He devoted eight years, from 1832 to 1840, to his enterprise, visiting forty-eight tribes of Indians residing within British America, the United States and Mexico. Speaking of these years in after life he says: “I have seen them in their own villages, have carried my canvas and colors the whole way, and painted my portraits from life as they now stand in the gallery. Some of them have been taken while I have been paddling my canoe, or leading my pack-horse through trackless wilds, even at the hazard of my life.” On his return to the East from this remarkable Odyssey, Mr. Catlin exhibited his sketches, together with such a collection of weapons, dress, ornaments and implements as it will never be possible to procure again, in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, to great crowds of visitors. The papers were filled with praises respecting it. The _United States Gazette_ says: “There can be no mistake or exaggeration in pronouncing the exhibition of these views of the scenery and natural history of the western country the most important and interesting object for public attention which has ever been offered to the eastern division of the United States.” Many of Mr. Catlin’s friends were anxious for the government or some well founded institution to buy the collection, but nothing was accomplished. In 1840 Mr. Catlin took his pictures abroad, prospects having been held out to him of getting a handsome price for them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted the packages free of duty, and the whole was set up in a room 106 feet long, in Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London. Numerous assemblages, comprising many of the distinguished members of the fashionable and the literary world visited the entertainments and listened to the lectures of Mr. Catlin.