One In Particular, A Likeness Of Lord Elgin, Was
Admirably Executed.
I have understood that there is scarcely a greater difference between
these half-breeds and the warlike tribes of Central America, than between
them and the Christian Indians of the Red River settlements.
There are
about fourteen thousand Indians in Canada, few of them in a state of great
poverty, for they possess annuities arising from the sale of their lands.
They have no incentives to exertion, and spend their time in shooting,
fishing, and drinking spirits in taverns, where they speedily acquire the
vices of the white men without their habits of industry and enterprise.
They have no idols, and seldom enter into hostile opposition to
Christianity, readily exchanging the worship of the Great Spirit for its
tenets, as far as convenient. It is very difficult, however, to arouse
them to a sense of sin, or to any idea of the importance of the world to
come; but at the same time, in no part of the world have missionary
labours been more blessed than at the Red River settlements. Great changes
have passed before their eyes. Year, as it succeeds year, sees them driven
farther west, as their hunting-grounds are absorbed by the insatiate white
races. The twang of the Indian bow, and the sharp report of the Indian
rifle, are exchanged for the clink of the lumberer's axe and the "g'lang"
of the sturdy settler. The corn waves in luxuriant crops over land once
covered with the forest haunts of the moose, and the waters of the lakes
over which the red man paddled in his bark canoe are now ploughed by
crowded steamers.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 299 of 478
Words from 81150 to 81428
of 129941
