THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON'S BAY TERRITORIES. 



313 



want into which their improvidence too often j^hmges them ; and the example 

 of an inflexible straightforwardness serves to gain their confidence. This moral 

 preponderance, and the admiration of the Indian for the superior knowledge 

 and arts of the Europeans, explain how a mere handful of white men, scattered 

 over an enormous territory, not only lead a life of perfect security, but exercise 

 an almost absolute power over a native population outnumbering them at least 

 several hundred times. The Indians have in course of time acquired many new 

 wants, and have thus become more and more dependent on the white traders. 

 The savage hunter is no longer the free, self-dependent man, who, without any 

 foreign assistance, was able to make and manufacture, with his own hands, all 

 the weapons and articles needed for his maintenance. Without English tire- 

 arms and fishing-gear, without iron- ware and woollen blankets, he could no long- 

 er exist, and the unfortunate tribe on which the Company should close its stores 

 would soon perish for want. " History," says Professor Hind, does not fur- 

 nish another example of an association of private individuals exerting a power- 

 ful influence over so large an extent of the earth's surface, and administering 

 their affairs with such consummate skill and unwavering devotion to the origi- 

 nal objects of their incorporation." 



The standard of exchange in all mercantile transactions with the natives is a 

 beaver skin, the relative value of which, as originally established by the traders, 

 differs considerably from the present worth of the articles represented by it ; 

 but the Indians are averse to change. They receive their principal outfit of 

 clothing and ammunition on credit in the autumn, to be repaid by their winter 

 hunts ; the amount intrusted to each of the hunters varying with their reputa- 

 tions for industry and skill. 



The furs which, in the course of the year, are accumulated in the various 

 forts or trading-stations, are transported in the short time during which the 

 rivers and lakes are navigable, and in the manner described at the beginning of 

 the chapter, to York Factory, or Moose Factory, on Hudson's Bay, to Montreal 

 or Vancouver, and shipped from thence mostly to London. From the more 

 distant posts in the interior, the transport often requires several seasons; for 

 travelling is necessarily very slow when rapids and portages continually inter- 

 rupt navigation, and the long winter puts a stop to all intercourse whatever. 



The goods from Europe, consisting (besides those mentioned above) of 

 printed cotton or silk handkerchiefs, or neck-cloths, of beads, and the universal 

 favorite tobacco, require at least as much time to find their way into the distant 

 interior ; and thus the Company is not seldom obliged to wait for four, five, 

 or six years before it receives its returns for the articles sent from London. 

 It must, however, be confessed, that it amply repays itself for the tediousness 

 of delay, for Dr. Armstrong was told by the Esquimaux of Cape Bathurst — a 

 tribe in the habit of trading with the Indians from the Mackenzie, who are in 

 direct communication with the Hudson's Bay Company's agents — that for three 

 silver-fox skins — which sometimes fetch as high a price as twenty-five or thirty 

 guineas apiece at the annual sale of the Company — they had got from the trad- 

 ers cooking utensils which might be worth eight shillings and sixpence ! 



The value of the skins annually imported into England by the Company 



