But if courage intrinsically consists in the defiance of danger
and pain, the life of the Indian is a continual exhibition of it.
He lives in a state of perpetual hostility and risk. Peril and
adventure are congenial to his nature, or rather seem necessary
to arouse his faculties and to give an interest to his existence.
Surrounded by hostile tribes, whose mode of warfare is by ambush
and surprisal, he is always prepared for fight and lives with his
weapons in his hands. As the ship careers in fearful singleness
through the solitudes of ocean, as the bird mingles among clouds
and storms, and wings its way, a mere speck, across the pathless
fields of air, so the Indian holds his course, silent, solitary,
but undaunted, through the boundless bosom of the wilderness. His
expeditions may vie in distance and danger with the pilgrimage of
the devotee or the crusade of the knight-errant. He traverses
vast forests exposed to the hazards of lonely sickness, of
lurking enemies, and pining famine. Stormy lakes, those great
inland seas, are no obstacles to his wanderings: in his light
canoe of bark he sports like a feather on their waves, and darts
with the swiftness of an arrow down the roaring rapids of the
rivers.
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