BOOKS.

THE GREAT DESERTS OF NORTH AMERICA.*

Tin Abbe Domenech has published, in two volumes, illustrated with fifty-eight woodcuts, three plates of ancient Indian music, and a map of the country described, the result of his personal Observations and ethnographical studies on the Indians of the Great Deserts of North America, after a seven years' residence among them. The work is full of interest ; it impresses us gene- rally with a conviction of the good faith, simple-heartedness, per- severance, industry, and comprehensiveness of observation which distinguish its excellent author. The descriptive parts, in par- ticular, are very well done ; being at once picturesque and exact; vivid enough to suggest the scenical reality and sympathetic enough to present "the mysterious reflection of the mind, which seems to appeal to us from the landscape," without any sacrifice of scientific accuracy. The Abbe has divided his work not only into chapters but into parts. We shall pass lightly over the first and second divisions, the subjects of which are "Ancient emigration" and "American origins." In these two sections there is much ethnological and cosmological speculation, evincing some reading and study, and possibly containing valuable matter. In the present state of the various branches of knowledge which relate to such disquisitions, it must be left to the professed ethnologist to decide on the suc- cess or failure of our author, in his remote inquiries into the origin of the American Indians, his anthropological classification, or his theory of the influence of climate. Where we feel our- selves competent to pronounce an opinion, as in questions of pure exegesis, we profoundly disagree with the Abbe. How far cer- tain documentary prepossessions may bias his scientific conclu- sions, we leave to the determination of better instructed minds than our own.

Starting with the unity of the human race and rejecting the hypothesis of a separate creation as well as every "other extra- ordinary theory," our author regards the Indians as members of the family created by God in Eden—" the degenerate descendants of emigrants from the old world, who at successive and very re- mote periods came over to America, voluntarily or accidentally," either in groups or separately. Two main routes are indicated by which these emigrants might have passed over into America. "The great route principally traversed is that which joins Asia and America, at Behring s straits ; or else the two lines of islands the Kouriles, situated between Japan and Kamschatka, and the Aleeutines, which join Kamschatka to the Alascan peninsula in Russian America, near the 553 latitude North." Other emigrants, it is supposed by the Abbe, came from the East by the North of Europe, though Ireland, Eceland and Greenland, as others again reached Geiitral America by the Canary Islands, "availing them- aelveF trade-winds and strong sub-marine currents." In proof of tee origin thus assigned to the Indians of America, the Abbe refers to the analogy which exists between the Mexican calendar and the calendars of nations of Tartar derivation, showing, as Humboldt observes, that the inhabitants of these two continents drew their astrological notions from a common source. In Mexico too, as in Eastern Asia, such names as tiger, dog, monkey, or rabbit, were given to the days of the week. Another argument in favour of this identification is derived from affinity of idioms, which although composed of dissimilar words, agree closely in grammatical construction. The third part of the work before us bears as its characteristic heading, the word "Descriptions." The central portion of North America is divided into distinct zones. "The one to the east is covered with thick forests, which extend almost without interrup- tion from the Atlantic to the valley of the Mississipi, and even to a distance of 300 miles beyond that river." At Texas the forests are replaced by prairies which "ascend from south to north to the hyperborean regions and are afterwards lost to the west in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. It is this zone, divided in all its length by the range of the Rocky Mountains and of the Sierra Nevada, that is the least known, although it is the most curious and interesting of the New World ; " and it is of this zone that the Abbe Domenech proposes to himself especially to treat. The deserts of the South follow the prairies of Texas. "The prairies ire cut up by countless rivers and streams, which are skirted by i double border of forests composed of cedars, magnolias, syca- mores, plane-trees, ebony," tulip-trees, maples, pines, acacias, oaks, &c. Some of them are sixty miles in length. They present the appearance of sin ocean of dark stunted herbs, where nothing marks a beginnin„e. or an end. The traveller journeys through these wildernesses for days together, "without hearing the warble of the birds, without seeing anything but the yellow grass, towers faded by the heat, deer lying carelessly about, and prick- ing up their ears as they look at you with astonishment; time- blanched bones, some rare tumuli, or sepulchral mounds, gilded by the last rays of the setting sun, or drowned. in the bluish va- pours of the atmosphere. To the West of Texas are to be seen two plains, stretching from East to West, whose undulations re- semble "the little waves caused by the ebb and flow of the tide.” Here infrequent mesquites with their gnarled branches display their dark green foliage ; or a capriciously distributed cluster of acacias "appear like motionless shadows bending over a petrified sea covered with alga." These regions, moreover, are fertile, • Seren Years' _Residence in the Great Desert., of North America. By the Abbd Em. Domenech, Apostolical Missionary, &c. In two volumes. Published by Longman and Co.

