valley,” vol. i., p. 121.
[46] “The Indians are immoderately fond of play.”—Warburton, vol. i., p. 218.
[47] These used cards; but they have, among themselves, numerous games of chance, older than the discovery of the continent.
[48] “The Cherokee and Mobilian families of nations are more numerous now than ever.”—Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 253. In speaking of this declamation about the extinction of the race, Mr. Flint very pertinently remarks: “One would think it had been discovered, that the population, the improvements, and the social happiness of our great political edifice, ought never to have been erected in the place of these habitations of cruelty.”—Geography, vol. i., p. 107.
[49] Idem.
[50] This is De Tocqueville's estimate.—Democracy in America, vol. ii., chap. 10.