We employ besides a
much more effectual method of uniting them to us, and that is, by the
intermarriages of our people with the savage-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.
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