orefathers when
they came from France, and old pear-trees, of a kind unknown to the
Americans; but their fields often lay untilled, while the owners lolled
in the sunshine smoking their pipes. In consequence they were sometimes
brought to sore distress for food, being obliged to pluck their corn
while it was still green.[22]

The pursuits of the fur trader and fur trapper were far more congenial
to them, and it was upon these that they chiefly depended. The
half-savage life of toil, hardship, excitement, and long intervals of
idleness attracted them strongly. This was perhaps one among the reasons
why they got on so much better with the Indians than did the Americans,
who, wherever they went, made clearings and settlements, cut down the
trees, and drove off the game.

But even these pursuits were followed under the ancient customs and
usages of the country, leave to travel and trade being first obtained
from the commandant[23] for the rule of the commandant was almost
patriarchal. The inhabitants were utterly unacquainted with what the
Americans called liberty. When they passed under our rule, it was soon
found that it was impossible to make them understand such an institution
as trial by jury; they throve best under the form of government to which
they had been immemorially accustomed--a commandant to give them orders,
with a few troops to back him up.[24] They often sought to escape from
these orders, but rarely to defy them; their lawlessness was like the
lawlessness of children and savages; any disobedience was always to a
particular ordinance, not to the system.

The trader having obtained his permit, built his boats,--whether light,
roomy bateaux made of boards, or birch-bark canoes, or pirogues, which
were simply hollowed out logs. He loaded them with paint, powder,
bullets, blankets, beads, and rum, manned them with hardy voyageurs,
trained all their lives in the use of pole and paddle, and started off
up or down the Mississippi,[25] the Ohio, or the Wabash, perhaps making
a long carry or portage over into the Great Lakes. It took him weeks,
often months, to get to the first trading-point, usually some large
winter encampment of Indians. He might visit several of these, or stay
the whole winter through at one, buying the furs.[26] Many of the French
coureurs des bois, whose duty it was to traverse the wilderness, and who
were expert trappers, took up their abode with the Indians, taught them
how to catch the