12 ' SUFFERINGS AND HARDSIIIPS

In the countries which now form British America, with the exception of Nova Scotia, the colonists were not so often doomed to experience the vengeance of the bloody Spirit of the Indian tribes ; yet the hard- ships they had to encounter and overcome in other shapes were almost incredible. The winters were either much more severe than at present, or the sufferings of the first settlers made them describe the frosts as more intense, the snows deeper, and the dura- tion of cold longer.

The non-existence of roads, the want of boats, or even for some time of canoes, and the emigrants’ entire ignorance of managing the latter, rendered it a business of great difficulty to pass from one part to another of a country covered with thick forests, and intersected with rivers, lakes, and branches of the ocean. The use of the axe also, or the art of chopping, is an acquirement quite indispensable in a wooded country, with which most new settlers are unac- quainted. With this tool, a gun, one or two hoes, and a pot, an American back-woods-man will make his way through, or plant himself and family in the midst of, a most dreary forest, and secure, at the same time, the means of subsistence.

Innumerable, indeed, were the miseries which the emigrants had to reconcile themselves to for several

colonial governments for the snouts of bears, to encourage the destruction of those animals. The terrible ferocity of the savages was also most wickedly encouraged during the American war; and it was disgraceful to the British authorities at the time to encourage and reward such cruelties.—-See article Indians.