213 



they answered my questions respecting it, convinced 

 me ttiat it was no unusual custom. I have known men 

 advanced in years, wliose wives were old and past 

 child bearing, take young wives, and have children, 

 though the practice of polygamy is not common. — Does 

 this savour of frigidity, or want of ardour for the fe- 

 male ? Neither do thoy seem to be deficient in natural 

 affection. 1 have seen both fathers and mothers in the 

 deepest affliction, when their children have been dan- 

 gerously ill ; though I believe the affection is stronger 

 in the descending than the ascending scale, and though 

 custom forbids a father to grieve inmioderately for a 

 son slain in battle. ' That they are timorous and cow- 

 ardly,' is a character with which there is little reason 

 to charge them, when we recollect the manner in which 



the Iroquois met Mons. , who marched into their 



country, in which the old men, who scorned to fly, or 

 to survive the capture of their town, braved death, like 

 the old Romans in the time of the Gauls, and in which 

 they soon after revenged themselves by sacking and de- 

 stroying iMontreal. But above all, the unshaken forti- 

 tude with which they bear the most excruciating tor- 

 tures and death when taken prisoners, ought to exempt 

 them from that character. Much less are they to be char- 

 acterised as a people of no vivacity, and who are ex- 

 cited to action or motion only by the calls of hunger 

 and thirst. Their dances in which they so much delight, 

 and which to an European would be the most severe 

 exercise, fully contradict this, not to mention their fa- 

 tiguing marches, and the toil they voluntarily and cheer- 

 fully undergo in their military ex[)editions. It is true, 

 that when at home, they do not employ themselves in 

 labour or the culture of the soil ; but this again is the 

 effect of customs and manners, which have assigned 

 that to the province of the women. — Hut it is said,tJiey 

 are averse to society and a social life. Can any thing 

 be more inapplicable than this to a peoj)le who always 

 live in towns or clans ? Or can they be said to have no 

 'republic,' who conduct all their affairs in national 

 councils, who pride themselves in their national charac- 

 ter, who consider an insult or injury done to an iodi- 



