36 INDIAN TRIBES. [Chap. I. 



ness, then, bearing their frail dwellings on their 

 backs, the Ojibwa family wander forth into the 

 wilderness, cheered only on their dreary track by 

 the whistling of the north wind, and the hungry 

 howl of wolves. By the banks of some frozen 

 stream, women and children, men and dogs, lie 

 crouched together around the fire. They spread 

 their benumbed fingers over the embers, while the 

 wind shrieks through the fir-trees like the gale 

 through the rigging of a frigate, and the narrow 

 concave of the wigwam sparkles with the frost- 

 work of their congealed breath. In vain they beat 

 the magic drum, and call upon their guardian man- 

 itoes ; — the wary moose keeps aloof, the bear lies 

 close in his hollow tree, and famine stares them in 

 the face. And now the hunter can fight no more 

 against the nipping cold and blinding sleet. Stiff 

 and stark, with haggard cheek and shrivelled lip, 

 he lies among the snow drifts ; till, with tooth and 

 claw, the famished wildcat strives in vain to pierce 

 the frigid marble of his limbs. Such harsh school- 

 ing is thrown away on the incorrigible mind of the 

 northern Algonquin. He lives in misery, as his 

 fathers lived before him. Still, in the brief hour 

 of plenty he forgets the season of want ; and still 

 the sleet and the snow descend upon his houseless 

 head.^ 



I have thus passed in brief review the more prom- 



1 See Tanner, Long, and Henry. A comparison of Tanner with the 

 accounts of the Jesuit Le Jeune will show that Algonquin life in Lower 

 Canada, two hundred years ago, was essentially the same with Algonquin 

 life on the Upper Lakes within the last half century. 



