ting war-then claimed by two powers-now in the sole and undisputed possession of one; and this triumphant party separated into bands, each under the direction of some experienced and successful chief, with the war-flag always flying, and the war-drum always beating.

I have discussed the question of their ORIGIN, and by the aid of such light as could be commanded, followed them in their various migrations, and amidst all the variety of their condition, to the period when they became sole possessors of this vast continent.

Allow me yet longer to dwell upon that far-back period, when what we now know as North America, was one vast wilderness; when there were no cities, no towns, no villages; when there were no churches, or school-houses, no cultivated fields, and no gardens; when the forests were interminable and unbroken, save where the oceans on the east and on the west, the sandy deserts of the south, the prairies, the rugged and cloud-capped peaks of mountains, and the bays and rivers, broke in upon the dull uniformity; and when ALL THIS WAS THE HOME OF THE RED MAN, who was literally (at the period to which I am referring)" monarch of all he surveyed."

I know it is difficult to throw one's self back upon the past, and see it as it was at that far-back period-it being scarcely possible to disengage our senses from the presence and sight of the objects and scenes which surround us on every side, and to obliterate the associations grown out of all these. It requires a greater effort of the imagination to break up, and lose our perceptions of an existing world, with which we are familiar, than, by the aid of that same power, to create and people a new one.

But let us make the experiment, and fancy, if we can, the sudden and total disappearance of this, and of every other city, and village, and hamlet of the land, together with every vestige of all that relates to the arts, and to commerce that the rivers, and bays, and the ocean, were