teach us any thing, touching the right mode of learning a living language, it is, that we must dwell among those, who speak it, to acquire it. We never knew a person even a tolerable proficient in speaking French, unless he had acquired his facility by living among the people. The savages vary their meaning still more by gesture, and the accent and intonation which they give their words, than even the French. We much fear, that a printed page of Indian words, most carefully and accurately noted by our marks of intonation, gravity, or acuteness, as we have them in our own dictionaries, could hardly be read, after all, by an unpractised American scholar, so as to be intelligible to the Indians, whose language they purport to be. We have supposed the Muskogee and Chelokee to be the patriarchal dialects of the south; and the Chippeway and Dacota, of the Indians of the lakes and the upper Mississippi; and the Ozadzhé and Pawnee, of the savages of the Missouri; and the Apacheé and Commancheé, of the western shores of the Mexican gulf. We should not forget, that all the Indians, from the Alleghanies to the western ocean, have a language of signs-the latin, or common language, by which all the tribes communicate with one another. It is a trite maxim, that necessity is the mother of invention; and it is inconceivable, except by those, who have witnessed it, how copious, significant and definite a language they have formed in this way. In Long's first expedition, a full and accurate vocabulary is given. It is a treat to a philosophical student of man and of human nature, to see two of these untaught children of the woods meet from the most remote and opposite points of the wilderness, without a single word in common, and question each other, and obtain intelligible answers, respecting all their prominent necessities of information, in the dumb language of signs and gestures.

After all, that which has struck us, in contemplating this singular race, with the most admiration and astonishment, is the invisible, but universal energy of the operation and influence of an inexplicable and mysterious law, which has, where it operates, a more certain and controlling power, than all the municipal and written laws of the whites united. This view of Indian character has been to us a study of more interest, than any other circumstance pertaining to the race. There is most despotic rule among them, without either hereditary or elected chief. There are chiefs with great power, who cannot tell when, where, or how they became invested with it. There is perfect unanimity in a question, involving a war of extermination, and even the very existence of the tribe, where every member of the council belonged to the wild and fierce democracy of nature, and could give either his affirmation, or dissent, without being called upon for a reason. To exem. plify the omnipotence of this invisible and unwritten law, of this despotic authority over mind and opinion, which holds the Indian,

wandering far from the cognizance or control of his tribe, by an unbroken chain, that drags him back to its tribunal, we cite a common mode of its operation.-A case occurs, where it is prescribed only by custom and opinion, that an individual should be punished with death. Escaped far from the control of his tribe, it may be in the precincts of a hostile tribe, who would rejoice in the acquisition of such a warrior,-at any rate, as free as the winds,-he feels this invisible cord about his neck, and he returns, and surrenders himself to justice. His accounts, perhaps, are not settled, and he is in debt. He solicits reprieve, until he shall have accomplished his summer's hunt. He finishes it with as much industry, acuteness and sang froid, as any one that had preceded it; pays his debt; and dies with an unshrinking constancy, which, in all views of Indian character, has always been the theme of admiration.

A question occurs, upon which we have touched before, but which in a serious mind is of such moment, as not to suffer by repetition. What is the prospect of bringing to these rugged and comfortless beings, apparently the outcasts equally of nature and civilization, the moulding of society and morals, the regulations of municipal and agricultural life, and the high motives and the cheering hopes of our gospel? The melancholy, but stubborn fact must be admitted, that but little has yet been done. Pious and devoted Catholic missionaries have carried their lives in their hands, have renounced all earthly hopes, and have lived and died among them, to carry them the gospel. Protestants have surely not been behind them in these labours of love. But after the lapse of a century, scarce an adult savage can be found west of the Mississippi, who will pronounce himself a Christian. We have seen many with crosses suspended from their necks, which they showed, apparently with the same feelings with which they showed their medals. They have a prevalent opinion, that the profession of Christianity gives them additional claims upon our justice and sympathy. During the last winter, some Appalachy Indians appealed to the judge of the district, where we resided, for redress. They stated a certain outrage, which, they alleged, had been committed upon them by the overseer of a rich and powerful planter, whose plantation adjoined their lands. In addition to all the other indignant views of the injury, which they took, they subjoined, et nous sommes baptises: we are baptised persons.' This seemed to them to complete the enormity of the transaction. We are sure, that if any effort can have marks of heroism, singleness of purpose, and nobleness of self-devotion, beyond another, the selfdevotion of missionaries, who go to finish their days among the savages, must be the purest and holiest of all. Surely, if any men merit earnest wishes and prayers for their success, it must be those men, who have left the precincts of every thing desirable in life, to go into these solitudes for the conversion of these untutored children of nature.

There are some circumstances, which invest the present missionary efforts with stronger probabilities of success, than any that have preceded them. The number of Indians, that are half breeds, or mixtures of the blood of the whites, is great and continually increasing. These, either from conviction, or party feelings, generally espouse the interests of civilization and Christianity. It is, more generally than formerly, the conviction among ourselves, that Christianity is the religion of social and civilized man. Instead of relying much on the hope of the conversion of adult hunting and warrior savages, the effort is chiefly directed towards the young. Schools, the loom, the anvil, the plow, are sent to them. Amidst the comfort, stability and plenty of cultivation they are expected, to be imbued with a taste for our institutions, arts, industry and religion, at the same time. Every benevolent man will wish these efforts of enlightened and Christian charity all possible success.

PRESENT POPULATION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF THE WESTERN COUNTRY.

