“After this the crowd dispersed to their houses, and for the rest of the day the town was silent. Some of these rude people felt that the number in their almost extinguished tribe was becoming less, and the dread of death filled their hearts. In the evening poor Adouma came secretly to my house, to unburden his sorrowing heart. He, too, had been compelled to take part in the dreadful scene. He dared not refrain from joining in the curses heaped upon his poor sister. He dared not mourn publicly for her. I comforted him as well as I could, and I spoke to him of the true God, and of the wickedness of the conduct we had witnessed. He said at last, ‘O Chally, when you go back to your far country, America, let them send men to us poor people to teach us from that which you call God’s mouth,’ meaning the Bible. I promised Adouma to give the message, and I now do so.” God pity poor Africa! May the Light of the Sun of Righteousness soon shine on her dark land! CHAPTER XVII. THE ABORIGINES OF AMERICA. Darin besteht eben die Bedeutung der Amerikanishen Religionen, dass sie mehr als andere, wenigstens mehrals andere Religionen von Kulturvölkern, das primitive und unabgeschwächte Heidenthum darstellen.--DR. J. G. MÜLLER. The religion of the American Indians and Alaskans partakes of the character of their national life; yet there are traces of the original ideas of God, the creation and early history of man and the world, which we find in the religions of the far Eastern nations. As we have before said, we believe the early inhabitants of America to have come from the eastern shores of Asia, having been washed along in their fishing vessels by the current of the Kuro Shiwo (or black stream), flowing by the western coasts of America, or perhaps crossing on the islands of the North Pacific, where Asia and America almost come together. They differ from the peoples of Eastern Asia, but, perhaps, only in such points as a different climate and different habits of life would produce. All the people of the continent of America appear to have come from one stock. The squalid Esquimaux at one extremity of the chain, the polished Aztec or Inca at the other; agriculturists, and hunters, and canoe-men; tribes frequenting the shores of the great northern lakes, or scattered in the dense savannahs of the South; all their languages grow out of a few flexible tongues. They bear a resemblance to the Turanian languages--the Malaysian, the Japanese and others. We can divide the American peoples into two classes--the civilized and the savage. To the first class belong the Mexicans and Peruvians; to the latter, the savages of North America, including the Red Indians, the Alaskans and the inhabitants of the West Indies, and wild tribes of South America--the Patagonians, Guianians, etc. THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA. [Illustration: INDIAN MEDICINE MAN.]