kept the colonization of America in mind, until she finally accomplished it. For these reasons Raleigh is rightly regarded as one of the founders of the American nation.

31. White Settlers in 1600 in what is now the United States. As late as the year 1600 there seemed small promise that this country would ever be settled and governed by the English-speaking race. Look at the situation. More than a hundred years had passed since Columbus landed; yet the only white inhabitants of the territory now embraced in the United States were a few hundred Spaniards in St. Augustine, Florida, and perhaps a few hundred more in Santa Fé,' New Mexico, the second oldest town. Over the rest of the country, embracing more than three millions of square miles, the Indians ruled supreme. France had tried to get a foothold on the Atlantic coast and had failed; England had tried and failed likewise. Spain alone succeeded. In 1600 it certainly looked as though her flag was destined to wave over the whole land from sea to sea.

32. What America was found to be. Confining ourselves to the territory now included in the United States, let us see what the explorers of that, and also of a later, age found America to be. In great measure it seemed to them Europe repeated. It had practically the same climate and the same soil. It produced, or was capable of producing, the same trees, the same fruits, the same crops, with the valuable addition of cotton, sugar, and rice. In all ways it was equally favorable to human health and life.

But this is not all. In two important respects America is superior to Europe. That continent commands the Atlantic only; this commands two oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Ships can be sent direct to Europe and Africa from our eastern coast, and direct to Asia and Australia from our western. That is the first advantage. The second is that though America repeats the

1 Santa Fé (San'tah Fay, Spanish pronunciation): see Map of United States. St. Augustine, it will be remembered, was settled by the Spaniards in 1565. The date of the settlement of Santa Fé is commonly given as 1582,

natural features of Europe in its lakes, mountains, plains, rivers, and forests, yet it repeats them on a far grander scale. Europe has nothing to compare with the Sierras and the Rockies, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi, Niagara, the Cañon1 of the Colorado, or the Western prairies. "America," says a distinguished English statesman, “has a natural base for the greatest continuous empire ever established by man."2 Such was the land spread out before the explorers. It seemed to offer to all who were disappointed with the Old World an opportunity to try what they could make of life under new and broader conditions.

3

33. The Indians; the Population then and now. One strange fact about the country was that east of the Mississippi the whole vast area was well-nigh a solitude. Where to-day fifty millions of white men live, there were then only two or three hundred thousand Indians. In going through the forests, the explorers would sometimes travel for days without meeting a human being. The truth is, that the Indians cannot be said to have occupied the land; they simply possessed it. To them it was mainly a hunting-ground to roam over or a battle-field to fight on. 34. Personal Appearance of the Indians; the "ScalpLock." - Columbus called the natives Indians; but they called themselves simply "Men," or "Real Men"; "Real Men" they certainly often proved themselves to be. The most numerous body of Indians in the East was the Algonquins; the ablest and most ferocious was the Iroquois. They were a tall, well-made race, with a color usually resembling that of old copper. Their hair was like a horse's mane, coarse, black, and straight. Their eyes

1 Cañon (Can'yon): the Grand Cañon of the Colorado River in Arizona is a gorge or chasm extending for about three hundred miles. Its rocky walls rise from 3000 to 7000 feet perpendicularly from the river.

2 Gladstone's" Kin beyond Sea."

3 West of the Mississippi the Indian population, in the southwest, was large.

4 The whole number of Indians in the United States now is estimated at about It seems to be an error to suppose that they are dying out.

250,000.

5 See Paragraph 11.

6 Iroquois (Ir-o-kwa').

were small, black, and deep set. They had high cheek-bones and a prominent nose.

The women let their hair grow long. The men cut theirs off close to the head with the exception of a ridge or lock in the middle. That was left as a point of honor. It was called the "scalp-lock." Its object was to give an adversary — if he could get it. a fair grip in fight, and also to enable him to pull his enemy's scalp off as a trophy of the battle. That lock was the Indian's flag of defiance. It waved above his head as the colors do over a fort, as if to say, "Take me if you can!"

