CANADIAN REMINISCENCES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2524, 30 July 1902, Page 65

CANADIAN REMINISCENCES.

(Jessie Tkemayxe, in Crampton's Maga-

lidrette^ — the village where the remains of the Hurons live — (called by courtesy •Hurons, for they are all half-breeds) should aiot be left out when one is "doing" the &ights of Quebec. There, too. are fails 'which are exceedingly beautiful. Mr •Howells. in his "Chance Acquaintance," •gives an exquisite description of them. •He says, "The cascade, with two or three successive leaps above the road, plunges •headlong down a steep crescent-shaped slope, and hides its foaming whiteness in the dark-foliaged ravine below. It is a wonder of graceful mot'on, of iridescent •lights and delicious shadows : a shape of •loveliness that seems instinct with a conscious life. Its beauty, like that of all other natural marvels on our continent, is on a generous scale." At Lorette, however, the principal interest centres in the imarthy men and women, the remnants of the warriors who gave the first settlers so much trouble, though they fought for them faithfully afterwards in "the wars of tre eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They stre, to tell the truth, a slouching and anything but picturesque people. There is ko trace of the noble red man and the beautiful Indian maiden of the old Feni.-nore Cooper tales ; indeed, when one gazes upon them, one can understand Artemus Ward "when he writes, "Injins, is pi&on wherever found."' They work at baskets, birch-bark, ornaments, canoes, moccasins (which go to adorn the dainty feet of some of the pretty girls for' whom Quebec .s justly famous), and several articles made from the deliciously-scented Indian hay, which smells very like the kuss-kuss. In the summer they migrate to several of the fashionable watering-places, such as Murray {Bay, Cacouna, or Tadoussac, and live there in correct wigwams made out of birch bark, that useful article which supplies them •with so much. Out of it they make their canoe?, build their wigwams, make boxes, handkerchief and glove cases, etc. On ihe arrival of the steamer they swarm around the tourists, anxious to sell their wares, ■which are really very beautiful. They embroider with porcupine quills and n.oose hair dyed by themselves the most dainty patterns on moccasins and other articles made of deerskin. The Hurons are dying out rapidly, and were frightfully reduced in numbers some 20 years ago, when smallpox ra:jed in Lorette, as they refused to be fee vaccinated. By the way. talking of the Hurons at Lorette, the remnant of their fierce enemies, ihe Iroquois, live it Ciuphnawauga, where they act .is pilots for the Lake steamers in shooting the Lachine Rapids. One can scarcely believe when % one sees the miserable remains of tbwe two tribes, once so famous in. Ihe hi»rory of Canada, in the blood-curdliug tales of the battles fought between U no, or in the terrible accounts of the m-isTicrcs fey Ihe different tribes of Iroquois.

A translation from the "Relation" of 1660 about those fierce warriors of the forest may be interesting. It thus describes the dreaded enemy : — "The Iroquois interrupt all our joys, and are the great evil of New France. . . . The Iroquois warriors are so crafty in their approach, so sudden in their attack, and po prompt in their retreat, that ordinarily their departure gives the first intelligence of their coming. They approach like foxes, attack like lions, and then fly like Jjirds. disappearing more swiftly than they came. What ■would hs more easy than one general surprise, and, killing all our men in a single day, to carry off the women and children into captivity? Last spring the alarm was 6ueh that tlie houses m the country were all abandoned, and all the people, crowding into Quebec, gave themselves up as lost."

"How are the mighty fallen!" one feels inclined to exclaim, when one gazes at the degenerate descendants of the once brave, if fierce and cruel, tribes which formerly ■peopled the northern portion of America. One very seldom sees an Indian in anything but ordinary clothes, very ragged at ■that, though once or twice I have seen a squaw walking through the streets of Quelsec dressed in a blanket wrapped tightly round her, and with her papoose strapped to her back.