American Institutions and Their Influence Part 45

There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world, which seem to tend toward the same end, although they started from different points; I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and while the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly a.s.sumed a most prominent place among the nations; and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.

All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their power; but these are still in the act of growth;[301] all the others are stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and with celerity along a path to which the human eye can a.s.sign no term.

The American struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose him; the adversaries of the Russian are men; the former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilisation with all its weapons and its arts; the conquests of the one are therefore gained by the ploughshare; those of the other, by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common sense of the citizens; the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm; the princ.i.p.al instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude.

Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.

Notes:

[297] The foremost of these circ.u.mstances is, that nations which are accustomed to free inst.i.tutions and munic.i.p.al government are better able than any others to found prosperous colonies. The habit of thinking and governing for oneself is indispensable in a new country, where success necessarily depends, in a great measure, upon the individual exertions of the settlers.

[298] The United States already extend over a territory equal to one half of Europe. The area of Europe is 500,000 square leagues, and its population 205,000,000 of inhabitants. (Maltebrun, liv. 114, vol., vi., p. 4.)

[299] See Maltebrun, liv. 116, vol. vi., p.92.

[300] This would be a population proportionate to that of Europe, taken at a mean rate of 410 inhabitants to the square league.

[301] Russia is the country in the Old World in which population increases most rapidly in proportion.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A.--Page 17.

For information concerning all the countries of the West which have not been visited by Europeans, consult the account of two expeditions undertaken at the expense of congress by Major Long. This traveller particularly mentions, on the subject of the great American desert, that a line may be drawn nearly parallel to the 20th degree of longitude[302]

(meridian of Washington), beginning from the Red river and ending at the river Platte. From this imaginary line to the Rocky mountains, which bound the valley of the Mississippi on the west, lie immense plains, which are almost entirely covered with sand, incapable of cultivation, or scattered over with ma.s.ses of granite. In summer, these plains are quite dest.i.tute of water, and nothing is to be seen on them but herds of buffaloes and wild horses. Some hordes of Indians are also found there, but in no great number.

Major Long was told, that in travelling northward from the river Platte, you find the same desert constantly on the left; but he was unable to ascertain the truth of this report. (Long's Expedition, vol. ii., p.

361.)

However worthy of confidence may be the narrative of Major Long, it must be remembered that he only pa.s.sed through the country of which he speaks, without deviating widely from the line which he had traced out for his journey.

[302] The 20th degree of longitude according to the meridian of Washington, agrees very nearly with the 97th degree on the meridian of Greenwich.

APPENDIX B.--Page 18.

South America, in the regions between the tropics, produces an incredible profusion of climbing-plants, of which the Flora of the Antilles alone presents us with forty different species.

Among the most graceful of these shrubs is the pa.s.sion-flower, which, according to Descourtiz, grows with such luxuriance in the Antilles, as to climb trees by means of the tendrils with which it is provided, and form moving bowers of rich and elegant festoons, decorated with blue and purple flowers, and fragrant with perfume. (Vol. i., p. 265.)

The _mimosa scandens_ (acacia a grandes gousses) is a creeper of enormous and rapid growth, which climbs from tree to tree, and sometimes covers more than half a league. (Vol. iii., p. 227.)

APPENDIX C.--Page 20.

The languages which are spoken by the Indians of America, from the Pole to Cape Horn, are said to be all formed upon the same model, and subject to the same grammatical rules; whence it may fairly be concluded that all the Indian nations sprang from the same stock.

Each tribe of the American continent speaks a different dialect; but the number of languages, properly so called, is very small, a fact which tends to prove that the nations of the New World had not a very remote origin.

Moreover, the languages of America have a great degree of regularity; from which it seems probable that the tribes which employ them had not undergone any great revolutions, or been incorporated, voluntarily, or by constraint, with foreign nations. For it is generally the union of several languages into one which produces grammatical irregularities.

It is not long since the American languages, especially those of the north, first attracted the serious attention of philologists, when the discovery was made that this idiom of a barbarous people was the product of a complicated system of ideas and very learned combinations. These languages were found to be very rich, and great pains had been taken at their formation to render them agreeable to the ear.

