characteristic. A genuine hoax is as old "fire-water" to a red man: it is told to clusters of admirers, and repeated from wigwam to wigwam. While endeavouring to find out the opinion of intelligent Indians as to the origin of Lacrosse, we had some charming and plausible legends invented for us impromptu, and the difficulty of centuries expeditiously unravelled in the rocky recesses of Caughnawaga. If the soil of that settlement is not favorable for peaches, it unquestionably produces a spontaneous imaginative genius, not to be rivalled by anything white or red in Canada. We are satisfied, however, that the Indians of Canada know nothing whatever about the origin of their native field game.
I had the good fortune to travel on the Grand Trunk, side by side with the late Hon. Thos. D'Arcy McGee, about a year before his cowardly assassination by the "Fenian Brotherhood." The subject of conversation turned upon Lacrosse, prompted by the sight of a Crosse on the rack overhead; and Mr. McGee first suggested to my mind the resemblance between the national game of Canada and the Irish game of Coman, or trundling. Some time after, a communication appeared in a Port Hope paper, by a
