s inhabitants are of small
stature and dark complexion. As late as 1607 the fable was repeated in
the Histoire Unicerselle des Indes Occidentales.]

[Footnote 28: Such extempore works of defence are still used among some
tribes of the remote west. The author has twice seen them, made of trees
piled together as described by Champlain, probably by war parties of the
Crow or Snake Indians. Champlain, usually too concise, is very minute in
his description of the march and encampment.]

[Footnote 29: According to Lafitan, hoth bucklers and breastplates were
in frequent use among the Iroquois. The former were very large and made
of cedar wood covered with interwoven thongs of hide. The kindred nation
of the Hurons, says Sagard (Voyage des hlurens, 126-206), carried large
shields, and wore greaves for the legs and enirasses made of twigs
interwoven with cords. His account corresponds with that of Champlain,
who gives a wood-cut of a warrior thus armed.]

[Footnote 30: It has been erroneously asserted that the practice of
scalping did not prevail among the Indians before the advent of
Europeans. In 1535, Cartier saw five scalps at Quebec, dried and
stretched on hoops. In 1564, Laudonniere saw them among the Indians of
Florida. The Algonquins of New England and Nova Scotia were accustomed
to cut off and carry away the head, which they afterwards scalped. Those
of Canada, it seems, sometimes scalped dead bodies on the field. Thu
Algonquin practice of carrying off heads as trophies is mentioned by
Lalemant, Roger Williams, Lescarbot, and Champlain. Compare Historical
Magazine, First Series, V. 233.]

[Footnote 31: Traces of cannibalism may be found among most of the North
American tribes, though they are rarely very conspicuous. Sometimes the
practice arose, as in the present instance, from revenge or ferocity
sometimes it bore a religious character, as with the Miamis, among whom
there existed a secret religions fraternity of man-eaters sometimes the
heart of a brave enemy was devoured in the idea that it made the eater
brave. This last practice was common. The ferocious threat, used in
speaking of an enemy, "I will eat his heart," is by no means a mere
figure of speech. The roving hunter-tribes, in their winter wanderings,
were not infrequently impelled to cannibalism by famine.]

[Footnote 32: 1 The first white man to descend the rapids of St. Louis
was a youth named Louis, who, on the 10th of June, 1611, went with two
Ind