Their mode of life rendered
them healthy, hardy, arid good-humoured, with a strong dash of
recklessness--perhaps too much of it--in some of the younger men.
Being descended, generally, from French-Canadian sires and Indian
mothers, they united some of the good and not a few of the bad
qualities of both, mentally as well as physically--combining the
light, gay-hearted spirit and full, muscular frame of the Canadian
with the fierce passions and active habits of the Indian. And this
wildness of disposition was not a little fostered by the nature of
their usual occupations. They were employed during a great part of
the year in navigating the Hudson's Bay Company's boats, laden with
furs and goods, through the labyrinth of rivers and lakes that stud
and intersect the whole continent, or they were engaged in pursuit of
the bisons, [Footnote: These animals are always called buffaloes by
American hunters and fur-traders.] which roam the prairies in vast
herds.
They were dressed in the costume of the country: most of them wore
light-blue cloth capotes, girded tightly round them', by scarlet or
crimson worsted belts. Some of them had blue and others scarlet cloth
leggings, ornamented more or less with stained porcupine quills,
coloured silk, or variegated beads; while some might be seen clad in
the leathern coats of winter--deer-skin dressed like chamois leather,
fringed all round with little tails, and ornamented much in the same
way as those already described.
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