While we are on this subject, let us add (and our young readers
will come to know it if they are spared to see many years) that
_civilization_ alone will never improve the heart. Let history speak,
and it will tell you that deeds of darkest hue have been perpetrated
in so-called civilized though pagan lands. Civilization is like the
polish that beautifies inferior furniture, which water will wash off
if it be but _hot enough_. Christianity resembles dye, which permeates
every fibre of the fabric, and which nothing can eradicate.
The success of the trappers in procuring beaver here was great. In all
sorts of creeks and rivers they were found. One day they came to one
of the curious rivers before mentioned, which burst suddenly out of
a plain, flowed on for several miles, and then disappeared into the
earth as suddenly as it had risen. Even in this strange place beaver
were seen, so the traps were set, and a hundred and fifty were caught
at the first lift.
The manner in which the party proceeded was as follows:--They marched
in a mass in groups or in a long line, according to the nature of
the ground over which they travelled.
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