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.
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