y tumbling and tossing the straw about, it was
recovered, stuck on, and bandaged, as best the drunken people could,
in hopes it would grow again" (Alexander Henry, jun.).

* * * * *

As regards drunkenness, several authors among the early explorers
declared that the French Canadian voyageurs were more disagreeable
when drunk even than the Amerindians, for their quarrels were noisier
and more deadly. "Indeed I had rather have fifty drunken Indians in
the fort than sixty-five drunken Canadians", writes Alexander Henry in
1810. And yet the extracts I have given from his journal show that it
would be hard to beat the Amerindians for disagreeable ferocity when
intoxicated.

Henry, summing up his experiences before leaving for the Pacific coast
in 1811, writes these remarks in his diary:--

"What a different set of people they would be, were there not a drop
of liquor in the country! If a murder is committed among the Saulteurs
(Ojibwes), it is always in a drinking match. We may truly say that
liquor is the root of all evil in the north-west. Great bawling and
lamentation went on, and I was troubled most of the night for liquor
to wash away grief."

As a rule, the treatment of the Amerindians by the British and French
settlers was good, except the thrusting of alcohol on them. But in
Newfoundland a great crime was perpetrated. Between the middle of the
seventeenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries the British
fishermen and settlers on the coasts of Newfoundland had _destroyed_
the native population of Beothik Indians.

Before the English arrived on the coasts of Newfoundland the Beothiks
lived an ideal life for savages. They were well clothed with beasts'
skins, and in the winter these were supplemented by heavy fur robes.
Countless herds of reindeer roamed through the interior, passing from
north to south in the autumn and returning in the spring. Vast flocks
of willow grouse (like ptarmigan) were everywhere to be met with; the
many lakes were covered with geese, swans, and ducks. The woods were
full of pigeons; the salmon swarmed up the rivers to breed; the sea
round the coasts was--except in the wintertime--the richest fishery in
the world. They caught lobsters in the rock pools, and speared or
clubbed seals and great walruses for their flesh and oil. An
occasional whale provided them with oil, blubber, and meat. The Great
Auk--which could not fly--swarmed in millions on the