Grecian seas, had passed away before the foundations of Rome were laid, and has left us no records of its glory, but only the sad traditions of its decay. The fragments of the story of the Pelasgians make up the most melancholy, and not the least interesting chapter of ancient history. But the present furnishes a more mournful spectacle than the past. The fate of the Pelasgians is that which we may anticipate for the North-American Indians. What, in the former instance, is known to us by dim legends and uncertain speculations, is in the latter enacted before our eyes, and the changes are rendered palpable to our own vision. We have no longer to listen to the sombre and half-believed tale of former misfortune, achieved by supernatural influences; we see before us present misery, and the causes which are surely consummating the ruin are obvious and ever acting. We have to trust to no hearsay assurances, the proof is thrust into our hands. We are not told of the disasters of strangers, but are saddened by the visible degradation and decline of thousands within our own borders. The tragedy is acted at our door; we cannot escape the agony of the spectacle. The present hour has but one oracle for the Indians, it is wo! wo! The same evil destiny which haunted the Pelasgians is sucking the life-blood of the Indians: their whole career, too, so far as our certain information extends, has been one of progressive paralysis and extinction. The countenance of the red man, his manners, and his language, all seem to give a sad presentiment of his fate. The deep gloom which is impressed upon his noble but impassive features,― the quiet dignity of his address, manifesting the conscious pride of adversity, and the soft, subdued, but thrilling tones of his eloquence, combine to mark a race upon whom the Angel of Death has set his seal. Even his religion is breathed forth in the deep but haughty accents of despair: it is to Areskoni, the god of war and destruction, the evil spirit of his simple mythology, to whom his orisons are principally directed. The brightest prospect for the Brave is death; the only termination for the race is an early and a silent grave. Such, however, are merely the thick but pregnant fancies of the hour, the reality is sterner still. Like the old Pelasgian race, the Indian stretched his dominion over a vast portion of a great continent: like the Pelasgian, he has been exposed to all misfortunes, and has withered and waned away under every affliction which could befall him. The Euro

pean conqueror came among the myriads of the Indian tribes, he made slaves of their thousands. All perished. The European settler occupied their lands; the stream, that was thus dammed up, flooded its banks, and spread desolation where had been beauty and verdure before. The Pu ritan and the Cavalier, in the north and in the south, attacked them with the sword; the Quaker, in an intermediate region, by gifts and treaties, attempted the accomplishment of his objects, but peace was scarcely less pernicious than war. They were thus driven from hunting-ground to hunt ing-ground, but there was no resting place for them. Wherever the march of the white man followed them, the wings of Destruction waved over their retreating steps, and rained down perdition upon them. If they escaped the sword, they must encounter the fearful ravages of the fire-water; if they abstained from intoxicating drinks, a thing which it is hardly in the nature of an Indian to do,-famine met them in the path, and what famine had left unscathed, fell a prey to the small-pox or some other of the fell diseases which their white brethren had introduced among them. Turn where they will, the fiery sword is whirling around them, and all entrance into their expected or imagined Paradise is forbidden. For them, there is no land of promise,-no Canaan, flowing with rivers of milk and honey,-but black and bitter desolation awaits them. The pestilence is in their houses and about their tents, and there is none to stand between the living and the dead to stay the plague. Every step they take leads them nearer, and still more near, to the verge of the abyss: the clouds which gather around their path, become more dense and dark as they advance, and portend nothing but ultimate annihilation. At the present time, a few tribes have shot forth leaves and blossoms; but it is a hot-bed vegetation,-the colors, though beautiful, are not fixed, and the flower promises no fruit. They have been moulded by the superintendence of government offi cers, their principal chiefs have been of mixed breed, and their cultivation has been encouraged or supported by gov. ernment annuities. A nursling which requires such tendance, will never shoot up into a strong and healthy tree,—the blossoms will wither upon the stem, and the only evidence of themselves which they will leave behind, will be the dead and faded leaves upon the ground. The other tribes are fast verging to destitution and utter extinction. The higher

qualities of the Indian are rapidly disappearing under the operation of a hundred blighting influences. Every thing indicates coming annihilation. The numbers of their tribes are daily diminishing by want, riot, drunkenness and disease; the race seems to have lost its power of renovating itself; and each generation is likely to find its census but half that of its precursor. If their horoscope promises only degradation, death without progeny will forbid its perpetuity. The buffalo and other game of the Western prairies are vanishing; the sustenance and the occupation of the Indian are alike departing. But nature is still more fearfully and hopelessly arraying her powers against them: streams and lakes are drying up, and the fish which, as a last resource, might have provided a scanty sustenance for an expiring generation,-this, too, small as it be, has their pitiless destiny snatched from their grasp. Verily, the fiction of Tantalus becomes true of a race. Regions of country, where, formerly, all was healthy, are now productive of endemic diseases. May we not apply to the Indian what was said of the Jews?"Now, learn a parable of the fig-tree: when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." Whatever the career and the fortunes of the Pelasgian may have been, the fate of the Indian is infinitely more wretched. To us, his destiny appears irrevocably sealed: he is incapable of civilization: he must wane away and be extinguished at last. It is with pain we record such convictions; we wish we could think otherwise; but belief is not to be constrained by desire.

