These two pursuits have thus in a manner been the pioneers and
precursors of civilization. Without pausing on the borders, they have
penetrated at once, in defiance of difficulties and dangers, to the
heart of savage countries: laying open the hidden secrets of the
wilderness; leading the way to remote regions of beauty and fertility
that might have remained unexplored for ages, and beckoning after them
the slow and pausing steps of agriculture and civilization.

It was the fur trade, in fact, which gave early sustenance and vitality
to the great Canadian provinces. Being destitute of the precious metals,
at that time the leading objects of American enterprise, they were long
neglected by the parent country. The French adventurers, however, who
had settled on the banks of the St. Lawrence, soon found that in the
rich peltries of the interior, they had sources of wealth that
might almost rival the mines of Mexico and Peru. The Indians, as yet
unacquainted with the artificial value given to some descriptions of
furs, in civilized life, brought quantities of the most precious kinds
and bartered them away for European trinkets and cheap commodities.
Immense profits were thus made by the early traders, and the traffic was
pursued with avidity.

As the valuable furs soon became scarce in the neighborhood of the
settlements, the Indians of the vicinity were stimulated to take a wider
range in their hunting expeditions; they were generally accompanied on
these expeditions by some of the traders or their dependents, who
shared in the toils and perils of the chase, and at the same time made
themselves acquainted with the best hunting and trapping grounds, and
with the remote tribes, whom they encouraged to bring their peltries
to the settlements. In this way the trade augmented, and was drawn from
remote quarters to Montreal. Every now and then a large body of Ottawas,
Hurons, and other tribes who hunted the countries bordering on the great
lakes, would come down in a squadron of light canoes, laden with beaver
skins, and other spoils of their year's hunting. The canoes would be
unladen, taken on shore, and their contents disposed in order. A camp of
birch bark would be pitched outside of the town, and a kind of primitive
fair opened with that grave ceremonial so dear to the Indians. An
audience would be demanded of the governor-general, who would hold
the conference with becoming state, seated in an elbow-chair, with the
Indi