abounding in grass and flowers. Partridge q_uail, wild turkeys, and deer are found here. Unfortunately rattlesnakes, scorpions, and tarantulas, equally affect these green domains. They are seen in the plains, in the woods, on the borders of the rivers, in fact everywhere, and were it not for the slow movements of these and other venomous reptiles and insects, "the history of the deserts would be but a long martyrology." The greatest annoy- ance however, is the tick, or prairie bug, who creeps, clings, nestles, sucks wherever he can, and irritates the traveller inces- santly. The greatest privation is the want of water. Animals perish with an exhausting thirst ; withered skeletons of white people are seen near springs, to which they had not sense or strength to crawl. Here, too, the arrow and lance of the Comanches, exasperated by American ill treatment, destroy their many victims.

Passing over the deserts of the South East, the South West, and the West, and omittinr•all notice of California, with the historical, legendary, or descriptive comments of our author, we arrive at the borders of the Great Salt Lake, with its seventy miles of length, its elevation 4200 feet above the level of the sea, and its seven islands. The waters of this Lake leave traces of salt all over the soil. No fish can live in them ; and fresh meat steeped in them for twelve hours requires no other conserving preparation. To the East of the Lake lies an extensive plain, covered in part with artemis, mire, or salt. From its centre rise numerous mountains like islands planted in a sea of saltpetre. "Beyond. this point commences the desert of the Seventy Miles."

"The malediction of Heaven seems to weigh heavily on the solitude, which reminds one of the desolate shores of the Dead Sea, where Sodom and Gomorrha were destroyed. To the East there appeared inaccessible moun- tain ridges, and blood-coloured rocks dotted with green spots : on their flanks undulated dark clouds : whilst thick vapours moved above their sum- mits, like the smoke of a volcano upon an azure sky. Light mists produced at twilight, hovered amid its vague glimmer, and danced over the waters, looking like crape tinged with the most lively pink ; this crape spread over the horizon a transparent veil that shed upon nature the charm of a faint light, which, as it gradually rose to the summit of the mountains, assumed a more sombre hue, an indescribable, dismal appearance that filled the soul with sadness and the eyes with tears. This immense valley, of a lugubrious and funereal aspect, recalls to mind that of Jehoshophat, the valley of graves. An imposing silence continually reigns around this described lake, which might well be called the Lake of Death.' On its sterile strand, on the porphyry of its banks, you never hear the patter of the rain, the whistle of the wind, the leaves falling from the trees, the chirp of the birds, nor the swallow's rapid flight through the air. All is calm and gloomy like the vaults of a gigantic sepulchre. One would say that God, in a day of wrath, had cursed these solitudes on account of the crimes of their inhabitants, whose ashes lay mouldering for many centuries beneath the sands of the deserts."

Closely following this striking seenical delineation, we find a very interesting sketch of the Mormon settlement. " The situa- tion of the Mormon capital is admirable." Two years after its foundation it was already four miles in length by three in width. The streets, which, with a breadth of forty-three yards, have on each side a footpath of six or seven yards wide, run at right angles to each ether. The houses are required, by municipal re- gulation, to be erected at a distance of seven yards from the foot- paths. The intermediate space is planted with trees and shrubs. Before each door irrigating pipes are passed, which furnish abun- dant supplies of water for the gardens. To the East and. North the city is commanded. by a chain of mountains, whose graceful peaks are lost in the clouds, and which descend to the plains by gradations forming beautiful verdant terraces. To the West the town is watered by the Jordan, while innumerable torrents sup- ply tiny brooks and. streams that run along the thoroughfares and water the gardens. The foundation of several other towns, Pay- san, Monte, the City of the Cedar, is also laid in the Great Basin. "Before many years have elapsed," says the Abbe Do- menech, " all these establishments will [we believe] be joined. by an uninterrupted. chain of farms and villages, and from the Pue- blo de los Angeles or of San Diego to the Great Salt Lake, the route will pass between rows of houses and cultivated fields." Our author testifies to the rapid progress of the Mormons in the useful arts and industries—a progress which will make them ere long commercially independent of the United States for all fabrics and manufactures whatever. He pronounces them too powerful to fear the few soldiers that could. be sent to intimidate them, and predicts that for a long time to come they will remain the sove- reign masters of the territory of the Utah. The Mormon Church which in 1830 had only six members now numbers upwards of 100,000.

