Hence it is not surprising that the males, trained up in a high opinion of the authority and rights of the Company to which their fathers belonged, and unacquainted with the laws of the civilized world, should be ready to engage in any measure whatever, that they are prompted to believe will forward the interests of the cause they espouse.

Nor that the girls, taught a certain degree of refinement by the acquisition of an European language, should be inflamed by the unrestrained discourse of their Indian relations, and very early give up all pretensions to chastity.

It is, however, but justice to remark, that there is a very decided difference in the conduct of the children of the Orkney men employed by the Hudson's Bay Company and those of the Canadian voyagers.

Some trouble is occasionally bestowed in teaching the former, and it is not thrown away; but all the good that can be said of the latter is, that they are not quite so licentious as their fathers are.
Many of the half-breeds, both male and female, are brought up amongst, and intermarry with, the Indians; and there are few tents wherein the paler children of such marriages are not to be seen.

It has been remarked, I do not know with what truth, that half-breeds shew more personal courage than the pure Crees[9].
[9] A singular change takes place in the physical constitution of the Indian females who become inmates of a fort; namely, they bear children more frequently and longer, but, at the same time, are rendered liable to indurations of the mammae and prolapsus of the uterus; evils from which they are, in a great measure, exempt whilst they lead a wandering and laborious life.
The girls at the forts, particularly the daughters of Canadians, are given in marriage very young; they are very frequently wives at twelve years of age, and mothers at fourteen.