savages. "Our voyage," said Crevaux, "resolved itself 
into a regular struggle for existence. All the time we 
could spare from our survey and our observations was 
devoted to fishing and hunting." 
The uncertainty of the means of existence gives t© the 
savages a particularly accommodating stomach. They can 
remain several days without eating, and when food is 
abundant they can gorge a prodigious quantity. 
The- chase obliges the savage to periodicallj' migrate. 
He must follow the game, or the migration of fish, or 
visit the banks at the turtle-egg season. Following the 
annual migration of the bisons across the prairies was 
not difficult to the North American Indians, but it is a 
different matter in tropical forests, owing to the tangled 
luxuriance of the vegetation and the general absence of 
paths. Hence they walk in "Indian file." So inveterate 
is this habit that they walk in single file when there is no 
occasion to do so. 
, The difficulty of communication is so great that there 
are scarcely any relations between different tribes, and 
from this arise a multiplicity of dialects. 
The whole family has to follow the periodical mi- 
grations, and there is consequently a high mortality for 
the aged, sick, and even children ; that is, those who can- 
not easily transport themselves are frequently abandoned. 
It will be asked, Why do not the hunters seek in culti- 
vation of the soil a more abundant and assured means of 
existence? It is probable that this has often taken place, 
but there are hunting communities that do not till the 
soil. In the district which we have more particularly 
under view, when game is abundant for several years, 
certain tribes multiply to the extreme limits of the local 
resources. They then manifest a tendency to agriculture; 
but this mode of life necessitates more effort and offers 
less attractions than the chase, and is especially repudiated 
by the young. The paternal authority which should exer- 
cise a sufficient constraint upon tlie latter is very feeble. 
The attempts at cultivation are not persisted in and 
are soon abandoned ; as Le Play has pointed out, "The 
frequent atmospheric calamities in this region of the 
equatorial zone happen to justify the repugnance of the 
population to works of agriculture. Epidemics have not. 
only the result of reducing the tribes of the aged attd.^ 
the more feeble, they destroy entire tribes, and thus re- 
establish the equilibrium between the mouths and the 
means of sustenance." Such are some of the causes which 
oppose the transformation of hunters into tillers of the 
soil. 
There are in the forests of the New World soiiie very 
rudimentary plantations of rice, yams, sweet potatoes, 
sugar cane, manioc, etc. The manioc produces tapioca 
and a fermented drink; four days' work per month in 
their plantations provide sufficient food for a family of 
nine persons. Yet the hunters only do this to satisfy 
their most urgent requirements. 
Despite uncertainties and cruel disappointments, the 
chase holds and retains the savages, and if occasionailly 
necessity compels them to take one step toward tillage 
they do not persist in this effort, and return with eager- 
ness to the more attractive work of hunting. 
Pfoperty. 
The forest theoretically belongs to everybody because 
its products are not the result of any work by than. 
The extent of commonage accessible to each family is 
rnuch more restricted than the steppes or the sea. This 
limitation arises partly from the difficulties of locomo- 
tion, which confine the hunters to a relatively limited dis- 
trict; partly from the nature of the spontaneous produc- 
tions. As these are easily exhausted the several families 
are obliged to energetically defend their hunting grounds 
against the inroads of neighbors. 
If the hunting grounds are under the rule of the com- 
munity this is not the case with the home and implements 
of wprk._ These are personal property on account of the ' 
division into isolated households. But we have seen how 
restricted they are and how easy to make. This property, 
therefore, contributes in only a very feeble manner to 
develop habits of forethought and economy. 
Thus the hunting savage is naturally improvident. His 
true property consists in his skill and agility, which he 
can neither sell nor bequeath. The grave question of 
the transmission of property does not exist for him. No 
tie binds,_ even materially, the generations with one an- 
other to induce solidarit^'. Individualism triumphs. 
The Family. 
The family cannot retain its members at home. All the 
children successively separate as soon as they can provide 
for themselves. The family periodically dissolves, scat- 
tering to found new homes as instable as the preceding. 
Such are the characteristic traits of the instable family, 
which develop the spirit of change. 
