The Indian only visits the town, once the favourite site for his hunting
lodge, to receive his annual government presents, to trade his simple wares
of basket and birch-bark work, to bring in his furs, or maybe to sell his
fish or venison, and take back such store goods as his intercourse with his
white brethren has made him consider necessary to his comforts, to supply
wants which have now become indispensable, before undreamed of. He
traverses those populous, busy streets, he looks round upon dwellings, and
gay clothes, and equipages, and luxuries which he can neither obtain nor
imitate; and feels his spirit lowered--he is no more a people--the tide of
intellect has borne him down, and swept his humble wigwam from the earth.
He, too, is changing: he now dwells, for the most part, in villages, in
houses that cannot be moved away at his will or necessity; he has become a
tiller of the ground, his hunting expeditions are prescribed within narrow
bounds, the forest is disappearing, the white man is everywhere. The Indian
must also yield to circumstances; he submits patiently.
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