An old Indian told me, they had also songs of friendship, but I could never procure a translation of one of them:  on my pressing this Indian to translate one into French for me, he told me with a haughty air, the Indians were not us’d to make translations, and that if I chose to understand their songs I must learn their language.  By the way, their language is extremely harmonious, especially as pronounced by their women, and as well adapted to music as Italian itself.  I must not here omit an instance of their independent spirit, which is, that they never would submit to have the service of the church, tho’ they profess the Romish religion, in any language but their own; the women, who have in general fine voices, sing in the choir with a taste and manner that would surprize you, and with a devotion that might edify more polish’d nations.

The Indian women are tall and well shaped; have good eyes, and before marriage are, except their color, and their coarse greasy black hair, very far from being disagreeable; but the laborious life they afterwards lead is extremely unfavorable to beauty; they become coarse and masculine, and lose in a year or two the power as well as the desire of pleasing.  To compensate however for the loss of their charms, they acquire a new empire in marrying; are consulted in all affairs of state, chuse a chief on every vacancy of the throne, are sovereign arbiters of peace and war, as well as of the fate of those unhappy captives that have the misfortune to fall into their hands, who are adopted as children, or put to the most cruel death, as the wives of the conquerors smile or frown.

A Jesuit missionary told me a story on this subject, which one cannot hear without horror:  an Indian woman with whom he liv’d on his mission was feeding her children, when her husband brought in an English prisoner; she immediately cut off his arm, and gave her children the streaming blood to drink:  the Jesuit remonstrated on the cruelty of the action, on which, looking sternly at him, “I would have them warriors,” said she, “and therefore feed them with the food of men.”

This anecdote may perhaps disgust you with the Indian ladies, who certainly do not excel in female softness.  I will therefore turn to the Canadian, who have every charm except that without which all other charms are to me insipid, I mean sensibility:  they are gay, coquet, and sprightly; more gallant than sensible; more flatter’d by the vanity of inspiring passion, than capable of feeling it themselves; and, like their European countrywomen, prefer the outward attentions of unmeaning admiration to the real devotion of the heart.  There is not perhaps on earth a race of females, who talk so much, or feel so little, of love as the French; the very reverse is in general true of the English:  my fair countrywomen seem ashamed of the charming sentiment to which they are indebted for all their power.

Adieu!  I am going to attend a very handsome French lady, who allows me the honor to drive her en calache to our Canadian Hyde Park, the road to St. Foix, where you will see forty or fifty calashes, with pretty women in them, parading every evening:  you will allow the apology to be admissible.