| 258 CONSTITUTION AND CHARACTER
dwelt on the Atlantic coast at the time, of the
first settlement of the country, represents them as
exceedingly grave and stolid in all their deportment,
and possessing very little sensibility of any
kind. Their power to endure hunger, cold, and
fatigue was surprising. This power was doubtless,
in a great degree, acquired by habit, and much of
their apparent insensibility was due to a feeling
prevalent among them that it was weak and un-
manly to complain. Still there seemed to be
something in their physical constitution which
gave them a greater power of endurance than
belongs to the Caucasian race. They felt cold and
hunger, and the pain of wounds, much less, and
could consequently endure much more, with the
same exercise of fortitude, than other men.
Indeed, we might have been almost certain tha
this would be so. The same kind and watchful
Providence which gives the eagle his astonishing
extent of vision, in order that he may have power
to survey the vast field over which he is to seek
his food, and enables the polar bear to sleep in
comfort on a floor of ice where mercury would
freeze, would surely not impart a delicate sensibility
to the organization of a man who was to live
by seeking his food in the winter in a howling
forest, with a certainty of often passing days with-
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