From the descriptive portion of this work, we come to the archwological section. For "from Florida to Canada, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, the American soil is strewn with gigantic ruins of temples, tumuli, entrenched camps, fortifications, towers, villages, circuses, towers of observation, gardens, wells, artificial meadows, and high roads of the most remote antiquity." Pipes, sculptures, statuettes, mummies, serve to illustrate an ex- tinct civilization. Who were the architects of the American monuments described by our traveller ? Humboldt conjectures them to be the work of Scandinavians from the eleventh until the fourteenth century ; but Domenech offers an ingenious proof of the untenableness of this supposition.

This proof is supplied by the trees which have grown on the ruins of these monuments, and the number of whose concentric circles corresponding to the numbers of the years during which they have existed, warrants us in concluding that these relics of the past were abandoned 900 or 1000 years ago—consequently at a period anterior to that assigned by Humboldt for their erection. The Abbe's own opinion is, that they were constructed by a nu-

!merous and civilized people ; and as be does "not think it pos- sible that such a people can have existed during so many centuries and passed quite unperceived from the earth, 'he' firmly believes in its decline and fusion with the actual race of Red Indians, who wander and vegetate in the solitudes of the wilderness, as an example to the world of the vicissitudes of nations and empires." These poor Red Indians afford an emphatic illustration of the "natural: selection" or " vee victis" theory of existence. "Two centuries ago, the Indians of North America numbered about 16,000,000 or 17,000,000 souls, without including those of Mexico; since that period, civilization has deprived them of two- thirds of their territory. Iron weapons, fire, brandy, small-pox, and cholera, have also made upwards of 14,000,000 of victims among them." The present Indian population, including the Indians in the British possessions, is estimated by our author and other writers at 2,000,000. In the Annals of the Propaganda of the Faith it is stated to be 4,346,803; while Mr. Schoolcraft, again, after various corrections and additions of his statistics, gives us as his definitive total, no more than 423,229.

The second volume of the Seven Years' Residence treats of the historical traditions and peculiarities of the Indians, sketching the characteristics of their different tribes, or of some of them at least, for they seem inexhaustibly numerous ; describes also their individual qualities ; presents us with a sketch of their languages and literature ; pourtrays their manners and customs ; depicts their holiday occupations and industrial pursuits and discusses their religious creeds and ceremonials. Uncorrupted by the vices of civilization, the real Indians are still simple and right-hearted, hospitable, truthful, slaves to their words, courageous but im- placable in their vengeance, sincerely religious but profoundly superstitious. The degenerate Indians, however, have become false, suspicions, avaricious, hard-hearted, and cruel. As an in- stance of Indian cunning we may cite the following story :— "An Indian, after hearing a Protestant preach on the text, Make vows to heaven and keep them, went up to the preacher after the sermon and said, 'I have made a vow to go to your house.' A little surprised, the minister answered, 'Well, keep your vow.' On arriving at the house the Indian said, 'I have made a vow to sup with you.' This was also granted, but when, after supper, the Indian added, 'I have made a vow to sleep in your house,' fearing there would be no end to the vows of his attentive auditor, the preacher replied, 'It is easy so to do, but I have made a yaw that you shall leave tomorrow morning,' to which the Indian consented without hesitation." According to M. Domenech, all the suagesirrfrgew World believe in the existeneedef-44npresaw-Being, whom they call the Good or Crreeirf3p1rit, and adore as the Creator. They believe also in the existence of an Evil Spirit, the antagonist of the Good Spirit, not, however, as an independent principle but as a subor- dinate power, like the Devil of the Christian theology. It is im- possible, we suppose, at present to settle the question of Indian monotheism. In a work reviewed in a previous number of the Spectator,* the German traveller J. G. Kohl, while admitting that the Ojibbeways mention one Great Spirit in their festivals, intimates that he does not fare much better than the " Optimus Maximus" of the Romans. It is not at all clear to us, that the Indian creed can be regarded, as really or originally monotheistic. In some instances it may approximate to the monotheistic type, but this approximation may be attributed to European influences. Gehza Manitoo is certainly not the only Manitoo, though he is the supreme Manitoo. Of the immutability or divine perfection of the judgments of the Highest Being, our author tells us that the Indians generally have no conception. The Sioux of Missouri affirm that "before the creation of man the Great Spirit was in the habit of killing buffaloes and eating them on the Prairie Hills." The Comanches, who do not believe in evil spirits, attri- bute creative power to a secondary Manitoo. The theogony of the Potowatomies teaches the existence of two great spirits, a good God and a bad god, whose power is thought to be about equal, but with a balance in favour of the Benificent Deity. It does not give us an exalted idea of the power or goodness of the latter to learn that he first filled the new-created earth with beings resembling men but perverse and wicked, and then beholding their ingrati- tude plunged the whole world into an immense lake and drowned all its inhabitants. Gehza Manitoo, the Great Spirit, is usually symbolized, we are told, by a colossal bird or by the Sun, while Matchi-Manitoo is often represented under the hideous form of a serpent. The residence of the Great Spirit is variously placed in the sun, the clouds, the sky, or in hell, where he punishes the wicked who offend him. The Iroquois tribes, again, place the Creator in space; but he shares this roomy residence with Neo, the master of life; Atahocan, the master of Heaven ; Mi-chabou, the guardian of the firmament; Agreskoe the spirit of battle ; and Atahensic the queen of Heaven. When we add, that Atahocan Was himself a creator, it is difficult to believe that the Iroquois tribes are not polytheistic. The belief of the Columbia river tribes in "a beneficent and all powerful spirit by whom all things were made," comes nearer the monotheistic ideal ; but "its evi- dentisal value is impaired by their unworthy representations of a God, who often changes his shape, usually taking the form of a bird, who lives in the sun, for the most part, but frequently soars up into the etherial regions, to see what is going on in the world, and if he observes anything that displeases him, makes known his irritation by tom- pests, storms, and diseases. But, again, in addition to this superior. spirit, they also 'believe in an inferior one, who is said to live in fire, and of whom they stand in great awe. Moreover, • See Spectator, No. 1646, January 19, 1860. we are assured by the Abbe Domenech that the adoration of se- condary spirits is common among the Indians, whose vivid imagi- nations people the solitudes, forests, lakes, rivers, prairies in a word the whole of nature, with an invisible world of inferior genii, always ready to assist those brave and honest hearts that invoke them with confidence. "Of all these powers the most dreaded are the storm-spirit and the fire-spirit." Among the - Comanches the sun is-adored as the residence of the Gehza Manitoo and the vivifying principle of nature ; the moon as the Goddess of Night ; and the earth as the common mother of the human race. According to the author of Hitchi-Gami, again, the Great Spirit was 'assisted in the creation of the world by Mena- boju or Hiawatha. With these facts before us, we find it diffi- cult to persuade ourselves in the present state of inquiry, that the Indians are monotheists, as the Abbe wishes to convince us. There is another point, too, on which we must at least suspend our judgment. While Herr Kohl informs us that the notion of re- tribution scarcely enters into the Indian ideal of a future life, and that the question whether any difference will be made between good and bad is an open one, M. Domenech states positively that

