one another, or coming to a battle directly, was for one side to make as
if they had renounced all thoughts of acting offensively. A party of
those who made this feint of renunciation, would disperse itself in a
wood, observing to keep near the borders of it; when, if any stragglers
of the enemy's appeared, some one would counterfeit to the life the
particular cry of that animal, in the imitation of which he most
excelled; and this childish decoy would, however, often succeed, in
drawing in the young men of the opposite party into their ambushes.

Sometimes the scheme was to examine what particular spot lay so, that
the enemies must, in all necessity, pass through it, to hunt, or provide
bark for making their canoes. It was commonly in these passes, or
defiles, that the bloodiest encounters or engagements happened, when
whole nations have been known to destroy one another, with such an
exterminating rage on both sides, that few have been left alive on
either; and to say the truth, they were, generally speaking, mere
cannibals. It was rarely the case that they did not devour some limbs,
at least, of the prisoners they made upon one another, after torturing
them to death in the most cruel and shocking manner: but they never
failed of drinking their blood like water; it is now, some time, that
our Micmakis especially are no longer in the taste of exercising such
acts of barbarity. I have, yet, lately myself seen amongst them some
remains of that spirit of ferocity; some tendencies and approaches to
those inhumanities; but they are nothing in comparison to what they used
to be, and seem every day wearing out. The religion to which we have
brought them over, and our remonstrances have greatly contributed to
soften that savage temper, and atrocious vindictiveness that heretofore
reigned amongst them. But remember, Sir, that as to this point I am now
only speaking, upon my own knowlege, of the Micmakis and Mariquects,
who, though different in language, have the same customs and manners,