age-women, which is a
circumstance that draws the ties of alliance closer. The children
produced by these are generally hardy, inured to the fatigues of the
chace and war, and turn out very serviceable subjects in their way.

But what is most amazing is, that though the savage-life has all the
appearance of being far from eligible, considering the fatigues, the
exposure to all weathers, the dearth of those articles which custom has
made a kind of necessaries of life to Europeans, and many other
inconveniencies to be met with in their vagabond course; yet it has such
charms for some of our native French, and even for some of them who have
been delicately bred, that, when once they have betaken themselves to it
young, there is hardly any reclaiming them from it, or inducing them to
return to a more civilized life. They prefer roving in the woods,
trusting to the chapter of accidents for their game which is their chief
support, and lying all night in a little temporary hut, patched up of a
few branches; to all the commodiousness they might find in towns, or
habitations, amongst their own countrymen. By degrees they lose all
relish for the European luxuries of life, and would not exchange for
them the enjoyments of that liberty, and faculty of wandering about, for
which, in the forests, they contract an invincible taste. A gun with
powder and ball, of which they purchase a continuation of supplies with
the skins of the beasts they kill, set them up. With these they mix
amongst the savages, where they get as many women as they please: some
of them are far from unhandsome, and fall into their way of life, with
as much passion and attachment, as if they had never known any other.

Mons. _Delorme_, whom you possibly may have seen in Rochelle, where he
had a small employ in the marine-department, brought over his son here,
a very hopeful youth, who had even some tincture of polite education,
and was not above thirteen years old, and partly from indulgence, partly
from a view of making him useful to the government, by his learning, at
that age, perfectly the savage language, he suffered him to go amongst
the savages. The young _Delorme_ would, indeed, sometimes return home
just on a visit to his family; but always expressed such an impatience,
or rather pining to get back again to them, that, though reluctantly,
the father was obliged to yield to it. No representations in short,
after some years, could ever prevail on him to reno