The Georgians differ essentially from the neighbouring nations, alike in their language and in their physical and moral qualities. They are divided into four principal tribes—the Karthalinians, Mingrelians, and Shvans (or Swanians), inhabiting the southern range of the Caucasus, and the Lazes, a wild robber tribe.
As we have seen, the facts collected by Klaproth are very curious, and throw an unexpected light on the migration of ancient races. The penetration and sagacity of the traveller were marvellous, and his memory was extraordinary. The scholar of Berlin rendered signal services to the science of philology. It is to be regretted that his qualities as a man, his principles, and his temper, were not on a level with his knowledge and acumen as a professor.
We must now leave the Old World for the New, and give an account of the explorations of the young republic of the United States. So soon as the Federal Government was free from the anxieties of war, and its position was alike established and recognized, public attention was directed to the "fur country," which had in turn attracted the English, the Spanish, and the French. Nootka Sound and the neighbouring coasts, discovered by the great Cook and the talented Quadra, Vancouver, and Marchand, were American. Moreover, the Monroe doctrine, destined later to excite so much discussion, already existed in embryo in the minds of the statesmen of the day.
In accordance with an Act of Congress, Captain Merryweather Lewis and Lieutenant William Clarke, were commissioned to trace the Missouri, from its junction with the Mississippi to its source, and to cross the Rocky Mountains by the easiest and shortest route, thus opening up communication between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. The officers were also to trade with any Indian tribes they might meet.
The expedition was composed of regular troops and volunteers, numbering altogether, including the leaders, forty-three men; one boat and two canoes completed the equipment.
On the 14th May, 1804, the Americans left Wood River, which flows into the Mississippi, and embarked on the Missouri. From what Cass had said in his journal, the explorers expected to have to contend with natural dangers of a very formidable description, and also to fight their way amongst natives of gigantic stature, whose hostility to the white man was invincible.
During the first days of this long canoe voyage, only to be compared to those of Orellana and Condamine on the Amazon, the Americans were fortunate enough to meet with some Sioux Indians, an old Frenchman, a Canadian coureur des bois, or trapper, who spoke the languages of most of the Missouri tribes, and consented to accompany the expedition as interpreter.
They passed the mouths of the Osage, Kansas, Platte or Nebraska, and White River, all tributaries of the Missouri, successively, and met various parties of Osage and Sioux, or Maha Indians, who all appeared to be in a state of utter degradation. One tribe of Sioux had suffered so much from smallpox, that the male survivors, in a fit of rage and misery, had killed the women and children spared by the terrible malady, and fled from the infected neighbourhood.
A little farther north dwelt the Ricaris, or Recs, at first supposed to be the cleanest, most polite, and most industrious of the tribes the expedition met with; but a few thefts soon modified that favourable judgment. It is curious that these people do not depend entirely on hunting, but cultivate corn, peas, and tobacco.
This is not, however, the case with the Mandans, who are a more robust race. A custom obtains among them, also characteristic of Polynesia—they do not bury their dead, but expose them on a scaffold.