Draw the conclusion from this who will.
The squatters, a race without hearth or home, without right or law, the refuse of all nations, and who are the shame and scum of the North-American population, are advancing incessantly towards the West, and by clearings upon clearings endeavour to drive the Indian tribes from their last places of refuge.
In rear of the squatters come five or six soldiers, a drummer, a trumpeter, and an officer of some kind bearing the banner of the Stars and Stripes.
These soldiers build a fort with some trunks of trees, plant the flag on the top of it, and proclaim that the frontiers of the Confederation extend to that point.
Then around the fort spring up a few cabins, and a bastard population is grouped—a heterogeneous compound of whites, blacks, reds, copper-coloured, &c., &c., and a city is founded, upon which is bestowed some sonorous name—Utica, Syracuse, Rome, or Carthage, for example, and a few years later, when this city possesses two or three stone houses, it becomes by right the capital of a new state which is not yet in existence.
Thus are things going on in this country!—it is very simple, as is evident.
A few days after the events we have related in our preceding chapter, a strange scene was passing in a possession built scarcely two years before, upon the banks of the great Canadian river, in a beautiful position at the foot of a verdant hill.
This possession consisted of about twenty cabins, grouped capriciously near each other, and protected by a little fort, armed with four small cannon which commanded the course of the river.
The village, though so young, had already, thanks to the prodigious American activity, acquired all the importance of a city. Two taverns overflowed with tipplers, and three temples of different sects served to gather together the faithful.
The inhabitants moved about here and there with the preoccupation of people who work seriously and look sharply after their affairs.