kinds of quadrupeds unknown in Europe, and birds whose various gaudy plumage gave a brilliant effect to the pageant. The admiral's progress through the country was everywhere impeded by the multitudes thronging forth to gaze at the extraordinary spectacle, and the more extraordinary man, who, in the emphatic language of that time, which has now lost its force from its familiarity, first revealed the existence of a 'New World.' As he passed through the busy, populous city of Seville (sev'-il), every window, balcony, and housetop which could afford a glimpse of him is described to have been crowded with spectators.

22. It was the middle of April before Columbus reached Bar-ce-lo'-na. The nobility and cavaliers in attendance on the court, together with the authorities of the city, came to the gates to receive him and escort him to the royal presence. Ferdinand and Isabella were seated, with their son, Prince John, under a superb canopy of state awaiting his arrival. On his approach they rose from their seats, and, extending their hands to him to salute, caused him to be seated before them. These were unprecedented marks of condescension to a person of Columbus's rank in the haughty and ceremonious court of Castile.

23. It was indeed the proudest moment in the life of Columbus. He had fully established the truth of his long-contested theory, in the face of argument, sophistry, sneer, skepticism, and contempt. He had achieved this, not by chance, but by calculation, supported through the most adverse cir cumstances by consummate conduct. The honors paid him, which had hitherto been reserved only for rank, or fortune, or military success, purchased by the blood and tears of thousands, were in his case a homage to intellectual power successfully exerted in behalf of the noblest interests of humanity.'

991

1 Columbus made three other voyages to the new world, in the first of which, as well as in the one described above, his discoveries were confined to the islands between North and South America. In his third Voyage, made in 1498, he discovered the mainland at the mouth of the

The Indians.

The Indians.

25

24. The continent of North America was then one continued forest. There were no horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, or tame beasts of any kind; but a plenty of deer, moose, bears, elks, buffaloes, and a variety of other wild animals. There was no domestic poultry; but the woods were full of turkeys, partridges, pigeons, and other birds. Wild-geese, ducks, teal, and other water-fowl abounded in the bays, creeks, rivers, and ponds. There were no gardens, orchards, public roads, meadows, or cultivated fields; but the Indians so often burned the woods that they could advantageously plant their patches of corn. They were clothed with the skins of wild beasts. Their houses were generally made of small young trees bent and twisted together, and so curiously covered with mats or bark as to be tolerably dry and

warm.

25, The Indians made their fire in the centre of the house, which had an opening at the top for the escape of the smoke. Their food was coarse and simple, without any kind of seasoning. They had neither spice, salt, bread, butter, cheese, nor milk. Their drink was water. They fed on the flesh and entrails of moose, deer, bears, beasts, and birds of all kinds; on fish, eels, and creeping things. Nothing came amiss. In the hunting and fishing seasons they had venison, moose, fat bears, raccoons, geese, turkeys, ducks, and fish of all kinds. In the summer they had green corn, beans, squashes, and the various fruits which the country naturally produced. In the winter they subsisted on corn, beans, fish, nuts, ground-nuts, and acorns.

26. They had not set meals, but ate when they were hungry and could find anything to satisfy the cravings of nature. Sometimes, from necessity, they lived without food for several

river O-ri-no'-co, in South America. He died in Spain, in 1506, at about the age of seventy, and his body was deposited in a convent at Val-lado-lid, Spain, but was afterward removed to Seville. Twenty-three years after, it was taken across the Atlantic to Hispaniola, and, finally, two hundred and sixty years later, was carried with great ceremony to the cathedral of Havana, Cuba, its present resting-place.

days; but when well supplied they gourmandized.

Very little of their food was derived from the earth, except what it spontaneously produced. Indian corn, beans, and squashes were the chief articles for which they labored. The ground was both their seat and table. Trenchers, knives, forks, and napkins were unknown. Their best bed was a mat or a skin. They had neither chair nor a stool; but they sat upon the ground, commonly with their elbows on their knees. A few wooden and stone vessels and instruments served all the purposes of domestic life.

