and partakes largely of those good-humored, polite, and accommodating manners which distinguish the nation he sprang from. The old French war, and wars on this continent since then, amply prove how much better Frenchmen conciliate the natives than the English. The English and the Americans, when they come in contact with the untutored savage, most commonly fight. But not so the French. They please and flatter the Indian, give him powder, and balls, and flints, and guns, and make a Catholic of him, and make out to live in friendship with the red man and woman of the wilderness. It is strange that such extremes of character should meet. Some have said that they are not so very far distant as others have imagined,—that the refined French people love war, and the women paint their faces, grease their hair, and wear East India blankets, called shawls.—Captain Sublet possesses, doubtless, that conciliating disposition so characteristic of the French, and not so frequently found among the English or Americans; for the descendants of both nations bear strong marks of the stock they came from. The French have always had a stronger hold of the affections of the Indians than any other people.
The trappers kept company with us till we came to Pierre's Hole, or valley, which is twelve miles from the spot where we first met them. Three or four days after, we were fired on by the Indians about ten o'clock at night. They had assembled to about the number of three hundred. They stole [38] five horses from us, and three from Sublet's company.[1] About the first of July we crossed the highest part or ridge of the mountains.[2]
- ↑ This attack was attributed to the same band of Blackfeet with whom the Battle of Pierre's Hole occurred some days later. See Wyeth, Oregon Expeditions, p. 158; Irving, Rocky Mountains, i, p. 75.—Ed.
- ↑ This is South Pass, so named in contradistinction to the northern passes undertaken by Lewis and Clark. It is not known by whom this mountain passage
