The celebrated Indian-painter, George Catlin, gives in his "Travels" a striking instance of the difference of the two systems. He was a large, powerful man, and counted himself a good walker in the old times. Therefore, when, in company with a number of trappers, fur-traders and Indian employes of the Fur Company, he set out for a hundred-and-fifty-mile tramp over the prairie in moccasins, he made up his mind to lead the caravan and outwalk every one.
For the first day he did so, but then found himself lame; and next day, in spite of all he could do, he fell behind inferior men and became a straggler. At the evening camp-fire, the second day, an old trapper noticed his condition and told him the secret of his non-success.
"You are walking in moccasins," said the hunter, "and you must learn to turn in your toes, as the Indians do."
Catlin took the advice, went to the head of the line next day, and had no more trouble in keeping his place.
The moral of the story is obvious. If you wish to last to the end of a match, turn your toes in.
[SCIENTIFIC RUNNING.]
If there is anything which the records of modern pedestrianism settles, it is that we have yet a good deal to learn from savages. Here we have been walking matches and running other matches for the last fifty years, only to settle down into the regular Indian lope, or dog-trot, for long distance traveling, as faster and less exhausting than the fastest walk.
This pace, introduced for the first time into civilized contests by "Blower" Brown, Hazael, Corkey and Rowell, is the very same which the Indian runners of the forest tribes have used from time immemorial. It is the same with which the Hindoo palkee-bearers swing through the jungle for mile after mile under a tropic sun without apparent distress, and the universal method adopted by savage and semi-barbarous people whenever they wish to journey fast on foot. The civilized untrained man when he tries the same pace commonly makes a mess of it. "Old Sport," alias Campana, was a good exemplar of the civilized idea of a dog-trot—that of the old volunteer fire-brigade of New York city. It was a fair trot, but it would not last forever. Campana put up both arms, working his shoulders as in a walk, and lifted his feet high before and behind, with a weary-looking, lagging step. It entailed about the same exertion as a fast walk and got over the ground no faster. Too much work was wasted in perpendicular motion.
