OF THE POLAR SEA. 133 
should be ready to engage in any measure what- 
ever, that they are prompted to believe will forward 
the interests of the cause they espouse. Nor that 
the girls, taught a certain degree of refinement by 
the acquisition of an European language, should 
be inflamed by the unrestrained discourse of their 
Indian relations, and very early give up all pre- 
tensions to chastity. It is, however, but justice 
to remark, that there is a very decided difference 
in the conduct of the children of the Orkney men 
employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company and 
those of the Canadian voyagers. Some trouble 
is occasionally bestowed in teaching the former, 
and it is not thrown away; but all the good that 
can be said of the latter is, that they are not quite 
so licentious as their fathers are. 
~ Many of the half-breeds, both male and female, 
are baoagnt up amongst, and intermarry with, the 
Indians ; and there are few tents wherein the 
paler children of such marriages are not to be 
seen. It has been remarked, I do not know with 
what truth, that half-breeds shew more personal 
courage than the pure Crees * 
¢ A singular change takes place in the physical constitution of 
Indian females who become inmates of a fort ; namely, they bear 
children more frequently and longer, but, at the same time, are ren- 
dered liable to indurations of the mamme and prolapsus of the 
uterus ; evils from which they are, in a great measure, exempt 
‘they lead a wandering and laborious life. 
“ae 
any 
