"
Hunting and trading, however, continued to be the principal
occupations; and the sugar, indigo, cotton, and other luxuries
which the people were able to import directly from Europe were
paid for mainly with consignments of furs, hides, tallow, and
beeswax. Money was practically unknown in the settlements, so
that domestic trade likewise took the form of simple barter.
Periods of industry and prosperity alternated with periods of
depression, and the easy-going habitants--"farmers, hunters,
traders by turn, with a strong admixture of unprogressive Indian
blood"--tended always to relapse into utter indolence.
Some of these French towns, however, were seats of culture; and
none was wholly barren of diversions. Kaskaskia had a Jesuit
college and likewise a monastery. Cahokia had a school for Indian
youth. Fort Chartres, we are gravely told, was "the center of
life and fashion in the West." If everyday existence was humdrum,
the villagers had always the opportunity for voluble conversation
"each from his own balcony"; and there were scores of Church
festivals, not to mention birthdays, visits of travelers or
neighbors, and homecomings of hunters and traders, which invited
to festivity.
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