If The Reading World Were To Take To
Sermons Again And Eschew Their Novels, Messrs.
Thackeray, Dickens,
and some others would look about them and inquire into the causes
of such a change with considerable acuteness.
They might not,
perhaps, hit the truth, and these Indians are much in that
predicament. It is said that very few pure-blooded Indians are now
to be found in their villages, but I doubt whether this is not
erroneous. The children of the Indians are now fed upon baked
bread and on cooked meat, and are brought up in houses. They are
nursed somewhat as the children of the white men are nursed; and
these practices no doubt have done much toward altering their
appearance. The negroes who have been bred in the States, and
whose fathers have been so bred before them, differ both in color
and form from their brothers who have been born and nurtured in
Africa.
I said in the last chapter that the City of Ottawa was still to be
built; but I must explain, lest I should draw down on my head the
wrath of the Ottawaites, that the place already contains a
population of 15,000 inhabitants. As, however, it is being
prepared for four times that number - for eight times that number,
let us hope - and as it straggles over a vast extent of ground, it
gives one the idea of a city in an active course of preparation.
In England we know nothing about unbuilt cities.
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