with such cheap ornaments as glass beads, looking-glasses, rings,
vermilion for painting, tobacco, and principally, and in spite of the
prohibition, of spirits, brought into the country in the form of alcohol,
and diluted with water before sold. While mentioning this fact, it is but
justice to the American Fur Company to state, that, throughout the
country, I have always found them strenuously opposed to the introduction
of spirituous liquors. But in the present state of things, when the
country is supplied with alcohol--when a keg of it will purchase from an
Indian every thing he possesses--his furs, his lodge, his horses, and even
his wife and children--and when any vagabond who has money enough to
purchase a mule can go into a village and trade against them successfully,
without withdrawing entirely from the trade, it is impossible for them to
discontinue its use. In their opposition to this practice, the company is
sustained, not only by their obligation to the laws of the country and the
welfare of the Indians, but clearly, also, on grounds of policy; for, with
heavy and expensive outfits, they contend at manifestly great disadvantage
against the numerous independent and unlicensed traders, who enter the
country from various avenues, from the United States and from Mexico,
having no other stock in trade than some kegs of liquor, which they sell
at the modest price of thirty-six dollars per gallon. The difference
between the regular trader and the _coureur des bois_, (as the French
call the itinerant or peddling traders,) with respect to the sale of
spirits, is here, as it always has been, fixed and permanent, and growing
out of the nature of their trade. The regular trader looks ahead, and has
an interest in the preservation of the Indians, and in the regular pursuit
of their business, and the preservation of their arms, horses, and every
thing necessary to their future and permanent success in hunting: the
_coureur des bois_ has no permanent interest, and gets what he can,
and for what he can, from every Indian he meets, even at the risk of
disabling him from doing any thing more at hunting.