Let us also bear in mind one remarkable fact, that, in their first intercourse, the reception extended to the Europeans by the Americans was confiding and hospitable, and that this confidence and hospitality were generally repaid with treachery, rapine, and murder. This was the history of events for the first century, till at last the red men, over the whole continent, learned to regard the Europeans as their enemies, the plunderers of their wealth, the spoilers of their villages, the greedy usurpers of their liberty and lands. We are told of tribes of birds, in the interior of Africa, which at first permitted travellers to approach them, not having yet learned the lesson of fear; but after the fowler had scattered death among them, they discovered that man was a being to be dreaded, and fled at his approach. The natives of America had a similar lesson to learn; and though they did not always fly from the approach of their European enemy, it was not because they expected mercy at his hands. [Illustration] ORIGIN OF THE ABORIGINES. The origin of the aborigines of America is involved in mystery. Many have been the speculations indulged and the volumes written by learned and able men to establish, each one, his favorite theory. Conjecture, by a train of ingenious reasonings and comparisons, has grown into probability, and finally almost settled down into certainty. For a time, as in the case of the celebrated “Letters of Junius,” the question has seemed decided; so plausible have appeared the proofs, that it would have been deemed almost like incredulity to gainsay them. But another supposition, more likely, has been started, and has supplanted the former; each, in its turn, has passed away, and we are perhaps no nearer the truth than before. We will notice a few of the most prominent of these opinions.