narrow strip of sea-coast. Against the Spaniards, there were even here
and there Indian nations who definitely recovered the ground they had
lost.

When the whites first landed, the superiority and, above all, the
novelty of their arms gave them a very great advantage. But the
Indians soon became accustomed to the new-comers' weapons and style of
warfare. By the time the English had consolidated the Atlantic
colonies under their rule, the Indians had become what they have
remained ever since, the most formidable savage foes ever encountered
by colonists of European stock. Relatively to their numbers, they have
shown themselves far more to be dreaded than the Zulus or even the
Maoris.

Their presence has caused the process of settlement to go on at
unequal rates of speed in different places; the flood has been hemmed
in at one point, or has been forced to flow round an island of native
population at another. Had the Indians been as helpless as the native
Australians were, the continent of North America would have had an
altogether different history. It would not only have been settled far
more rapidly, but also on very different lines. Not only have the red
men themselves kept back the settlements, but they have also had a
very great effect upon the outcome of the struggles between the
different intrusive European peoples. Had the original inhabitants of
the Mississippi valley been as numerous and unwarlike as the Aztecs,
de Soto would have repeated the work of Cortes, and we would very
possibly have been barred out of the greater portion of our present
domain. Had it not been for their Indian allies, it would have been
impossible for the French to prolong, as they did, their struggle with
their much more numerous English neighbors.