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From that fortress issued the daring young French soldiers of fortune who led the forays against New York and New England. It was the seat of the power that threatened them continually. Many of the Bostonnais, seized in their fields, had been brought here as prisoners to be returned home only after years, or never.

The father had distinguished himself in repelling the Indians in their various forays upon the frontiers, and was a representative man. With strong will and distinguished courage, he, without much talent, was conspicuous among a people who were, like himself, rude, unlettered, but daring, and abounding in strong common-sense.

Women, squatting in front of their huts, began to pound away at the rice or maize that would form the evening meal, girls were collecting their water pots preparatory to a walk down to the river, and enterprising goats made tentative forays through gaps in the ill-kept fences of neighbouring garden plots; their hurried retreats showed that here at least someone was keeping alert and wakeful vigil.

The pleasure of planning these forays is still a grateful recollection, for it seemed to us that by spreading our forces we might have perpetual warfare from January to December and over the length and breadth of the town, so that no one would be compelled to return to his home of an evening without the hope of a battle, and every street of the town would be distinguished by conflict.

Out of these creeks, lagunes, and almost inaccessible sandbanks, those bold freebooters sailed forth on their forays against England, France, and other adjacent countries, and here they brought and buried the booty of many a wild adventure.

Béclère agreed that the unsettled vagrant civilisation which existed in the North of Africa up to 1830 which in 1860 was beginning to pass away, and the traces of which still survived in the nineties resembled very much the border forays for which Northumberland is still famous; and, walking through the palm-groves towards the Arab village, they talked of the Arab race, listening all the while to the singing of doves and of streams, Owen listless and happy.

He had indeed often heard of Highland thieves, but had no idea of the systematic mode in which their depredations were conducted; and that the practice was connived at, and even encouraged, by many of the Highland chieftains, who not only found the creaghs, or forays, useful for the purpose of training individuals of their clan to the practice of arms, but also of maintaining a wholesome terror among their Lowland neighbours, and levying, as we have seen, a tribute from them, under colour of protection-money.

It was perfectly reasonable, I reflected, for Captain Luke to carry out a lot of shackles simply as "trade." It was pretty dirty "trade," of course, but so was the vile so-called brandy he was carrying out with him; and so, for that matter, were the arms which pretty certainly would be used in slaving forays up from the Coast.

It was often the scene of forays, which one clan was wont to make on another, in the good old days, as people delight to call them, when the ancestors of the present race were scarcely more civilised than the South Sea islanders. Though rock-girt, Islay is fertile, and a large portion has been brought under a state of cultivation.

We gave Moshobotwane a present, and a pretty plain exposition of what we thought of his bloody forays among his Batoka brethren. A scolding does most good to the recipient, when put alongside some obliging act. He certainly did not take it ill, as was evident from what he gave us in return; which consisted of a liberal supply of meal, milk, and an ox.