e running,
the ball never dropped out of their "hurdle".

"The best of three heats wins the game, and, besides the honour
acquired on such occasions, a considerable prize is adjudged to the
victors. The vanquished, however, generally challenge their
adversaries to renew the game the next day, which is seldom refused.
The game then becomes more important, as the honour of the whole
village is at stake, and it is carried on with redoubled impetuosity,
every object which might impede them in their career is knocked down
and trodden under foot without mercy, and before the game is decided,
it is a common thing to see numbers sprawling on the ground with
wounded legs and broken heads, yet this never creates any disputes or
ill-will after the play is decided" (Alexander Henry, sen.).

It has been computed that in the middle of the eighteenth century the
Amerindian population of the vast territories now known as the
Dominion of Canada numbered about 300,000. It now stands at an
approximate 110,000. The chief diminution has taken place in
Newfoundland, Lower and Upper Canada, New Brunswick, Assiniboia, and
British Columbia. There may even have been an increase in the north
and north-west. The first great blow to the Amerindians of these
regions was the smallpox epidemic of 1780. The next was the effect of
the strong drink[14] introduced by the agents of the Hudson's Bay and,
still more, the two North-west Companies. Phthisis or pulmonary
consumption also seems to have been introduced from Europe (though
Hearne thought that the Northern Indians had it before the white man
came). In fact, before the European invaded America neither Eskimo nor
Amerindian seem to have had many diseases. They suffered from ulcers,
scurvy, digestive troubles, rheumatism, headache, bronchitis, and
heart complaints, but from few, if any, "germ" diseases.

[Footnote 14: Before the white man came to _North_ America the natives
had no form of intoxicating drink.]

Some of the agents of the North-west Company apologize in their
writings for the amount of rum that was circulated among the
Amerindians at the orders of that company to stimulate trade, by
saying that it was seven parts water. Nevertheless it excited them to
madness, as the following extracts show. These are mostly taken from
the journals of Alexander Henry the Younger, but they are typical of
what was recorded by many other writers who describe the far interior
of British North America be