Baddeck 
clad in the cast-off" clothing of their white 
neighbours. 
The romance of Micmac Indian life is very 
greatly enhanced by distance. They live al- 
most as simply as wild animals, but they are 
not nearly as clean. Why is it one never 
sees a dirty squirrel and never a clean Indian ? 
Unless, indeed, both have the misfortune to 
be captured by civilised man, when the method 
of their lives may become reversed, and the 
squirrel through vile captivity grows dirty, 
while the Indian becomes clean through en- 
forced scrubbing by the Government. 
There was a white child in this camp, a little 
girl of seven or eight, and the wildest-eyed child 
we ever had seen. She was dirty like the rest, 
and at our approach fled as though the bad 
spirit were after her. We saw her later caress- 
ing a fat squaw, who vigorously elbowed her 
away. We learned her story, which was not a 
pleasant one, her own mother having given her 
to the Indians. Poor baby, with her bright yel- 
low hair, and her skin gleaming white in spite of 
the dirt, what is to be her fate, brought up like 
a little animal in the midst of a race whose 
every impulse is opposed to her own ? 
171 