27. They had neither steel, iron, nor any metallic instrument. Their knife was a sharp stone, shell, or reed, which they sharpened in such a manner as to cut their hair and make their bows and arrows. They made their axes of stones. These they sharpened somewhat like common iron axes, with this difference that they were made with a neck instead of an eye, and fastened with a withe, like a blacksmith's chisel. They had mortars, stone pestles, and chisels. They dressed their corn with a clam-shell, or with a stick made flat and sharp at one end.

28. Their only weapons were bows and arrows, the tomahawk, and the wooden sword or spear. Their bow-strings were made of the sinews of deer or of Indian hemp. Their arrows were constructed of young elder or of other straight sticks and reeds. These were headed with a sharp flinty stone or with bones. The arrow was cleft at one end, and the stone or bone was put in and fastened with a small cord. The tomahawk was a stick of two or three feet in length with a knob at the end. Sometimes it was a stone hatchet, or a stick with a piece of deer's horn at one end. Their spear was a straight piece of wood sharpened and hardened in the fire or headed with bone or stone.

29. They had made no improvement in navigation beyond the construction and management of the hollow trough or canoe. They made their canoes of the chestnut, white-wood, and pine trees. As these grew straight to a great length, and

The Moud-builders.

27

were exceedingly large as well as tall, they scooped out some which would carry fifty or sixty men. The construction of these with such miserable tools as the Indians possessed was a great curiosity. When they had found a suitable tree they made a fire at the root and continued burning it and cutting it with their stone axes till it fell. They then kindled a fire at such distance from the buct as they chose, and burned it off again. By burning and working with their axes, and scraping with sharp stones and shells, they made it hollow and smooth. In the same manner they shaped the ends, and finished it so that it could cut its way with ease through the water."

30. The Indians had no kind of coin, but they had a sort of money which they called wampum. It consisted of small beads most curiously wrought out of shells, and perforated in the centre so that they might be strung on belts in chains and bracelets. "With respect to religion, the Indians believed that there was a Great Spirit or God, but they worshipped a variety of gods. They paid homage to the fire and water, thunder and lightning, and to whatever they imagined to be superior to themselves or capable of doing them an injury. They paid their principal homage to an Evil Spirit, and from fear worshipped him to keep him in good humor."

31. "Behind these Indians, who were in possession of the country when it was discovered by the Europeans, is dimly seen the shadowy form of another people who have left many remarkable evidences of their habits and customs, The moundand of a singular degree of civilization, but who, builders. many centuries ago, disappeared, either exterminated by pestilence or by some powerful and pitiless enemy, or driven from the country to seek new homes south and west of the gulf of Mexico.

32. The evidences of the presence of this ancient people are found almost everywhere upon the North American continent, except perhaps upon the Atlantic coast. They consist of mounds, sometimes of imposing size, and other earthworks.

so numerous that in Ohio alone there are, or were till quite recently, estimated to be not less than ten thousand of the mounds, and fifteen hundred inclosures of earth and stone, all evidently the work of the same people. In other parts of the country they were found in such numbers that no attempt. has been made to count them all.

MOUND NEAR WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA.1

33. There are no data by which the exact age of these singular relics of a once numerous and industrious people, living a long-sustained agricultural life, can be fixed; but it is evident from certain established facts that this must date from a very remote period. The chief seat of their power and population seems to have been in the Mississippi valley. The signs of their occupation are many along the banks of its rivers. It is very seldom that the human bones found in these mounds, except those of later and evidently intrusive

1 This, known as the Grave Creek Mound, is one of the most notable in the Ohio valley. It is seventy feet high and nine hundred in circumference. In it were found two vaults containing human skeletons. One of these skeletons was surrounded by about seven hundred shell beads. Another skeleton, besides a profusion of shell beads, had copper rings, and more than two hundred and fifty plates of mica. These facts,' says Foster, "show that the principal occupant of this mound was a royal personage."