to live among
Indians and make havoc of the wild beasts and birds that still abounded
in the region. Sometimes they would come to the cities, and return for a
brief time to the usages of civilized life. After their arrival, their
affectation was to despise such luxuries as chairs and beds. Of an
evening they spread blankets on the floor, and sat there with their
pipes and "fire-water," like gentle savages as they were. I have met
with several who, for the first few nights, declined to avail themselves
of either house or bed, resorting in preference to some open shed or
garden, where they wrapped themselves in their inevitable blankets, and
slept the sleep of wild men upon the hard ground, with their knives and
rifles at hand, ready to resist any attack that might be made upon them
by hostile tribes during the night. Once in the streets of a city I
remarked a couple of Indian stragglers, such as are common in Canadian
towns. They were dressed in blanket coats, handsomely ornamented, and
bound at the waist with sashes of gay colors, in which long knives and
tobacco-pouches of marten fur were stuck, and they smoked black pipes as
they strolled leisurely along. One of them was a Chippewa of the
half-breed stamp, and rather a good specimen of his caste. His
companion, who wore a Scotch bonnet, was far too light in complexion to
be an Indian, for, though his face was tanned to a healthy brown by
exposure to the weather, his hair, which fell down in long ringlets to
his shoulders, was of a fair, yellowish hue, and I observed, besides,
that he did not turn his toes inward when walking, as Indians invariably
do. On inquiry I found that this romantic young man was an English
baronet of moderate fortune, who had been living among the Indians at
the lake for two or three years. He had been a Guardsman in his time,
and a man about the clubs, and, having drained society to the dregs, had
taken to Canadian woods and waters as a change from the comforts and
inconveniences of too much civilization. Some time afterwards I saw him
again, but in far different guise. He was once more a swell, and was
driving a smart English "trap," with a handsome team, in the streets of
the same town. Not long after this he returned to England, I believe,
and is none the worse, probably, for his adventures by the shores of
the pleasant lake of the woods.

Farther down the St. Lawrence, where Lower Canada stretches away to the
northeast until it reaches mel