cendants from the
French of Canada. In their manners they unite all the careless gayety
and amiable hospitality of the best times of France. Yet, like most of
their countrymen in America, they are but little qualified for the rude
life of the frontier,--not that they are without talent, for they
possess much natural genius and vivacity; not that they are destitute
of enterprise, for their hunting excursions are long, laborious, and
hazardous; but their exertions are all desultory; their industry is
without system and without perseverance. The surrounding country,
therefore, though rich, is not generally well cultivated; the
inhabitants chiefly subsist by hunting and trade with the Indians, and
confine their culture to gardening, in which they excel."

It would be difficult to find a juster or more accurate
characterization of the French as pioneers. Although in the early days
of settlement along the Mississippi and its tributaries they
outnumbered the people of other nations, they made no deep impression.
They got along admirably while they were sustained by the
tonic-stimulus of excitement and variety; but when that was removed,
they found the conquest of even the richest of lands too dull for their
tastes. Lacking stability of nature, they could not achieve solid
results in prosaic labor. They did not so much as lay a foundation for
the serious builders of after years.

May 22d, in camp on Good Man's River, the party made its first trade
with Indians. Some Kickapoos were engaged to procure provisions; they
brought in four deer, and were given in return two quarts of whiskey,
which they considered ample requital.

"May 25th.... Stopped for the night at the entrance of a creek on the
north side, called by the French La Charette, ten miles from our last
camp, and a little above a small village of the same name. It consists
of seven small houses, and as many poor families, who have fixed
themselves here for the convenience of trade. They form the last
establishment of whites on the Missouri."

La Charette was one of the earliest colonies, and famous as the far
western home of Daniel Boone. There that immortal frontiersman passed
the last years of his life, in the sweet luxury of quiet and freedom;
and there he died in the year 1820.

Throughout those first weeks the journals breathe content. Every man
was abundantly pleased with his work and his lot; game was plentiful,
in great variety; the difficulties to be overc