294 CANADIAN NIGHTS 



usually devoted to sleep. I might have carried 

 you with me to Newfoundland, to stalk cariboo 

 on the great barrens, and taken you on snow-shoes 

 in the winter to track moose upon the hardwood 

 ridges, when the forest is more glorious perhaps 

 even than in the fall. I could have shovm you 

 glimpses of primitive life among the French- 

 speaking ' habitants ' of Lower Quebec and the 

 simple Celtic, Gaelic-speaking population of eastern 

 Nova Scotia, and given you a peep into lumber 

 camps and birch-bark wigwams, and talked much 

 to you about Indians — that strange race, which, 

 even when it shall have entirely disappeared, will 

 have left an enduring mark behind it. Civilised 

 nations have passed and left no sign ; but the 

 Indian will be remembered by two things at 

 least — the birch-bark canoe, which no production 

 of the white man can equal for strength, lightness, 

 gracefulness, sea-going qualities, and carrying 

 capacity, and the snow-shoe, which appears to be 

 perfect in its form and, like a violin, incapable of 

 development or improvement. There are three 

 inventions which the ingenuity of man seems to 

 be unable to improve upon, and two of them are 

 the works of savages. They are the violin, snow- 

 shoes, and birch-bark canoes." 