The spirit of change is manifested by the preponderance 
acquired by the young, unless, as previously stated, special 
precautions are taken to prevent it. The youths, by reason 
of their premature emancipation and comparative isola- 
tion, are not permeated by the traditions of their ancestors 
or the sentiments, ideas and habits of their parents, except 
so far as they maintain that conservative spirit which is so 
characteristic of children and backward peoples. 
The chief of these small families forget the memory of 
their elders, and take no pains to transmit the remem- 
brance of the great actions of the race to their descendants. 
Verbal history, so prolix in sedentary communities, is 
almost non-existent among nomadic hunters. 
Magical practices may be developed, but true religion 
— that is, the worship of a spirit or spirits — is in a very 
primitive stage. 
Among the South American hunters not only is there 
no, respect for their progenitors, but they may abandon 
and even eat their parents. The instable family often 
leaves orphans, the sick, the aged — in other words, the 
feeble and incapable — without refuge and sustenance; 
there is no fixed home to act as a place of refuge. 
Government. 
It is necessary to be young, vigorous, enterprising, if the 
home, children, and hunting grounds are to be protected 
from the incessant attacks of neighboring tribes. Power 
belongs to the strongest, and is thus not only despotic but 
cruel. 
Each tribe must be organized for defense and for at- 
tack — it must always be on the alert, It is to the interest 
of the families to group themselves under a yaiiant chief 
capable of protectmg ttiem and their possessions. Thus, 
tins state of permanent war develops a kind of personal 
authority; the habits of the chase render it arbitrary and 
cruel ; the feebleness and instability of the family permit 
to- encroach, but the authority is itself instable. Force 
makes chiefs, force unmakes them. 
Primitive Gaul, as Le Play points out, was in a similar 
condition ; "obliged to struggle without ceasing in order 
to procure their living, and to defend the game against 
the inroads of contiguous peoples, the early Gauls ap- 
proached in their habits the Indian hunters whom one 
may still observe in the forests of America." On their 
arrival the Romans found the Gauls divided into a multi- 
tude of small tribes constantly at war. The policy of 
Csesar consisted in setting one against another. It was 
the internal weakness of the Gauls that made them power- 
less against the Romans. 
Incapacity of the Huntefs to Expand* 
First, there is an absence of the means of transport, 
being without the horse or a seaworthy boat, for bark 
canoes and simple dug-outs are quite unsuited for mari- 
time navigation. 
Secondly, owing to the is®lation of the families there 
is very little communication between them, and there is a 
marked lack of co-ordination. Relatively small bodies 
of men may temporarily combine, but large enterprises are 
practically impossible, not only from the lack of social 
education, but from the difficulty of obtaining sufficient 
food. 
Finally, the population is limited. The population is 
diminished by epidemics, the abandonment and death of 
those whom they cannot transport, intertribal wars, and 
cannibalism. Hunting peoples always multiply very slow- 
ly, and they even tend to disappear. The Indians of the 
Amazon diminish rapidly in contact with the white man, 
and so also do the North American Indians and the Aus- 
tralians. The Tasmanians have entirely disappeared. — 
Prof. Alfred C. Haddon in Knowledge. 
Gens des Bois. 
IV.— George McBrfde. 
After McLaughlin and Sim Moody, George McBride 
is the oldest settler living at Tupper Lake. He followed 
close on the steps of the pioneer Gardiner Simonds, 
whose name is attached to so many landmarks in this 
part of the Adirondacks, having moved in just after 
the older trapper, enfeebled by age, was carried back to 
his old home on the other side of the woods to die among 
his", people. 
McBride came in on a hunting and trapping expedition 
with Court Moody, since dead, and camped within a 
few rods of the site of Simonds' cabin, at the foot of 
Simonds' Pond, and only a short distance from the foot 
of Big Tupper Lake. They liked the country, and set 
to work and built a good cabin fifteen logs high, and 
planted corn and potatoes. The corn was planted with 
an axe. A gash was cut in the ground, and the corn 
dropped in, and afterward the soil was stamped together 
on top. To clear the ground, smudges were built and 
holes burnt out about the size of an ordinary room. 