good actions are believed to be punished [compensated by eternal happiness and bad actions by endless misery." But to quit these theological speculations. The chapters on Indian litera- ture contain much curious matter. Some of the songs and legends of the Red Race are really graceful and touching ; others are un- couth and barbarous enough. The final chapter of the work we have reviewed discusses the

question of Indian civilization, and the probable future of this devoted people. Our author severely condemns the perfidious mananivres employed by the American Commissaries to despoil the Indians of their territory, singling out for special reprobation the iniquitous encroachments of the Georgian States—encroach- ments solemnly rebuked by the President John Q. Adams, in his message to the Congress of the 5th of February, 1827. In the New World the policy of the Anglo-Saxon race is to destroy and dispossess its ancient population. The wandering tribes that yet preserve their independence will be treated as have been the Cherokees, the Creeks, the Seminoles, and Delawares. In addi- tion to the mortality superinduced by forced emigration, sickness, and epidemic disease, the probable and approaching extinction of all the large game menaces the Indians with a contingent de- struction. Yet, though our author predicts the disappearance of the Red race, he thinks "many years may yet pass before the last Indian has killed the last buffalo. Indeed, he contemplates not the absolute extermination of the race but the obliteration of its distinctive nationality by absorption through intermarriage with its White supplanter.

Such is, as we hive said, the action of the principle of natural selection. For nature, while she tends to a moral Ideal, works towards its realization, rather through concrete mights than ab- stract rights. If the Indians are fated to disappear, it is be-ause they have neither power nor skill to hold their own; because their mode of life which is obsolete, compels them to internecine flicts ; because they are too savage, or too ignorant to desist war, or to oppose the inroads of famine ; because "vice, liver,- and disorders cut them off by thousands," and they have neithiir the intelligence, nor the moral grace which would enable ther effectually to resist the unrighteous incursions of a material civili-

zation. Such reflections do not indeed justify Anglo-Saxon cupidity or Anglo-Saxon oppression ; but they serve to reconcile us to the grim "Yoe Victis " policy of nature, in the hope that whatever perishes, not it may be in the day but in the century, will be replaced by something higher, nobler, better.

"—for 'tis the eternallaw, That first in beauty, should be first in might."