The grammatical system of the Americans differs from all others in several points, but especially in the following:--

Some nations in Europe, among others the Germans, have the power of combining at pleasure different expressions, and thus giving a complex sense to certain words. The Indians have given a most surprising extension to this power, so as to arrive at the means of connecting a great number of ideas with a single term. This will be easily understood with the help of an example quoted by Mr. Duponceau, in the Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of America.

"A Delaware woman, playing with a cat or a young dog," says this writer, "is heard to p.r.o.nounce the word _kuligatschis_; which is thus composed; _k_ is the sign of the second person, and signifies 'thou' or 'thy;'

_uli_ is a part of the word _wulit_, which signifies 'beautiful,'

'pretty;' _gat_ is another fragment of the word _wichgat_, which means 'paw;' and lastly, _schis_ is a diminutive giving the idea of smallness.

Thus in one word the Indian woman has expressed, 'Thy pretty little paw.'"

Take another example of the felicity with which the savages of America have composed their words. A young man of Delaware is called _pilape_.

This word is formed from _pilsit_, chaste, innocent; and _lenape_, man; viz., man in his purity and innocence.

This facility of combining words is most remarkable in the strange formation of their verbs. The most complex action is often expressed by a single verb, which serves to convey all the shades of an idea by the modification of its construction.

Those who may wish to examine more in detail this subject, which I have only glanced at superficially, should read:--

1. The correspondence of Mr. Duponceau and the Rev. Mr. Hecwelder relative to the Indian languages; which is to be found in the first volume of the Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of America, published at Philadelphia, 1819, by Abraham Small, vol i., pp 356-464.

2. The grammar of the Delaware or Lenape language by Geiberger, the preface of Mr. Duponceau. All these are in the same collection, vol.

iii.

3. An excellent account of these works, which is at the end of the 6th volume of the American Encyclopaedia.

APPENDIX D.--Page 22.

See in Charlevoix, vol i., p. 235, the history of the first war which the French inhabitants of Canada carried on, in 1610, against the Iroquois. The latter, armed with bows and arrows, offered a desperate resistance to the French and their allies. Charlevoix is not a great painter, yet he exhibits clearly enough, in this narrative, the contrast between the European manners and those of savages, as well as the different way in which the two races of men understood the sense of honor.

When the French, says he, seized upon the beaver-skins which covered the Indians who had fallen, the Hurons, their allies, were greatly offended at this proceeding; but without hesitation they set to work in their usual manner, inflicting horrid cruelties upon the prisoners, and devouring one of those who had been killed, which made the Frenchmen shudder. The barbarians prided themselves upon a scrupulousness which they were surprised at not finding in our nation; and could not understand that there was less to reprehend in the stripping of dead bodies, than in the devouring of their flesh like wild beasts.

Charlevoix, in another place (vol. i., p. 230), thus describes the first torture of which Champlain was an eyewitness, and the return of the Hurons into their own village.

"Having proceeded about eight leagues," says he, "our allies halted: and having singled out one of their captives, they reproached him with all the cruelties which he had practised upon the warriors of their nation who had fallen into his hands, and told him that he might expect to be treated in like manner; adding, that if he had any spirit, he would prove it by singing. He immediately chanted forth his death-song, and then his war-song, and all the songs he knew, 'but in a very mournful strain,' says Champlain, who was not then aware that all savage music has a melancholy character. The tortures which succeeded, accompanied by all the horrors which we shall mention hereafter, terrified the French, who made every effort to put a stop to them, but in vain. The following night one of the Hurons having dreamed that they were pursued, the retreat was changed to a real flight, and the savages never stopped until they were out of the reach of danger."

The moment they perceived the cabins of their own village, they cut themselves long sticks, to which they fastened the scalps which had fallen to their share, and carried them in triumph. At this sight, the women swam to the canoes, where they received the b.l.o.o.d.y scalps from the hands of their husbands, and tied them round their necks.

The warriors offered one of these horrible trophies to Champlain; they also presented him with some bows and arrows--the only spoils of the Iroquois which they had ventured to seize--entreating him to show them to the king of France.

Champlain lived a whole winter quite alone among these barbarians, without being under any alarm for his person or property.

APPENDIX E.--Page 36.