and numerous camp. He died as he had lived. Either from fear, jealousy or hatred, he had recourse to poison to rid
himself of all who opposed him. Pursued by remorse and despair, he used the same means to put an end to his own days. He died in most terrible convulsions. This story will show you that the Indians, too, have their Neros and Caligulas.
All the accounts that I have read on the statistics of the Indians, show that their numbers constantly decrease. To what is this remarkable decline to be ascribed? The history of the Assiniboin tribe, led by this wicked chief, is more or less the history of the decline of the other tribes. Ambitious chiefs and partisans keep up incessant wars in their tribes, and unknown diseases thin them. Then comes the acquaintance with the whites; the Indians learn, and easily adopt, the vices and excesses of the pioneers of our civilization. The spirituous liquors, which they offer the Indians in abundance - more terrible than war - sweep them off by hundreds, and they disappear, leaving behind them only sad mounds, as tombs, which dot the plains and highlands by the river-side, till the plow at last levels these last vestiges of a race.
If time permits, I will hereafter give some details on the present condition of the Indian tribes under the domination of the Great Republic. The Government has just organized, in the western desert, two new Territories - Kansas and Nebraska.' They embrace an extent of neither more
4 Nebraska Territory extends to 4g° north, the northern boundary of the United States; on the south, the line of 40° separates it from Kansas; its eastern limit is the White river and the Missouri, which separate it from Minnesota and Iowa; on the west, it extends to the Rocky Mountains.
Kansas Territory extends three degrees, or 2o8 miles, farther south; on the east is the State of Missouri; on the north, the thirty-seventh degree separates it from the Cherokee Reservation; on the west, it is bounded by the Rocky Mountains.
These two Territories contain over goo,ooo square miles, or forty times the surface of Belgium.-Authors Note.