Such traits are common in Indian life. Distrust exists not among the
children of the wilderness, until generated by the conduct of white men.
These stories, and thousand others, all exemplifying the triumph of
virtue and honour over baseness and vice, are every day narrated by the
elders, in presence of the young men and children. The evening
encampment is a great school of morals, where the red-skin philosopher
embodies in his tales the sacred precepts of virtue. A traveller, could
he understand what was said, as he viewed the scene, might fancy some of
the sages of ancient Greece inculcating to their disciples those
precepts of wisdom which have transmitted their name down to us bright
and glorious, through more than twenty centuries.

I have stated that the holy men among the Indians, that is to say, the
keepers of the sacred lodges, keep the records of the great deeds
performed in the tribe; but a tribe will generally boast more of the
great virtues of one of its men than of the daring of its bravest
warriors. "A virtuous man," they say, "has the ear of the Manitou, he
can tell him the sufferings of Indian nature, and ask him to
soothe them."

Even the Mexicans, who, of all men, have had most to suffer, and suffer
daily from the Apaches[19], cannot but do them the justice they so well
deserve. The road betwixt Chihuahua and Santa Fé is almost entirely
deserted, so much are the Apaches dreaded; yet they are not hated by the
Mexicans half as much as the Texans or the Americans. The Apaches are
constantly at war with the Mexicans, it is true; but never have they
committed any of those cowardly atrocities which have disgraced every
page of Texan history. With the Apaches there are no murders in cold
blood, no abuse of the prisoners. A captive knows that he will either
suffer death or be adopted in the tribe; but he has never to fear the