With some of these they
repaired once a year to the Arickara villages, exchanged them for corn,
beans, pumpkins, and articles of European merchandise, and then returned
into the heart of the prairies.
Such are the fluctuating fortunes of these savage nations. War, famine,
pestilence, together or singly, bring down their strength and thin their
numbers. Whole tribes are rooted up from their native places, wander
for a time about these immense regions, become amalgamated with other
tribes, or disappear from the face of the earth. There appears to be a
tendency to extinction among all the savage nations; and this tendency
would seem to have been in operation among the aboriginals of this
country long before the advent of the white men, if we may judge from
the traces and traditions of ancient populousness in regions which
were silent and deserted at the time of the discovery; and from the
mysterious and perplexing vestiges of unknown races, predecessors of
those found in actual possession, and who must long since have become
gradually extinguished or been destroyed. The whole history of the
aboriginal population of this country, however, is an enigma, and a
grand one--will it ever be solved?
CHAPTER XXIV.
New Distribution of Horses--Secret Information of Treason in
the Camp.
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