Читать книгу The Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in Europe - George Catlin - Страница 18

“As a work intended merely for general amusement, and independently of the higher object to which it is devoted, Mr. Catlin’s book will be found exceedingly interesting. The salient or rugged points of its style have not been smoothed down by any literary journeyman. Mr. Catlin ventures alone and unaided before the public. What he has seen in the prairie, and noted down in its solitude, he sends forth, with all the wildness and freshness of nature about it. This, together with his free and easy conversational style, plentifully sprinkled with Americanisms, gives a peculiar charm to his descriptions, which are not merely animated or life-like, but life itself. The reader is made to believe himself in the desert, or lying among friendly Indians in the wigwam, or hurried along in the excitement of the chase. He is constantly surrounded by the figures of the red man, and hears the rustle of their feathers, or the dash of their half-tamed steeds as they bound by him.

“The work is ornamented with hundreds of engravings, taken from original pictures drawn by Mr. Catlin, of the persons, manners, customs, and scenes that he met with in his wanderings. They give an additional value to those volumes which are published, as the title-page informs us, by Mr. Catlin himself, at the Egyptian Hall. We wish him all the success to which his candour no less than his talents fully entitle him.”