'30 Sketches of the 



behold a set of people with heads as round as piuupkins, 

 and because, if intended originally as a caricature, its merit 

 is very mean, from its failure in off-hand resemblance to 

 reality. 



It is difficult to say what are the distinguishing moral 

 traits which separate the T^te de Boulc tribe from other 

 Canadian Indians, and create them a peculiar race from 

 natural habits. So much has, and so ever will, an inter- 

 course with white traders tend to annihilate or deface the 

 delicate differences of Indian caste, only to be discerned 

 where 



" Man, a noble Savage, walks the woods." 



The general impression made upon my mind from 

 accounts of the mo&t apparently uninfluenced and natural 

 actions of the Tetes de Boule was unfavourable. Manifold 

 instances of rapine, treachery and murder in their social 

 intercourse were related to us with stoical indifi'erence by 

 our guides and other informants, who only seemed aston- 

 ished that we should expect to hear any thing better of a race 

 of people, which they themselves so much despise and look 

 down upon. The actions to which I allude were such as were 

 performed amongst themselves (of which 1 mean to relate 

 two or three in the sequel,) and rnay therefore be considered, 

 as rather more accurate tracings of their native savage 

 character, than excesses occasioned by immediate drunken- 

 ness, or conflicts between them and the emissaries of 

 trading posts may be supposed to exhibit. But few redeem- 

 ing traits were made known to us, nor can I call to mind 

 more than one instance which was calculated to convey an 

 impression of Indian single heartcdness or untutored kind- 

 ness such as wc often meet with in Hcarne and in the books 

 of other travellers, who have described tlic moie distatn 



