immoral instinct, and to ameliorate and elevate, generally, his moral
tone, I fear, will not be gainsaid. That very many, on the other hand,
practice a high morality, and set before themselves an exalted conception
of conjugal duty, and strive, with a full-hearted earnestness, to fulfil
that conception, none would-be so blind or so unjust as to deny.

There are some features in the Indian character to which unstinted praise
is due, and shall be rendered.

He is very hospitable; and (herein nobly conserving his traditions) it
is in no wise uncommon for him to resign the best of the rude comforts he
has, in the way of accommodation, to some belated one, and content himself
with the scantest of those scant comforts, impressing, at the same time,
with his native delicacy, the notion, that he courts, rather than shrinks
from, the almost penitential regime. Though one would naturally think,
that the scorn of material comforts, suggested here, and which many others
of his acts evince, would scarcely breed indolence in the Indian, yet this
is with him an almost unconquerable weakness. It is, indeed, so ingrained
within him, as to resist any attempt, on his own part, to excise it from
his economy; and as to defy extirpating or uprooting process sought to
be enforced by another. The Indian is, in truth, a supremely indolent
being, and testifying to an utter abandonment of himself to the power
of indolence over him, has often been known, when recourse solely to the
chase was permitted him for the filling of his larder, to delay his steps
to the forest, until the gnawing pangs of hunger should drive him there,
as offering him the only plan for their appeasing.

When I have said that the Indian is hospitable, I have said that he is
kind and considerate, for these are involved with the other. He has
much of native delicacy and politeness; and though, from deep-seated