But the perfection of Indian workmanship is the canoe. In every province of America, the rivers and lakes are so numerous, that its inhabitants perform many of their journeys by water. The people of Ca nada will enter the current of St Lawrence in vessels which they make with the bark of trees; and these vessels are so light, that they carry them without diffi culty or inconvenience, when shallows or cataracts pre vent them from sailing. The Esquimaux form their canoes of wood or whalebone ; they smear them with oils, and cover them with skins; and, protecting them selves in a similar manner, they continue whole months on the ocean, from which they derive their subsistence. (Ellis. ruy. p. 134-. Lafitau, Maztr.r. ii. 213.) In the southern regions, the vessels of the natives are formed entirely of wood. They cut down a large tree, reduce it to the proper shape, and hollow it with much labour and patience. And notwithstanding its bulk and gravity, they move it so dexter ously through the water, and turn it according to their inclinations, that Europeans, ac quainted with all the improvements of the nautical art, have bein astonished at the velocity of their course, and the quickness of their evolutions. The pirogues, or men of war belonging to the Indians, are such as might be useful even to British seamen, and are often so large as to contain fifty persons. The form and structure of all these vessels, are well adapted to the service for which they are designed ; and in most instances, the workman ship is so neat, and the ornaments so splendid, as to be thought utterly beyond the execution of savages, igno rant of the harder metals, and in other respects so des titute of taste.
But unless they are impelled by necessity, the opera tions of the American Indians are awkward and tedious. Such is the deficiency in the instruments they employ, and so great is their natural indolence, that any work which they undertake, advances under their hands with the most extraordinary slowness. Gumilla, who had frequent opportunities of witnessing it, compares its progress to the growth of an herb in the field. The trunk of a tree which they have cut down, and which they design to form into a canoe, often begins to rot be fore their labour is at an end. When a Carib builds a house, he will suffer one part of it to decay before his indolence will allow him to finish the other. Days and months roll away, and the task is not completed. Even when the Europeans have furnished them with the tools of a more active and cultivated people, the habitual in dolence of the American savages prevails ; and accord ingly, among the Spaniards, " the work of an Indian," is a phrase by which they express any thing, in the per formance of which much time has been wasted, and much labour thrown away. See the Lett/Ts Eilifiantes et Curieuses, xv. 343. and the Voyage d' Ulloa, 335. et seq.
6. Of the Language of the American Tribes.
As all the natives of America, whom we are now con sidering, are in a state in which civilization has made but little progress, we should expect to find their lan guage deficient in arbitrary sounds, and chiefly composed of such as are he Id to be natural. This is said to be in reality the case. The number of their words, which have an associated and conventional meaning, is incon siderable. Their speech is full of exclamations, and accompanied with a variety of gestures, introduced ei ther to complete the expression of the idea which it is their intention to impart, or to convey it with greater effect. Among some of the ruder tribes, a sentence appears to be a continued and unbroken sound ; diversi fied, however, by considerable changes of intonation, and assisted by looks, and various motions of the body. Among others, this length of sound is divided into por tions, uttered with short intervals between them. Still, however, their words are much longer than those of any civilized people ; and even their numerals, adverbs, and conjunctions, are not exempted from this redundancy of vocal expression. In North America, a name for a thing often comprehends an enumeration of its qualities, and is rather a definition than a name. (Colder, (fist. of the Five .Vations, vol. 1. p. 16. Long's Travels, Appendix.) It has already been observed, that in the languages of the American tribes, the words arc intimately connec ted with objects which arc without. They have no general or abstract ideas, and of course no terms by which such ideas arc communicated to others. polished society, and when man begins to reflect on the operations of intellect, the words by which the mind and its qualities are expressed, lose, by degrees, their cor poreal signification, and acquire that which may be de nominated mental. A new association is formed ; the term is now allied to mind ; and, as often as it is used. it calls up the idea of something intellectual. Thi• might be illustrated by innumerable examples. Though the word Aniritus, in Latin, originally signified the breath. it came, in the progress of thought, to denote the living principle within us, to which the breath was supposed to bear a resemblance ; (Reid's Inquiry into the Hum. Mind, c. vii. p. 443.) and in English we talk of a spirit as an existence divested of bodily organs, and distinct from matter. The Greek word peny, originally signi fied the diaphragm. In the language of the American tribes, there are few expressions which have the im proved and intellectual meaning of which we are speak ing ; throughout all the less cultivated societies, tire first associations of sound with external objects remain in their full force. The language is gross and material The mind of the savage has not yet been turned upon itself; and though its powers are sometimes exerted, their operation is unnoticed and unknown.