McBride says they had five or six of these farms. The 
crops were left to care for themselves The briers grew 
faster than the potatoes, and the tubers, in their struggle 
for the light, developed stalks two or three feet high. 
When McBride and Moody had time to spare from 
their hunting and got around to pulling the briars, the 
potato tops lopped down on the ground, without strength 
to stand. Most of the potato development was above, 
ground, and what was below was hardly worth the 
digging. 
McBride was born at Saranac Lake in 1833. He is a 
six-footer, and until recently weighed 200 pounds. He 
has a ruddy complexion and tawny hair and beard, and 
looks strong and hearty, though by his own report he is 
not in the best of health, and begins to feel he ought to 
be doing something for himself, and that it is time, as 
he remarks, "I was getting some herbs or roots or bark 
to steep up and make me a drink." 
I called at his house one morning when the fog had 
just risen, dispelled by the sun, and revealed a glorious 
winter landscape. There was a fairy, silvery sheen, pro- 
duced by the hoar frost on the skeleton trees of the 
drowned lands of the Raquette, and three ice-locked lakes 
lying among the evergreen hills, were covered with a 
level expanse of glittering snow crystals. 
A freshly trapped fox hung in the woodshed, the blood 
still dripping from his nose. Another visitor, a lady, 
becomingly attired in a man's great fur coat, had just 
arrived, and her horse was restless at the smell of the 
blood. McBride wanted her to hitch him, but she re- 
fused, saying she was only going to stop a mintite, and 
"guessed he'd stand," upon which her host remarked, 
"If he goes before you do, you'll stop long enough to 
hitch him." 
"I commenced here in 1855," said McBride, with the 
dry humor that is characteristic of the Adirondack 
woodsman, "and stayed and got so poor I couldn't get 
away. I ought to have been where I couldn't hunt and 
fish so much. I neglected my farming, and now I wish 
I hadn't. 
"I had been bothered a good deal with rheumatiz," 
he continued. "I've been dead twice with it; they 
buried me, and I came to life again. 
"All the people that are coming in here now don't 
make it any better for me. When there used to be three 
deer along the shore of Simonds' Pond I could get one; 
now if there's four I can't get any. Hounding's been a 
bad thing for the deer. T think it would be a good 
thing if there was no hounding at all — " 
"The law stopped hounding three years ago," I inter- 
posed. 
"Yes,, but they do it a good deal yet. They have to 
be a little shy, and they've got away with their heavy 
barking dogs; the fine, light-barking dogs do the run- 
ning now. 
"Why, if you don't believe there's any hounding, there 
isn't a deer track to-day on the lake side of these moun- 
tains between Green Bay on Tupper and the head of 
Simonds' Pond. 
Couldn't Break Woti, 
"When Court Moody and I came here I wasn't t\ 
of a hunter or trapper. I'd ketched some skunks,! 
that was about all. Before our trapping season cam 
that fail a man by the name of Stetson that had hi 
some logs for us with his oxen, said he had to h; 
man for a year. I asked him what he'd give, an;^ 
said $140. I said, T guess I'm your man,' not thinflB 
of ^working for him more than I am for you this mi^H 
"Along the latter part of November he came doVw 
the river and hollered. I went across and ferried 
over, and he said he'd come to get me. Well, sir, it 
me all to pieces. I hadn't calculated at all he'd be 
me. I went and worked for him two years and 
months before I quit. 
"When I went away and left Court it was hard m 
for him to stand it all alone. I let him have sup 
that I got working for Stetson, and calculated if I c 
get rid of Stetson I would come back. But I coul' 
and it was such hard work for Court to get alongi 
had to leave, and I bought him out. Before the rail, 
came and the village started, I had a good market^ 
all the game I could sell. Since then I have had to 
for what other people get. There used to be a clas , 
sporting people came in that were free with their tOJiM 
and thought only of having a good time. Now, tll^ 
that come in, come in for their health, and don't 
as if they had but a little money. 
Adventures of a Black Fox. 
