the Atlantic informs us that these very tribes formerly dwelt on
the west side of the Mississippi. Along the banks of the Ohio, and
throughout the central valley, there are frequently found, at this day,
tumuli raised by the hands of men. On exploring these heaps of earth to
their centre, it is usual to meet with human bones, strange instruments,
arms and utensils of all kinds, made of metal, or destined for purposes
unknown to the present race. The Indians of our time are unable to give
any information relative to the history of this unknown people. Neither
did those who lived three hundred years ago, when America was first
discovered, leave any accounts from which even an hypothesis could be
formed. Tradition--that perishable, yet ever renewed monument of the
pristine world--throws no light upon the subject. It is an undoubted
fact, however, that in this part of the globe thousands of our
fellow-beings had lived. When they came hither, what was their origin,
their destiny, their history, and how they perished, no one can tell.
How strange does it appear that nations have existed, and afterwards so
completely disappeared from the earth that the remembrance of their very
names is effaced; their languages are lost; their glory is vanished like
a sound without an echo; though perhaps there is not one which has not
left behind it some tomb in memory of its passage! The most durable
monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and
nothingness of man.

Although the vast country which we have been describing was inhabited
by many indigenous tribes, it may justly be said at the time of its
discovery by Europeans to have formed one great desert. The Indians
occupied without possessing it. It is by agricultural labor that man
appropriates the soil, and the early inhabitants of North America
lived by the produce of the chase. Their implacable prejudices, their
uncontrolled passions, their vices, and still more perhaps their savage