The Emigrants Felt A Violent Prejudice Against The French Indians, As
They Called The Trappers And Traders.
They thought, and with some
justice, that these men bore them no good will.
Many of them were
firmly persuaded that the French were instigating the Indians to
attack and cut them off. On visiting the encampment we were at once
struck with the extraordinary perplexity and indecision that
prevailed among the emigrants. They seemed like men totally out of
their elements; bewildered and amazed, like a troop of school-boys
lost in the woods. It was impossible to be long among them without
being conscious of the high and bold spirit with which most of them
were animated. But the FOREST is the home of the backwoodsman. On
the remote prairie he is totally at a loss. He differs much from the
genuine "mountain man," the wild prairie hunter, as a Canadian
voyageur, paddling his canoe on the rapids of the Ottawa, differs
from an American sailor among the storms of Cape Horn. Still my
companion and I were somewhat at a loss to account for this perturbed
state of mind. It could not be cowardice; these men were of the same
stock with the volunteers of Monterey and Buena Vista. Yet, for the
most part, they were the rudest and most ignorant of the frontier
population; they knew absolutely nothing of the country and its
inhabitants; they had already experienced much misfortune, and
apprehended more; they had seen nothing of mankind, and had never put
their own resources to the test.
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