Christianity, would have made him a blessing and an ornament to any nation upon earth.

In corroboration of his idea of the Mandans being descended from the Welch, Mr. Catlin gives instances of several elementary words in Mandan and Welch which are almost identical. The Mandan canoes, also, are altogether different from those of other Indians, and exactly resemble the Welch coracle, being made of raw hides, stretched underneath a frame-work of wood, and shaped nearly round, like a tub. A woman would carry one on her head from her wigwam to the water's edge, and having stepped into the coracle, stand in front, and propel it by dipping her paddle forward and drawing it to her, instead of paddling by the side.

The prairies of North America, west of the Mississippi, abound with vast herds of buffaloes, which form almost the entire food of many Indian nations, who have many modes of hunting down these powerful animals. Besides buffaloes, the prairies abound with wolves; and of these

animals the buffaloes, when herded together, appear to have very little dread, and allow them to approach very nearly. The Indian, knowing this fact, covers himself with the skin of a wolf, drawing the head over his own shoulders, and, armed with the short, sinewy bow, and a handful of arrows, crawls towards the herd on his hands and knees, until he approaches within a few rods of the unsuspecting group, and easily shoots down the fattest of the throng.

THE ASHANTEE CHIEF.

To compare the manners and customs of different nations, the countries which they inhabit, their climates and productions, is always interesting; and we have here as great a contrast as could well be imagined, to the fur-clad dwellers among the snow-plains and icebergs of Boothia Felix, in the fiery Ashantee, from the burning coast of Africa.

The land of Ashantee forms the northern shore of the Gulph of Guinea, into which its numerous rivers "roll down the golden sand.” The deep shade of huge forests overhangs their banks, beneath which lurks many a monster of the deep:—the huge hippopotamus, the cruel and crafty

alligator, and, deadlier still than any living foe, the fatal African fever.

There, as the night, chilly with heavy dews, gives way to morning, a stifling and sulphureous mist rises from the river's slime, and from the immense accumulation of the quickly-decaying vegetation; it creeps along the valleys and the courses of the streams, until drawn upwards by the increasing heat; and then the fierce sun of the tropics beats upon the fevered head of the fated traveller. Day fades at once into darkness, without the gradual twilight of our temperate zone, and, with night, again returns the cold and aguish dew. Oh, it is indeed a horrible climate for Europeans, and well has the coast of Central Africa merited the name of "The White Man's Grave!" And we are apt to wonder how it is possible that man can inhabit such a land, and that he does not abandon it to the wild beasts which prowl and roar around his villages at night, and lie hid in the depths of gloomy woods by day. Not so, however, does the Ashantee chief

think of his country; for He whose command, in the early days of man's creation, was, "to replenish the earth and subdue it," has implanted in the human breast an instinctive attachment to the country of our birth; and having spread abroad the sons of men over all quarters of the globe, has given them a capacity for happiness under all climes, which perpetuates and ensures the fulfilment of His original command.

But we must not leave the Ashantee chief without a little more information about him and his father-land. The interior is not nearly so unhealthy as the coasts, although even there immense forests cover the face of the country, which becomes mountainous as we proceed inland. The trees are of stupendous growth, and of endless variety: the gigantic boabab-the mangrove and the palm, mingled with a wild entanglement of thorny underwood, skirt the margins of the rivers: the elegant tuliptree, aloes, and citrons, of various kinds, and whole forests of trees, elsewhere unknown, diversify the interior. The