Note 204 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
"Generally speaking, the American races of mankind were characterized by a want of domestic animals, and this had considerable influence on their domestic life." (Cosmos, note, vol. ii., p. 481.) Contrasting the Bedouin with the Red Indian, Volney observes, "the American savage is, on the contrary, a hunter and a butcher, who has had daily occasion to kill and slay, and in every animal has beheld nothing but a fugitive prey, which he must be quick to seize. He has thus acquired a roaming, wasteful, and ferocious disposition; has become an animal of the same kind with the wolf and tiger; has united in bands or troops, but not into organized societies."