But it is not only men that have taken this passion for a savage life;
there have been, though much rarer, examples of our women going into it.
It is not many years since a very pretty French girl ran away into the
woods with a handsome young savage, who married her after his country
fashion. Her friends found out the village, or rather ambulatory tribe
into which she had got; but no persuasions, or instances, could prevail
on her to return and leave her savage, nor on him to content to it; so
that the government not caring to employ force, for fear of disobliging
the nation of them, even acquiesced in her continuance amongst them,
where she remains to this day, but worshipped like a little divinity,
or, at least, as a being superior to the rest of their women. Possibly
too she is not, in fact, so unhappy, as her choice would make one think
she must be; and if opinion constitutes happiness, she certainly is not
so.
There are not wanting here, who defend this strange attachment of some
of their countrymen to this savage life, on principles independent of
the reason of state, for encouraging its subjects to spread and gain
footing amongst the savage nations, by resorting to their country, of
which they, at the same time, gain a knowledge useful to future
enterprizes, by a winning conformity to their actions, and by
intermarriages with them.
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