Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 141 



a kind of backwoods pankrdtion, no less revolting 

 than its ancient prototype of Olympic fame. Yet, 

 if the uncouth borderers were as brutal as the highly 

 polished Greeks, they were more manly; defeat was 

 not necessarily considered disgrace, a man often 

 fighting when he was certain to be beaten, while the 

 onlookers neither hooted nor pelted the conquered. 

 We first hear of the noted scout and Indian fighter, 

 Simon Kenton, as leaving a rival for dead after one 

 of these ferocious duels, and fleeing from his home 

 in terror of the punishment that might follow the 

 deed. 36 Such fights were specially frequent when 

 the backwoodsmen went into the little frontier towns 

 to see horse races or fairs. 



A wedding was always a time of festival. If 

 there was a church anywhere near, the bride rode 



36 McClung's "Western Adventures." All Eastern and Eu- 

 ropean observers comment with horror on the border brawls, 

 especially Mie eye-gouging. Englishmen, of course, in true 

 provincial spirit, complacently contrasted them with their 

 own boxing fights ; Frenchmen, equally of course, were more 

 struck by the resemblances than the differences between the 

 two forms of combat. Milfort gives a very amusing account 

 of the "Anglo-Americains d'une espece particuliere," whom 

 he calls "crakeurs ou gaugeurs," (crackers or gougers). 

 He remarks that he found them "tous borgnes," (as a result 

 of their pleasant fashion of eye-gouging a backwoods bully 

 in speaking of another would often threaten to "measure the 

 length of his eye-strings,") and that he doubts if there can 

 exist in the world "des hommes plus mediants que ces habi- 

 tants." 



These fights were among the numerous backwoods habits 

 that showed Scotch rather than English ancestry. "I at- 

 tempted to keep him down, in order to improve my success, 

 after the manner of my own country" ("Roderick Random"). 



