Louis, to increase it to the number of sixty.
These matters being arranged, they prepared to embark; but the
embarkation of a crew of Canadian voyageurs, on a distant expedition, is
not so easy a matter as might be imagined; especially of such a set of
vainglorious fellows with money in both pockets, and cocks' tails in
their hats. Like sailors, the Canadian voyageurs generally preface a
long cruise with a carouse. They have their cronies, their brothers,
their cousins, their wives, their sweethearts, all to be entertained
at their expense. They feast, they fiddle, they drink, they sing, they
dance, they frolic and fight, until they are all as mad as so many
drunken Indians. The publicans are all obedience to their commands,
never hesitating to let them run up scores without limit, knowing that,
when their own money is expended, the purses of their employers must
answer for the bill, or the voyage must be delayed. Neither was it
possible, at that time, to remedy the matter at Mackinaw. In that
amphibious community there was always a propensity to wrest the laws in
favor of riotous or mutinous boatmen. It was necessary, also, to keep
the recruits in good humor, seeing the novelty and danger of the service
into which they were entering, and the ease with which they might at
anytime escape it by jumping into a canoe and going downstream.
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