SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 49 and a little flat on top. Their features are regular. They have black eyes, and hair of the same color, coarse and straight. If one never sees those who are extremely fat, no more does he see those as thin as consumptives. The men are ordinarily better formed than the women. They are more sinewy and the women more fleshy. The men are all tall and the women of medium height, but both are well enough proportioned in figure and height, there being none, as in Europe, of gigantic stature or as short as dwarfs. I have seen a single person who was only 44 feet high and who, although well proportioned, dared not appear among the French until three or four years after their arrival, and then he would not have done so had not some Frenchmen accidentally dis- covered him.a Estimates of Indian character by white men are seldom satis- factory, being based on the standards current among whites at a certain place and time or colored by romantic or dogmatic consider- ations, yet it may be profitable at the outset to quote a few opinions of early writers regarding the tribe under discussion. It must not be supposed, however, that we shall find the Natchez much differ- ent from Indians in other parts of the North American continent. In fact, as Charlevoix very well remarks, the only striking distinction was in their social organization and government. Iberville, whose familiarity with Indians was that of a soldier, lets fall an opinion of the people in commenting on the great chief of the Natchez of his time (1700) : .This chief is a man 5 feet 3 or 4 inches tall, rather thin, with an intelligent face. He appeared to me the most absolute savage I had seen, as beggarly as others, as well as his subjects, all of whom were large, well-formed men, very idle, but showing much friendship toward us.b Gravier, who descended the river the same year, gives the verdict of the priest as follows: The Natches, Mr. St. Cosine assured me, are far from being as docile as the Tounlka. They practice polygamy, steal, and are very vicious, the girls and women more than the men and boys, among whom there is much to reform before anything can be expected of them.0 St. Cosme writes: One is persuaded that they are all thieves and try only to do harm, and that if they had no fear they would kill a man in order to get his knife." , De la Vente's opinion is more optimistic, however. He says: It seems to me that there remains yet among these barbarous people ex- cellent remnants of that beautiful natural law that God engraved on the heart of men in the state of innocence.e ITnion reigns to such an extent among them that not only d6es one see no lawsuit among them, but they even receive in common the outrages perpe- trated upon a single person and the village, even if it perishes entirely, will a Du Pratz, Ilist. de La Louisiane, II, 308-309. 'Margry, Decouvertes, Iv, 412, 1880. c Shea, Early Voy. Miss., 136, 1861. d Letter of Oct. 21, 1702, in Compte Rendu Cong. Internat. des Amer., 15th sess., I, 45-46. SLetter of De la Vente, July 4, 1708, ibid., I, 45. 83220-Bull. 43-10---4