INDIAN TRADE. 265 



around the various resorts and islands from Quebec to Belle Isle. 

 These Indians are seldom if ever worth over a few hundred dollars, 

 their furs are not abundant, they themselves being thus obliged to 

 eke out a miserable existence, starving to death in the winter to 

 procure food for their families, and secure enough furs to pay for 

 their summer's provisions, at which season they are usually obliged 

 to glut themselves to gain sufficient strength to pursue their hunt- 

 ing the next winter, else they would surely starve and die in the 

 midst of plenty, from their previous winter's want. 



Another great source of misery to the Indians is credit. This 

 effectually bars them from enterprise, and prevents their advance- 

 ment in every possible respect. They cannot consider themselves 

 free when once they have become involved to any trader or dealer. 

 The uncertainty of their business makes it all the worse. If a year 

 comes when game is scarce, and little fur can be obtained, they 

 come from the interior disheartened, for who will give them pro- 

 visions if they have no furs ? At last some one furnishes them with 

 enough provisions, to keep them from starving, on credit of the next 

 winter's "catch." These are soon eaten up, and the same trader 

 finds himself obliged, to save himself, to fit them out for the coming 

 winter, with the proviso that he shall be paid from the results of 

 that catch. The Indians are obhged to promise or starve. The 

 next year is a poor year also. The Indians take little fur, and, 

 knowing that if they go to the trader who fitted them out they must 

 give him all they have with no prospect of any return, they come 

 to some other part of the coast, and try the same experiment with 

 another party; thus they go from place to place, leaving debts 

 wherever they go, with no prospect of ever paying them, and the 

 fear that soon every avenue will be blocked to their approach. The 

 traders, equally in despair, are but just opening their eyes to the 

 situation, and finding the only solution of the difficulty in a com- 

 promise in which each side shares. 



When the ice breaks up in the spring, usually the last of May, 

 the Indians seek the coast with their furs to trade and to recuperate. 

 Many of the traders practise all sorts of arts whereby to deceive 



