Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/422

408 of some great author of his being and the universe; in dread of whose displeasure he constantly lives, with the apprehension before him of a future state, where he expects to be rewarded or punished, according to the merits he has gained or forfeited in this world." He found him the worshiper of a spiritual God, with no idolatry. He discerned the evil of allowing traders to go among the Indians to corrupt them, and thought that, if they were obliged to come to the settlements to do their trading, they would enjoy the advantages of competition, and see the better features of our civilization. His theories respecting the origin of the Indians do not seem to have taken settled shape. He believed that the primary race did not come here from abroad, but originated here on the soil independently of other races; although wanderers from other lands may have mingled with it. He found reasons for supposing that there may have been a Jewish element in the race, but not that the race was derived from the Jews; and he speculated upon the possible derivation of the Mandans from a Welsh colony under Prince Madoc in the early part of the fourteenth century. There are not many scientific observations in his itineraries. His journal at Fort Gibson, in 1834, contains a notice of the death of Mr. Beyrich, a Prussian botanist, who had made an immense collection of plants, and died at Fort Gibson while engaged in changing and drying them.

Mr. Catlin supported himself in his journeys by painting portraits and by the sale of his books. It was his custom to leave the Indian country in the fall and go in his canoe down to St. Louis or New Orleans. There he would select some place promising good custom and settle himself as a portrait-painter for the winter. His collections having become large enough to form a museum and gallery, he took them to Europe and exhibited them at the principal capitals. His first adventure of this kind was fairly successful, and he returned home with a competence. His visit to France, from 1845 to 1848, led to pecuniary disaster, and was saddened by the loss of his wife and son; and in 1852 he suffered a financial wreck in London, from which he never recovered.

Between 1852 and 1857 Mr. Catlin made three voyages from Paris to South and Central America. He found great difficulty in getting the Indians of the Amazon to sit for their pictures, but by catching them unawares and sketching from his boat while they were detained on the shore by some pretext of entertainment, he was able to make sketches among thirty different tribes, on the Amazon, the Uruguay, the Yucayali, and in the open air of the pampas and llanos, containing many thousand people, in their canoes, at their fishing occupations, and in groups on the river's shore.