But, as has been said, the scope of our work includes none of these discussions; and we shall, therefore, pass to the Indian character, abstracted from all antecedents. That this has been, and is, much misunderstood, is the first thought which occurs to one who has an opportunity personally to observe the savage. Nor is it justly a matter of surprise. The native of this continent has been the subject of curious and unsatisfactory speculation, since the discovery of the country by Columbus: by the very _want_ of those things, which constitute the attraction of other nations, he became at once, and has continued, the object of a mysterious interest. The absence of dates and facts, to mark the course of his migration, remits us to conjecture, or the scarcely more reliable resource of tradition--the want of history has made him a character of romance. The mere name of Indian gives the impression of a shadowy image, looming, dim but gigantic, through a darkness which nothing else can penetrate. This mystery not only interests, but also disarms, the mind; and we are apt to see, in the character, around which it hovers, only those qualities which give depth to the attraction. The creations of poetry and romance are usually extremes; and they are, perhaps, necessarily so, when the nature of the subject furnishes no standard, by which to temper the conception. "The efforts of a poet's imagination are, more or less, under the control of his opinions:" but opinions of men are founded upon their history; and there is, properly, _no_ historical Indian character. The consequence has been, that poets and novelists have constructed their savage personages according to a hypothetical standard, of either the virtues or vices, belonging, potentially, to the savage state. The same rule, applied to portraiture of civilized men, would at once be declared false and pernicious; and the only reason why it is not equally so, in its application to the Indian, is, because the separation between him and us is so broad, that our conceptions of his character can exert little or no influence upon our intercourse with mankind.