But, if we are convinced of the certainty of these gloomy results, this should not paralyse our exertions in behalf of our unfortunate red brethren. "The general and popular cry now is," says Mr. Lowry, "let them alone: you cannot

"For the last few years, the waters in all the prairies north-west of Traverse des Sioux, have been rapidly diminishing. Where, a few years since, were beautiful lakes, several miles in circumference, now not a drop of water can be found. Even streams dignified with the name of river, in which the Indian was accustomed to paddle his canoe, have entirely disappeared; and where the trader dreaded to pass, because it was difficult and sometimes dangerous or impracticable to transport his goods dry in carts, he now searches in vain for water to quench the thirst of himself and horse. "The musk-rat ponds have of course dried up, and the musk-rats_that were in them have perished, or gone nobody knows where."-Pub. Doc., pp. 421-2.

succeed-let them alone." We, too, say, "you cannot succeed," but we do not therefore add, "let them alone." If any one, in reading the views which we have expressed, feels half the anguish of spirit which we have felt in recording them, the desertion of the Indian tribes, in their hour of death and agony, will be the last thought that will enter into his mind, or that he will suspect us of entertaining. When consumption has seized upon some loved form, and day after day witnesseth the progress to the tomb, we do not renounce all attentions and endeavors for the restoration of health, because of the certainty of death; much rather do we then redouble our efforts, call in the aid of new physisians, do all we may to smooth the couch of the dying,-and without hope, use every means which hope could suggest, to alleviate the pain, or retard the ravages of the disease. Nay, the film of death hath closed over the eyes of the departed, and the grave has received the hallowed dust consigned to it, before we desist from our well-meant attentions, though we have long known them to be unavailing. And is the life of a single individual to be thus diligently and anxiously tended, and the existence of whole nations to be recklessly and ruthlessly neglected in its downward career? If we do believe that the Indians must perish, our belief, however wellfounded, remains only a speculative truth. We can lay claim to no omniscience,-we have no infallible knowledge. of futurity, no insight into the dim womb of the possible,we know not what miracles may, in the providence of God, be performed,-what undiscovered laws may be brought into action for their conservation. And, ignorant as we are, in these respects, it would be criminal, in a matter of such importance, to act upon any "foregone conclusions.' If we do conceive that the time may not be far distant, when the Indian race will be extinct; and the future generations may listen, by the banks of some bright river, still preserving by its Indian name a faint reminiscence of the Indians who roved by its waters, to the dim and half-forgotten legends of earlier centuries; let it be our endeavor that the tradition of their decline may be linked with the story of the white man's exertions, to prevent their annihilation, and to raise them to the enjoyment of the rights, the privileges, and the blessings of that civilization of which we are proud. If we have compelled them thus early to solve the desperate and fearful problem of change or destruction, let it be said

that we did all that man could do to hinder and to retard decline.

We close this painful inquiry. The snow melts not more certainly before the meridian sun, than the savage races of the earth before the advancing tides of civilization. The Indian tribes are passing away like a dream before our eyes. In another century, the wildernesses of the West may be strangers to the voice of the Indian: the echo of his warcry may have died away,-and the memory of his existence may be preserved only in the traditions and the history of his despoilers.*

ART. IV. RELATIONS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD.

1. Historical Researches into the Politics, Intercourse and Trade of the principal Nations of Antiquity. By A. H. L. HEEREN, Professor of History in the University of Göttingen. Translated from the German.

I. Asiatic Nations. 3 vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1833.

Vol.

1, Persians. 2, Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Scythians. 3. Indians.

3,

II. African Nations. 2 vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1832. Vol. 1, Carthaginians and Ethiopians. 2, Egyptians. 2. Sketch of the Politics of Ancient Greece. By the same. Oxford.

3. Manual of Ancient History. By the same. 2d edition, 8vo. Oxford, 1833.

Or the numerous German scholars, who have devoted themselves with distinguished success to historical criticism, few have been more extensively useful than Professor Heeren. The works, whose names head this article, have been translated into several different languages, and the Manual of Ancient History has gone through six editions in Germa ny, two in France, two in England, and one in our own country. Nor is this popularity undeserved; the lucid style

* The last accounts from the Indian territory, which have been given in the newspapers, since this article was written, strengthen the views which we have expressed as to the rapid decline of the Indian races. It is useless quoting these newspaper statements here, as we have no means of determining how far they may be true.