In the first flush of the discovery of America, Europe was wild with the romance of it, and mystery was the order of the day. More wonderful things still were expected. Fables that had done good service for centuries were transported to the new lands, and there blazed up with the mysterious uncertainty of the _ignis fatuus_, luring and deceiving, till the gold-thirsting Europeans struggled in the pursuit of such phantoms as the “Seven Cities.” The most extraordinary tales appeared tame in that atmosphere of dazzling imagination. Exaggeration of one kind or another has ever since been the inheritance of the Amerind people, and it is only within a comparatively few years that these “Americans of Yesterday” have been scientifically studied and their real character and attainments given proper places. The whole matter of American ethnology and archæology is new; so new that it is impossible to speak with decision on a great many points. In the United States we have usually regarded the Amerind as the incarnation of evil; a treacherous demon with a bloody knife in one hand and a scalp-lock in the other, and we have generally refused to consider the finer traits of his character. So callous have we become to his good points that Cooper is ridiculed for his delineation of Amerinds that have instincts or principles above the brute, and yet Cooper’s chief models were the Iroquois who established a remarkable political organisation. It is not necessary to be what has been scornfully called “an Indian lover” to be interested in this extraordinarily homogeneous race that was scattered from Alaska to Patagonia. Such interest should be a matter apart from sentiment. We are interested in the primitive man of Europe; few would have been pleased to live with him. So the question whether we “like” the Amerind people and would enjoy social intercourse with them is not to the point. It is a matter of education; a matter, in fact, of the study of ourselves as others saw us some thousands of years ago, for the Amerind people were passing through phases of human existence which, in all probability, our remote ancestors also passed through; so that by examining this kind of life we are holding up the mirror to ourselves. Till recently the apathy shown on this subject was surprising. People generally were not aware that there were differences in “Indians,” or that they spoke different languages. The idea that there was any profit in studying them was popularly considered ridiculous. He was a “good-for-nothing,” and that was all that there was about it. But we can no more find fault with the Amerind for not being a European than we can with a stage-coach for not being a locomotive. We must accept him as he was, and as he is, and wherever possible study him and write him down so minutely that generations of ethnologists to come will shower blessings on our heads. We must constantly remember that the Amerind point of view is different from