elrs of 



IN the following extracts from that delightful work, " As- 

 toria," by Washington Irving, we have a characteristic ac- 

 count of the Canadian rangers of the woods as well as of the 

 fur trade. " It was the fur trade, in fact, which gave early 

 sustenance and vitality to the great Canadian provinces. Be- 

 ing destitute of the precious metals, at that time the leading 

 objects of American enterprize, they were long neglected by 

 the parent country. The French adventurers, however, who 

 had settled on the banks of St Lawrence, soon found that, in 

 the rich peltries of the interior, they had sources of wealth 

 that might almost rival the mines of Mexico and Peru. The 

 Indians, as yet unacquainted with the artificial value given 

 to some descriptions of furs, in civilized life, brought quanti- 

 ties of the most precious kinds and bartered them away for 

 European trinkets and cheap commodities. * * 



36* (425) 



