Wonder At Such
Unaffected Tenderness And Piety, Where It Was Least To Have Been
Sought, Contended In All Our Bosoms
With shame and confusion, at
receiving such pure and wholesome instructions from creatures so
far below us in the arts
And comforts of life." The simple
prayers of the poor Indians were not unheard. In the course of
four or five days they returned, laden with meat. Captain
Bonneville was curious to know how they had attained such success
with such scanty means. They gave him to understand that they had
chased the buffalo at full speed, until they tired them down,
when they easily dispatched them with the spear, and made use of
the same weapon to flay the carcasses. To carry through their
lessons to their Christian friends, the poor savages were as
charitable as they had been pious, and generously shared with
them the spoils of their hunting, giving them food enough to last
for several days.
A further and more intimate intercourse with this tribe gave
Captain Bonneville still greater cause to admire their strong
devotional feeling. "Simply to call these people religious," says
he, "would convey but a faint idea of the deep hue of piety and
devotion which pervades their whole conduct. Their honesty is
immaculate, and their purity of purpose, and their observance of
the rites of their religion, are most uniform and remarkable.
They are, certainly, more like a nation of saints than a horde of
savages."
In fact, the antibelligerent policy of this tribe may have sprung
from the doctrines of Christian charity, for it would appear that
they had imbibed some notions of the Christian faith from
Catholic missionaries and traders who had been among them.
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