Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/27

Rh of fancy of our own. Suppose that this half of the earth, ocean-bounded, stretching from pole to pole, with all its wealth of material, its vast and mighty resources, its scenes and furnishings for the life, the activity, and the happiness of man, — suppose that, as concerned its human inhabitants, it had proved to be directly opposite to what it was. Suppose that it had been peopled by a superior race, advanced in civilization, refinement, art, culture, science, far at least, if not immeasurably, beyond the race whose curiosity and greed had for the first time bridged the way between them. It might have been so. Taking into view the general average civilization of Europe at that time, we know that it was but rude and rough, with many elements of barbarism, heavily burdened with ignorance and superstition, and convulsed year by year by local and extended wars. It might well have been that, folded within the depths of this continent, a people under the training and development of centuries, protected and fostered rather than disadvantaged by lack of commerce and intercourse with other peoples, should have enjoyed and improved this realm as we do now. Instead of the hordes of wild and naked savages, cowering in the forests, living by the chase, burrowing in smoky and filthy cabins, without arts, letters, laws, or the signs or promise of any advance in their generations, there might have been men and women enjoying and enriched by all that can adorn and elevate human existence. And these, when the ships of curious and craving adventurers touched their shores, or strangers trespassed on their well guarded domains, might have had the will and the knowledge, the skill and the enginery of battle and defence, to repel the invaders, to sink them in the sea, or leave them to starvation, keeping the ocean cordon inviolate around them. One other element must come into our supposition. It is that of religion. Whatever religion that race imagined for this continent might have had and believed, however pure and elevating in its influence,