340 



FUR TRADE FUSIJLI. 



The course of a trailer in the North-west is this : 

 He starts from Michilimackiiiac, or St Louis, late in 

 the summer, with a Mackinac boat, laden with 

 goods. He takes with him an interpreter, com- 

 monly a half breed, and four or five engages. On 

 his arrival at his wintering ground, his men build a 

 store for the goods, an apartment for him, and 

 another for themselves. These buildings are of 

 rough logs, plastered with mud, and roofed with ash 

 or linden slabs. The chimneys are of clay. Though 

 rude in appearance, there is much comfort in them. 

 This done, the trader gives a great portion of his 

 merchandise to the Indians, on credit. These 

 credits are from 5 to 50 in amount, according to 

 the reputation of tin- applicant as a hunter. It is 

 expected that the debtor will pay in the following 

 spring, though, as many neglect this part of the 

 business, the trader is compelled to rate his goods 

 very high. Thus the honest pay for the dishonest. 



Ardent spirits were never much used among the 

 remote tribes. It is only on the frontier, in the im- 

 mediate vicinity of the white settlers, that the 

 Indians get enough to do them physical injury, 

 though, in the interior, the traders, in the heat of 

 opposition, employ strong liquors to induce the 

 savages to commit outrage or to defraud their 

 creditors. By this means, the moral principle of the 

 aborigines is overcome, and often destroyed. Spirit 

 is commonly introduced into their country in the 

 form of high wines, they being less bulky, and 

 easier of transportation, than liquors of lower proof. 

 Indians, after having once tasted, become extrava- 

 gantly fond of them, and will make any sacrifice, or 

 commit any crime, to obtain them. 



An interpreter is necessary to a fur trader, whether 

 he speaks the language of the tribe with which he 

 deals himself, or not. It is the duty of an inter- 

 preter to take charge of the house, and carry on the 

 business in the absence of the principal. He also 

 visits the camps, and watches the debtors. Those 

 traders who are employed in the service of a com- 

 pany, as, for instance, the North American, are 

 called clerks, though they seldom use the pen. 

 Many of them cannot write or read. They receive 

 from .60 to 140 per annum, each. 



Some traders venture into the Indian country on 

 their own account ; but are usually overcome by the 

 opposition of the established companies, whose ser- 

 vants employ every means to ruin them. 



In the region of prairie, dog sledges are used for 

 transportation in the winter. The sledge is merely 

 a flat board turned up in front, like the runner of a 

 sleigh. The dogs are harnessed and driven tandem, 

 and their strength and powers of endurance are very 

 great. 



The laws regulating intercourse with the Indians 

 require the traders to remain in their houses, and not 

 to visit the Indians in their camps ; but they are 

 universally disregarded. It is better for the savage 

 that they should be. Traders are always better clad 

 and provided for travelling than Indians, and the 

 latter are saved from the danger and hardship of 

 exposure in the open prairie in winter. The com- 

 petition that naturally results from the practice, is 

 of advantage to them, as they get their wants sup- 

 plied cheaper and more easily. Those Indians who 

 have substituted articles of European manufacture, 

 for their primitive arms and vestments, are wholly 

 dependent on the whites for the means of life, and an 

 embargo on the trade is the greatest evil that can 

 befall them. Did our limit* permit, we could adduce 

 instances. The fur trade demoralizes all engaged in 

 it. The way in which it operates on the Indians has 

 been already partially explained. As to the traders, 

 they arc, generally, ignorant men, in whose breasts 



interest overcomes religion and morals. As they ore 

 beyond the reach of law (at least, in the remote 

 regions), they disregard it, and often commit or 

 instigate actions that they would blush to avow in 

 civilized society. Most of them are connected with 

 Indian women, after the custom of the country. 



In consequence of the fur trade, the bufi'alo has 

 receded hundreds of miles beyond his former haunts. 

 Formerly, an Indian killed a buffalo, made garments 

 of the skin, and fed on the flesh while it lasted. 

 Now, he finds that a blanket is lighter and more con 

 venient than a buffalo robe, ana kills two or three 

 animals, with whose skins he may purcliase it. To 

 procure a gun, he must kill ten. The same causes 

 operate to destroy the other animals. Some few 

 tribes, the Ottaways for example, hunt on the differ- 

 ent parts of their domains alternately, and so pre- 

 serve the game. But by far the greater part of the 

 aborigines have no such regulation. The fur-clad 

 animals are now to be found in abundance only in the 

 far north, where the rigour of the climate and the 

 difficulty of transportation prevent the free access of 

 the traders, and on the Upper Missouri, and towards 

 the Rocky mountains. In the last mentioned of 

 these retreats, the enterprise of the West is rapidly 

 exterminating them ; and the time is not, probably, 

 far distant, when the fur trade will be spoken of as a 

 thing that has existed within the territory of the 

 United States. 



FURZE, (ulex Europeeus) is a low, shrubby plant, 

 very hardy, and very abundant in barren soils 

 throughout the west of Europe. It belongs to tlit; 

 natural order leguminosee. The stem is two or three 

 feet high, very much branched, and the branches 

 spiny at the summit ; the leaves, simple ; the calyx, 

 persistent, bipartite ; the flowers, solitary and yellow; 

 the fruit consists of an inflated hairy pod, scarcely 

 longer than the calyx. It often covers, exclusively, 

 large tracts of country, and makes a splendid appear- 

 ance when in flower. In barren, sandy soils, this 

 plant is cultivated with advantage for fodder, as it 

 affords green succulent food throughout the winter, 

 when no other can be obtained. Horses appear to be 

 particularly fond of it ; but for cattle, it is necessary 

 first to bruise it, which is accomplished by a machine 

 constructed on the principle of the cider-mill. Furze, 

 or whin, as it is sometimes called, is also sometimes 

 used for fuel. This plant is exceedingly difficult of 

 extirpation when it has once obtained possession. 



FUSELI, HENRY, second son of John Gaspare! 

 Fuessli, which is the more correct way of spelling 

 the family name, is supposed to have been born in 

 1739, at Zurich, where his father at that period resided. 

 An extensive collection of prints, to which he had 

 access in his youth, first inspired him with a strong 

 inclination to practise painting as a profession, 

 contrary to the wishes of his father, who was anxious 

 to see him in the church. Many of these were copies 

 from the works of Michael Angelo, with whose pecu- 

 liar merits and style the young artist was more espe- 

 cially struck : he made that great master ever after 

 his principal model. Being placed, in pursuance of 

 the views which his father entertained for him, at 

 the Humanity college, he there contracted a friend- 

 ship with the celebrated Lavater. The two friends 

 distinguished themselves by the zeal and ability which 

 they displayed in bringing to justice a leading magis- 

 trate in one of the bailiwicks of Zurich, who had 

 committed an act of glaring oppression, relying on his 

 wealth and connexions to secure him with impunity. 

 A pamphlet which appeared from the pens of Fuseli 

 and Lavater compelled the superior authorities to 

 take the matter up, and the culprit absconded rather 

 than face the consequent investigation. But although 

 thus far triumphant, the secret enmity which this 



