Macaulay says of Britain: "Her
inhabitants, when first they became known to the Tyrian mariners, were
little superior to the natives of the Sandwich Islands." And again:
"While the German princes who reigned at Paris, Toledo, Aries and
Ravenna listened with reverence to the instructions of bishops, adored
the relics of martyrs, and took part eagerly in disputes touching the
Nicene theology, the rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still performing
savage rites in the temples of Thor and Woden."
The days of the Dakotas are done. The degenerate remnants of that once
powerful and warlike people still linger around the forts and agencies
of the Northwest, or chase the caribou and the elk on the banks of the
Saskatchewan, but the Dakotas of old are no more. The brilliant defeat
of Custer, by Sitting Bull and his braves, was their last grand rally
against the resistless march of the sons of the Saxons. The plow-shares
of a superior race are fast leveling the sacred mounds of their dead.
But yesterday, the shores of our lakes and our rivers were dotted with
their _teepees,_ their light canoes glided over our waters, and their
hunters chased the deer and the buffalo on the sites of our cities.
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