550 WASHINGTON IRVINo's ASTQKIA. 



we cannot refrain from exhibiting Mr. Irving's description of a bea- 

 ver-lrapper who came to seek his fortune among the new settlers. 



" Brugiere was of a class of beaver-trappers and hunters, technically called 

 freemen in the language of the traders. They are generally Canadians by 

 birth, and of French descent, who have been employed for a term of years by 

 some fur company, but their term being expired, continue to hunt and trap 

 on their own account, trading with the company like the Indians. Hence 

 they derive their appellation of freemen, to distinguish them from the trappers 

 who are bound for a number of years, and receive wages, or hunt on shares. 



" Having passed their early youth in the wilderness, separated almost entirely 

 from civilized man, and in frequent intercourse with the Indians, they lapse, 

 with a facility common to human nature, into the habitudes of savage life. 

 Though no longer bound by engagements to continue in the interior, they 

 have become so accustomed to the freedom of the forest and the prairie, that 

 they look back with repugnance upon the restraints of civilization. Most of 

 them intermarry with the natives, and, like the latter, have often a plurality of 

 wives. Wanderers of the wilderness, according to the vicissitudes of the sea- 

 sons, the migrations of animals, and the plenty or scarcity of game, they lead 

 a precarious and unsettled existence ; exposed to sun and storm, and all kinds 

 of hardships, until they resemble the Indians in complexion as well as in tastes 

 and habits. From time to time they bring the peltries they have collected to 

 the trading houses of the company in whose employ they have been brought 

 up. Here they traffic them away for such articles of merchandise or ammuni- 

 tion as they may stand in need of. At the time when Montreal was the great 

 emporium of the fur trade, one of these freemen of the wilderness would sud- 

 denly return after an absence of many years among his old friends and com- 

 rades. He would be greeted as one risen from the dead ; and with the greater 

 welcome, as he returned flush of money. A short time, however, spent in re- 

 velry, would be sufficient to drain his purse and sate him with civilized life, 

 and he would return with new relish to the unshackled freedom of the forest. 



" Numbers of men of this class were scattered throughout the north-west 

 territories. Some of them retained a little of the thrift and forethought of 

 the civilized man, and became wealthy among their improvident neighbours ; 

 their wealth being chiefly displayed in large bands of horses, which covered 

 the prairies in the vicinity of their abodes. Most of them, however, were 

 prone to assimilate to the red man in their heedlessness of the future." Vol. i. 

 pp. 194197- 



The land expedition up the Missouri (which by the way is prior 

 in point of the time of its commencement) was headed by Mr. Wilson 

 Price Hunt, the destined head of the Columbian colony a man of 

 great integrity and amiableness, but unfortunately not practically and 

 personally acquainted with the Indian trade ; and with him was as- 

 sociated Mr. Donald M'Kenzie, an experienced woodsman and Indian 

 trader. After engaging the requisite band of voyageurs and fitting 

 out a canoe, they set out from Montreal up the Ottowa to Michal- 

 mackinac, where they arrived on the 22d of July, 1810, and whence, 

 after sundry delays and annoyances that are wittily described by the 

 author, they set out on the 12th of August by the Fox and Wisconsin 

 rivers and down the Mississippi to St. Louis, which they reached on 

 the 3d of September. Here they first felt the opposition of the Mis- 

 souri Company a source of much subsequent annoyance. The party 

 proceeded up the Missouri in three boats, overcoming with patient 

 toil all those obstacles offered by the rapidity and turbulence of the 

 river; and on the 1 6th of November they arrived at the mouth of 



