constant moisture. It was rare to meet with flowers, wild fruits, or
birds beneath their shades. The fall of a tree overthrown by age,
the rushing torrent of a cataract, the lowing of the buffalo, and the
howling of the wind were the only sounds which broke the silence of
nature.

To the east of the great river, the woods almost disappeared; in their
stead were seen prairies of immense extent. Whether Nature in her
infinite variety had denied the germs of trees to these fertile plains,
or whether they had once been covered with forests, subsequently
destroyed by the hand of man, is a question which neither tradition nor
scientific research has been able to resolve.

These immense deserts were not, however, devoid of human inhabitants.
Some wandering tribes had been for ages scattered among the forest
shades or the green pastures of the prairie. From the mouth of the St.
Lawrence to the delta of the Mississippi, and from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Ocean, these savages possessed certain points of resemblance
which bore witness of their common origin; but at the same time they
differed from all other known races of men: *g they were neither white
like the Europeans, nor yellow like most of the Asiatics, nor black like
the negroes. Their skin was reddish brown, their hair long and shining,
their lips thin, and their cheekbones very prominent. The languages
spoken by the North American tribes are various as far as regarded their
words, but they were subject to the same grammatical rules. These rules
differed in several points from such as had been observed to govern the
origin of language. The idiom of the Americans seemed to be the product
of new combinations, and bespoke an effort of the understanding of which
the Indians of our days would be incapable. *h