35. How the Indians lived. The Indians were savages; but seldom degraded savages.1 They lived by hunting, fishing, and agriculture. Their farming, however, was of the rudest kind. For weapons they had bows and arrows, hatchets made of flint, and heavy clubs.

The Indian believed in a strict division of duties. He did the hunting, the fighting, the scalping; his wife did the work. She built the wigwam, or hut of bark.2 She planted and hoed the corn

1 Of the origin of the American Indians, nothing is positively known. They may have come from Asia; or if America is, as some geologists believe, older than the Old World, then the people of Asia may have originated here.

The language of the Indians appears to be unlike that of any other race. Their civilization, customs, and manners varied widely. Those of the northern part of the country were much more barbarous than those of the southwest. The four chief families east of the Mississippi were: I. The Algonquins, extending from that river to the Atlantic. II. The Iroquois, occupying the greater part of what is now the State of New York, and surrounded by Algonquins. III. The Mobilians of the southeast. IV. The Natchez of the southwest.

Throughout the Mississippi Valley thousands of remarkable earthworks are found, such as fortifications, burial mounds, enclosures for villages, and ridges of earth shaped like serpents and animals. West of the Mississippi immense buildings are found constructed of stone or sun-dried brick. These pueblos, as they are called, are often large enough to accommodate the population of an entire village. They are erected by the Indians of that region. The remains in the Mississippi Valley may have been the work partly of races which preceded the Indians and partly of the Indians themselves. They are of much interest to the antiquarian, but have no known connection with United States history.

2 The wigwams were of various kinds. Some would hold only a single family;

and tobacco. She made deerskin clothes for the family. When they moved, she carried the furniture on her back. Her house

keeping was simple. She

kindled a fire on the ground by rubbing two dry sticks rapidly together; then she roasted the meat on the coals, or

boiled it in an earthen pot.

Birch-Bark Canoe.

There was always plenty of smoke

and dirt; but no one complained. House-cleaning was unknown.

36. The Moccasin, the Snow-Shoe, the Birch-Bark Canoe. - The most ingenious work of the Indians was seen in the moccasin, the snowshoe, and the birch-bark canoe. The moccasin was a shoe made of buckskin, - durable, soft, pliant, noiseless. It was the best covering for a hunter's foot that human skill ever contrived.

The snow-shoe was a light frame of wood, covered with a network of strings of hide, and having such a broad surface that the wearer could walk on top of the snow in

pursuit of game. Without it the Indian might have starved in a severe winter, since only by its use could he run down the deer at that season.

others, as among the Iroquois tribe, were long, low tenement-houses, large enough for a dozen or more families. In some parts of the country the wigwams were made of skins stretched on poles; in others, they were built of logs.

1

The birch-bark canoe was light, strong, and easily propelled. It made the Indian master of every lake, river, and stream. Wherever there were water-ways he could travel quickly, silently, and with little effort. If he liked, he could go in his own private conveyance from the source of the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico, or from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the Falls of Niagara.

37. Indian Government; "Wampum."-Politically the Indian was free. Each tribe had a chief, but the chief had little real power. All important matters were settled by councils. The records of these councils were kept in a peculiar manner. The Indian could not write, but he could make pictures that often did as well. The treaty made by the Indians with William Penn was commemorated by a belt made of "wampum," or strings of beads. It represented an Indian and a white man clasping each other by the hand in token of friendship. That was the record of the peace established between them.

But quite independent of any picture, the arrangement of the beads and their colors had a meaning. When a council was held, a belt was made to show what had been done. Every tribe had its "wampum interpreters. By examination of a belt they could tell what action had been taken at any public meeting in the past. The beads 2 of these "wampum" strings had another use; they

1 In some parts of the country canoes were made by hollowing out logs.

2 Originally all "wampum' was made of white or colored shells strung on strings; after the coming of Europeans glass beads were often used.