Pleased
with the manners and customs and native nobility of this tribe of
Indians, the Prince remained with them for a considerable time, and
eventually decided that he would return once more to his country, now
that his term of banishment had expired; not to resettle in an
ungrateful land, but to collect his property and return to the
Shoshones, to employ it for their benefit and advancement.
There was, perhaps, another feeling, even more powerful, which induced
the Prince Seravalle to return to the Indians with whom he had lived so
long. I refer to the charms and attraction which a wild life offers to
the man of civilization, more particularly when he has discovered how
hollow and heartless we become under refinement.
Not one Indian who has been brought up at school, and among the
pleasures and luxuries of a great city, has ever wished to make his
dwelling among the pale faces; while, on the contrary, many thousands of
white men, from the highest to the lowest stations in civilization, have
embraced the life of the savage, remaining with and dying among them,
although they might have accumulated wealth, and returned to their
own country.
This appears strange, but it is nevertheless true. Any intelligent
traveller, who has remained a few weeks in the wigwams of well-disposed
Indians, will acknowledge that the feeling was strong upon him even
during so short a residence.
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