"Talking about foxes," said McBride, with refer^: 
to the one hung up in the shed, "I used to see a g 
deal of a black fox around here years ago. Sim Mc 
and I were hounding deer out back of his house one i; 
and on our way to the grounds Sim looked at one oil' 
fox traps. There'd been a fox in it, and it had gO! 
out not five minutes before by twisting off its f 
Sim carried the foot in his vest pocket, and when 
took it out and showed it to me he said, 'Did you 1 
see a red fox with a right black foot like that?' T 
him no, I hadn't, and he tucked it back in his 
and went on to put out the dogs. Sim's dog was a | 
and white one, and mine was a black hound. T 
"I got on the runway, and before a great while I lir 
a dog barking. It sounded as though he was going i 
on another runway a little ways off, so I ran over to t 
but by the time I got there I knew he wasn't coming 
way, so I went back to my old stand. 
"Presently I see something black come bobbing al 
among the bushes, and I took it for granted it was 
black dog, and began figuring how the deer had go: 
by. Just as it got opposite to me, though, I see that 
black thing was carrying a brush behind instead of a ■ 
and I knew it was a fox, but it was too late to shoot, 
I lost it. Sim's white hound came through on the tr; 
When I went to look at the trail I see there was b' 
in it and that the fox hadn't only three legs, and th., 
was the one that had just got out of Sim's trap. k 
"When winter came I happened to be looking out > 
day across the intervale, where I had some stacks of t 
and I saw this same fox come trotting along. I wi 
over and set a trap for him, but he'd cut his eye te; 
and hadn't lost his foot for nothing. When I went 
look at my trap I see he'd turned it over and made a m 
on it. He did that several times, and though I saw I 
arotind four or five years, and though he kept his sa 
circuit down Simonds' Pond and across to Raqu< 
Pond and back again, I never could get the better of h 
and he might have been living yet if it^adn't been fo, 
puppy I had that was just beginning to run deer. 
"That dog was a fast runner, and he took to chas 
foxes. One day I foimd a fox head out by the barn t 
he'd fetched in. After a while there was another head 
the same place. 
"While I was fishing through the ice down at Ind' 
Park 1 saw him run a fox out on the ice and catch h' 
inside twenty rods. The fox hadn't no show at all al 
he got him on the ice. After that winter I never saw 
three-footed track again. I think the dog killed 1 
fox somewheres back in the woods and lost somebod; 
nice sum of money for a black fox skin." 
A Bear that Playei Possum, 
I had heard it stated that McBride had an experiei 
recently with a bear playing possum, and asked the fa 
of the case. | 
"I had a trap set at the head of my pond," said M 
Bride, referring to McBride's Pond, "and when I w( 
up there to look at it I happened to see somethi 
moving over the top of a ridge that looked like the cl 
that was fast to the trap. 
"I stepped up on a log, so as to see over the hill, a 
there was a bear going off with the tiap. 
"I didn't know how solid the bear was ketched, a 
I worked down in his direction pretty cautious, a 
when he turned his head to look at me I gave him a sK 
that must have stung him considerably, for he cai 
bounding along straight for me and got within two rc 
before I could shoot again and down him. 
"I waited a while, watching the bear, but he did: 
make a motion, and I started to go over to kick hi' 
When I got almost to him I happened to notice that 
vvas breathing. That warned me, and I stepped ba 
and threw a little stick over at him, and he sprang 
me quick as a flash. I stood by a tree, so's I could g 
behind it if necessary, and let him come as close as th 
flour barrel, and when I shot that time I settled him. 
"The first two balls had hit him in the nose, too Ic* 
for the brain — his head was bobbing so I couldn't get 
sure shot. i 
The Big Bear tfiat Gol Away. 1 
"The biggest bear I ever saw I run on across the lall 
back of Grindstone Bay. The whole settlement was 1^ 
for a hunt, and Charlie Cornell and I put out the doM 
On our way back to the lake we ran on to an o' 
whacker of a fresh bear track in the snow. We follow* 
it up and found where the bear had been digging beact 
nuts. He had cleared away a space ten or twelve ro( 
long, eating as he went, and then had come back to tl 
end, where he started and circled round toward the uppj 
end again. j 
"I figured this out while Cornell was studying on t| 
track, and working off apiece through the woods, I dii 
