Religion.-The Indians had no idols. They worshipped as God the mighty Manitou, the ruler of all things. Many believed also in evil spirits, and reverenced the sun, moon, stars, thunder, fire, water, etc., as inferior divinities.

A future life, blissful for the upright, miserable for the wicked, was very generally believed in. Happy huntinggrounds, abounding in game, awaited the spirit of the good Indian in the other world. Hence the custom of burying with the deceased his weapons, and whatever else it was

were deposited in shallow graves in a sitting posture, or laid on the surface of the earth and covered with bark.

The Esquimaux.-The extreme northern parts of North America were inhabited by a people quite different from the Indians, calling themselves INNUITS (our folks, men), but generally known as ESQUIMAUX (es'ke-mo-fish-eaters). It was they that helped to exterminate the Scandinavian colonies in Greenland. The Esquimaux belong to the Mongolian race, and resemble the tribes of north-eastern Asia. They are short, dirty in their habits, dress in seal-skins and bearskins, and live principally on raw animal food. Their dwell

ANALYTICAL REVIEW.

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ings are either huts of snow, or inclosures of stone, raftered over with walrus-bones and roofed in with earth, hides, or mosses. They move rapidly from place to place, on sleds drawn by packs of hungry, wolfish-looking dogs.

ANALYTICAL REVIEW.

The following are given as specimens of Analytical Reviews that may be used with advantage. Let one of the class place the Abstract on the blackboard, and the different topics be assigned in turn to different pupils called on promiscuously, each to tell all that he knows about his topic without being questioned.

Draw a map showing the points visited by Columbus, and embracing the West Indies, together with an outline of the adjacent mainland from Florida to the mouth of the Orinoco River.

Consult the Map on p. 38.

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY DISCOVERIES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS.

English Discoveries.-News of the success of Columbus spread like wildfire through Europe, and produced an ardent thirst for discovery among the nations. England at this time had a smaller population than the single city of London has at present, and was just recovering from the effects of a long civil war; yet her thrifty king, Henry VII., was among the first to encourage ventures in the New World.

Under his commission to the CAB'OTS, Venetians resident in Bristol, two voyages were made. These resulted in the discovery of the mainland of America (1497) fourteen months before it was seen by Columbus, the exploration of the northern coast as far south as Carolina (1498), and the finding of such "multitudes of big fishes on the Banks of Newfoundland (nu'fund-lănd) "that they sometimes stopped the ship!" The Cabots directed their attention to the north-west, hoping to find a passage to India in that direction, and the land they first saw is supposed to have been Newfoundland or Lab'rador. Great ice-fields turned them to the south; and at various points of the coast they landed and took possession of the country for their king. This was the foundation of England's subsequent claim. But nothing immediately followed from these voyages, save the establishment of a profitable codfishery.

Portuguese Discoveries.-Portugal, chagrined at having thrown away the honor which the genius of Columbus reflected on Spain, confined her efforts mainly to attempts to reach India by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. This was finally accomplished by VASCO DA GAMA (vah'sko dah gah'mah) in 1497. In following up his discovery with a large fleet, CABRAL (kah-brahl'), carried far to the west after

1500]

EARLY SPANISH DISCOVERIES.

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leaving the Canaries, accidentally discovered Brazil, and took possession of it in the name of his sovereign.

Spanish Discoveries.-Spain was naturally the most excited by the wonderful stories told about the New World, with its sands of precious stones and nuggets of gold as big as oranges. As Columbus wrote, there was "not a man down to the very tailors" that did not want to become a discoverer. The fever ran to such a height that some villages were almost drained of their inhabitants. Accordingly, for several years after the death of Columbus (1506) the coast of Central America and the adjacent isthmus was visited by a host of unprincipled Spanish adventurers, who cared for nothing but gold, and in searching for it practised all kinds of fraud and violence on each other as well as on the unoffending natives.

THE PACIFIC.-One of the boldest of these adventurers was BALBO's, whom we read of as successively loaded with debt in Hispaniola,―escaping thence, and supplanting the commander of a little colony on the Isthmus of Darien,searching the surrounding country for gold, and establishing his authority over its native inhabitants. Hearing of a great sea to the south, whose tributary streams flowed over beds of gold-dust, he determined to find it; and with his stoutest men arrayed in armor, and friendly Indians as guides, he commenced a toilsome expedition across the isthmus.

For many days the little band labored on, amid tangled forests, up ragged heights, through opposing natives, whom they attacked with bloodhounds and mowed down with their superior weapons. At length, foot-sore and famished, they reached the base of the peak from which the ocean was said to be visible. Halting his men, Balboa climbed to the summit alone, and there beheld spread out in all its majesty before him the great Pacific (1513).

This discovery showed that the new lands were no part

of Asia, but an independent continent-a fact that could no longer be doubted, when in 1520 MAGEL'LAN, traversing the strait since called by his name,

passed out into this same ocean, which from its peaceful character he called Pacific, and continuing his westerly course for many miles finally reached what were indeed outlying islands of Asia. One of Magellan's ships, still keeping on to the west and rounding the Cape of Good Hope, finally reached Spain,-being the first vessel to circumnavigate the globe, and thus prove that Columbus was right in supposing the earth to be round.

FLORIDA.-A story generally believed, that somewhere