The progress of the population of this country, as every one knows, is without any example or parallel in the records of other colonies, in ancient or modern times; not excepting even the annals of the advancement of the Atlantic country. We can remember, when all this country, except the ancient French colonies in it, was an unknown and unpeopled wilderness. The first settlers encountered incredible hardships and dangers. But only open before Americans a fertile soil, and a mild climate, and their native enterprize, fostered by the stimulant effect of freedom and mild laws, will overcome every impediment. Sickness, solitude, mountains, the war-whoop, the merciless tomahawk, wolves and panthers and bears, dear and distant homes, forsaken for ever, will come over their waking thoughts, and revisit their dreams in vain, to prevent the young, florid and unportioned pair from scaling remote mountains, descending long rivers, and finally selecting their spot in the forests, consecrating their solitary cabin with the dear and sacred name of home, and there rearing a family.

The following synoptical view will show, in a few words, the astonishing advance of this population:-In 1790, the population of this valley, exclusive of the country west of the Mississippi, and of Florida, which were not then within our territorial limits, was estimated, by enumeration, at little more than 100,000. In 1800, it was something short of 380,000. In 1810, it was short of a million. In 1820, including the population west of the Mississippi, VOL. I.-No. 6.

3

rating the population of Florida at 20,000, and that of the parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia, included in this valley, at 300,000, and it will give the population of 1820 at 2,500,000. It will be perceived, that this is an increase, in more than a duplicate ratio, in ten years.

Some considerable allowance must be made, of course, for the flood of immigration, which can not reasonably be expected to set this way, for the future, as strongly as it has for the past. There is no doubt, however, that Ohio, with the largest and most dense population of any of the western states, will have double the number of inhabitants, by the census of 1830, which she had by that of 1820. During that interval, her gain by immigration will not equal her loss by emigration; and of course, will be simply that of natural increase. In the rapidity of this increase, we believe, this state not only exceeds any other in the West, but in the world. Other western states may compete with us in the abundance of all other harvests. But it is the good natured jest of every traveller from Wheeling to this place, and every stranger among us, whose eye explores the streets and lanes of our city, that an unparalleled crop of flaxen headed boys and girls is the nobler growth, our realms supply.' The population of this valley at the next census will, no doubt, exceed four millions. It will have by a million more inhabitants, than the thirteen good old United States, when, at the commencement of the revolutionary war, they threw down the gauntlet in the face of the parent country, then the most powerful empire on the globe.

Notwithstanding the impression, so generally entertained in the Atlantic country, that this valley is universally unhealthy, and notwithstanding the necessary admission, that fever and ague is prevalent to a great and an annoying degree, the stubborn facts, above stated, demonstrate, beyond all possibility of denial, that no country is more propitious to increase by natural population. Wherever the means of easy, free and ample subsistence are provided, it is in the nature and the order of human things, that population should increase rapidly. In such a country, though some parts of it should prove sickly, perseverance will ultimately triumph over even this impediment, the most formidable of all. In that fertile region, for the insalubrious districts are almost invariably those of the highest fertility, immigrants will arrive, become sickly, and discouraged; and, perhaps, return with an evil report of the country. In the productive and sickly sections of the South, allured by its rich products, and its exemption from winter, adventurers will successively arrive, fix themselves, become sickly, and, it may be, they will die. Others, lusting for gain, and with that recklessness to the future, for wise ends awarded us by Providence, and undismayed by the fate of those who have preceded them, will replace them. By culture, draining, the feeding of cattle, and the opening the country to

the fever-banishing breeze, the atmosphere is found gradually to meliorate. The inhabitants, taught by suffering and experience, come by degrees to learn the climate, the diseases, and preventives, and a race will finally stand, which will possess the adaptation. to the country, which results from acclimation; and even these sections are found, in time, to have a degree of natural increase of population with the rest. Such has proved to be the steady advance of things in the sickliest points of the South. The rapidity of our increase in numbers multiplies the difficulties of subsistence, and stimulates, and sharpens the swarming faculties and propensities in the parent hive, and will cause, that in the due lapse of time and progress of things, every fertile quarter section in this valley will sustain its family.

Another pleasant circumstance appended to this view is, that almost the entire population of the valley are cultivators of the soil. The inhabitants of crowded towns and villages, the numerous artizans and laborers in manufactories, can neither be, as a mass, so healthy, so virtuous, or happy, as free cultivators of the soil. The man, whose daily range of prospect is dusty streets, or smoky and dead brick walls, and whose views become limited by habit to the enclosure of those walls, who depends for his subsistence on the daily supplies of the market, and whose motives to action are elici ted by constant and hourly struggle and competition with his fellows, will have the advantage in some points over the secluded tenant of a cabin, or a farm house. But still, taking every thing. into the calculation, we would choose to be the owner of half a section of land, and daily contemplate nature, as we tilled the soil, aided in that primitive and noble employment, by our own vigorous children. The dweller in towns and villages may have more of the air and tone of society, and his daughters may keep nearer to the changes of the fashions. But we have little doubt, that, in striking the balance of enjoyment, the latter will be found to be the happier man, and more likely to have a numerous and healthy family. The people of the West, with very small deductions, are cultivators of the soil. All, that are neither idle, nor unable to labor, have a rural abundance of the articles which the soil can furnish, far beyond the needs of the country; and it is one of our most prevalent complaints, that this abundance is far beyond the chances of profitable sale.

Ohio has, palpably, more of the northern propensity to form villages, and condense population, than any other of the western states. Of course, her people have a readier aptitude for an artizan's life, and a manufacturer's condition. We suppose, that at least the half of the manufacturers of the West, inhabit the region, of which Pittsburgh is the centre, and the state of Ohio. Her sons, too, have the New England aspiration to become scholars, and professional men, and merchants and traders. Kentucky and