By whom were these reared, when, and for what cause? How long have they been thus reposing in their undisturbed quiet, and crumbling in silent ruin? are questions that force themselves on the mind of the reflective traveller, as he stands beside or amid their strange forms, and pores over what seem the sepulchres of buried ages. But the tongue of history is mute, and they who could have answered his inquiries have long since passed away. To give, therefore, a historical account of the American Indians is a task beset with not a few difficulties. The sources of information must be almost wholly derived from their conquerors and foes; and though the incidents related may be in the main correct, and the causes that lie on the surface be easily known, yet the more hidden ones, the secret springs of action, are beyond our reach. We have not the Indian himself recording for us the motives that have prompted his stern spirit, carefully veiling his designs from all around, nourishing the dark purpose, and maturing his plans. We are not admitted to the council of the warriors or wise men, and allowed to listen to their relation of the wrongs, real or fancied, they have suffered, or to see how one after another of the chiefs or counsellors utters his opinions, and the deep plot is laid which is to issue in wreaking a dire revenge, even to extermination, on the hated intruders. All these various incentives to action, are nearly or quite beyond our inspection. Yet it is in the contemplation of such only, that Indian history can be truly estimated; for all these particulars throw their lights and shades across and into the portraiture of this most singular people. It could hardly be expected, that they, who suffered from the fearful revenge of the red man, who saw, as it were, the scalping-knife gleaming around the head of a beloved wife, or child, or friend, or who felt the arrow quivering in their own flesh, or who heard the war-whoop ringing terrifically on the domestic quiet of their habitation,--it could hardly, indeed, be expected, that such persons should be as truthful or impartial as if they had been called to record scenes of a more peaceful and grateful kind. Without, therefore, doing the early writers the injustice of supposing that they mean to misrepresent facts,--yet, in glancing over their descriptions of perfidy, plots, murders, cruelties, and revenge, we must remember that the red man had no one of his race to record for him his history, and be candid and just in our judgments, where there may often be not a little to extenuate, if not wholly to excuse from blame.