78 THE FRENCH, ENGLISH, AND INDIANS. [1625-1750. 



did not become French, but the French became 

 savages. Hundreds betook themselves to the forest, 

 never more to return. These outflowings of French 

 civilization were merged in the waste of barbarism, 

 as a river is lost in the sands of the desert. The 

 wandering Frenchman chose a wife or a concu- 

 bine among his Indian friends ; and, in a few 

 generations, scarcely a tribe of the west was free 

 from an infusion of Celtic blood. The French 

 empire in x^merica could exhibit among its subjects 

 every shade of color from white to red, every gra- 

 dation of culture from the highest civilization of 

 Paris to the rudest barbarism of the wigwam. 



The fur-trade engendered a peculiar class of 

 men, known by the appropriate name of bush- 

 rangers, or coureitrs de hois^ half-civilized vagrants, 

 whose chief vocation was conducting the canoes of 

 the traders along the lakes and rivers of the interior ; 

 many of them, however, shaking loose every tie of 

 blood and kindred, identified themselves with the 

 Indians, and sank into utter barbarism. In many 

 a squalid camp among the plains and forests of 

 the west, the traveller would have encountered 

 men owning the blood and speaking the language 

 of France, yet, in their swarthy visages and bar- 

 barous costume, seeming more akin to those with 

 whom they had cast their lot. The renegade of 

 civilization caught the habits and imbibed the pre- 

 judices of his chosen associates. He loved to 

 decorate his long hair with eagle feathers, to make 

 his face hideous with vermilion, ochre, and soot, 

 and to adorn his greasy hunting frock with horse- 



