In its very nature this essay will partake largely of the element
of historical preciseness, and if it do not, I have so far failed to
gain my end. I have wished to introduce matter of a kind calculated to
relieve this, and to insure the escape of the essay from the charge of
a well-sustained dryness.
Of the humorous instinct of the Indian, as indulged toward his
fellow-Indian, I cannot speak with confidence; of the malign
operation upon myself of the same instinct, I can speak with somewhat
more exactness, and with somewhat saddening recollections. The cases,
indeed, where I have been exposed to the play of his humor exhibit him
in so superlatively complacent an aspect, and myself in so painfully
inglorious a one, that I refrain, nay shrink, from rehearsing the
discomposing circumstances. I should be pleased if I could call to mind
any instance which would convey some notion of the Indian's aptness in
this line, and yet not involve myself, but I cannot. I would say, in a
general way, that the Indian is a plausible being, and one needs to be
wary with him, and not too loth to suspect him of meditating some dire
practical joke, which shall issue in the utter confusion and discomfiture
of its victim, whilst its author shall appropriate the main comfort and
jubilation. Though the Indian, perhaps, does not conceive these in the
determinedly hostile spirit with which the Mohometan who seeks to compass
the Christian's undoing is credited, there is yet such striking accord
in the two cases, so far as exultant approval of the issue is concerned,
that I am disposed to look upon his creed in this respect as a modified
Mahometanism. I could relate many instances, affecting myself, where
trustfulness has incurred payment in this coin, but, having no desire
to stimulate the Indian's existing proneness to practical joking, I stay
my hand at further mention of the peculiarity.