LAHONTAN. 241 



Tribes inhabiting that region, the character of their Governments, 

 their Conimerce, their Customs, their Religion and their mode of War- 

 fare. Also the interest which the French and English have in com- 

 mercial dealings with those Tribes ; the advantage which England has 

 it in her power to gain in that country, when at war with France. The 

 whole enriched with Maps and Engravings. The Hague. L'Honor6, 

 Brothers, Merchant Booksellers. 1703." The work is in two volumes, 

 small 12mo. On the title page is L'Honore's device, a winged Fame, 

 seated amidst symbols of learning and science, presenting a wreath : 

 the whole surrounded by the legend, which is a play on the publisher's 

 name, Honoratus que virlutem Honorat. A mysterious double 

 frontispiece precedes : one side gives a globe floating in space, with a 

 swallow flying; and the legend Orhis Patria : the other shows an 

 Indian, bearing an arrow and bow, and setting his right foot on a crown 

 and sceptre, and his left on a clasped volume : above is the legend 

 Et leges et scepi?'a terit. All this is to give a hint (1) of the cosmopoli- 

 tanism ; (2) of the admiration of the free and independent " savage "^ 

 character, aflFected by the author. 



The work itself is perhaps of no very great intrinsic value. Most 

 of its solid information could be gleaned, if necessary, from other 

 existing sources, contemporary or anterior in time. I think the book 

 was brought out somewhat as we see books brought out occasionally 

 now. It was a narrative which the publisher and author thought 

 would sell, in consequence of the situation of European affairs at the 

 moment. 



War had recently been declared between France and England. Not 

 only on the continent of Europe were the troops of William III. and 

 Louis XIV. in active ^conflict, but collisions were taking place between 

 the conventional adherents of the two potentates in the remote world 

 of North America ; and here was a writer coming forward fresh from 

 the scene of action ; one who had actually taken part in the hostile 

 operations on the western side of the Atlantic. 



The maps and engravings with which the volumes were *• enriched" 

 look, at the present day, sufficiently rude and quaint. In the English 

 edition the author complains of the mistakes of the Dutch engravers, 

 in the illustrations of the edition published at the Hague. He says : 

 "I have corrected almost all the cuts of the Holland impression, for 

 the Dutch gravers had murdered them, by not understanding their 

 explications, which were all in French, They have graved women for 

 4 



