United States or Timor-Leste ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"That marplot of a rebel general has schemed a new method of troubling us," he grumbled angrily a week later. "Instead of wintering his troops in a town, as any other commander would, our spies bring us word that he has marched them to a strong position on Valley Creek, a bare twenty miles from here, and has them all as busy as beavers throwing up earthworks and building huts.
He failed to get provisions down from Rocky Mountain House; and his men, cut off by hostile savages from all help from outside posts, had literally to cut and shovel their way through Athabaska Pass while subsisting on short rations. The men built huts in the pass; some hunted, while others made snow-shoes and sleighs.
"I thought," writes Bougainville, "that the Governor would have told them they should have neither provisions nor presents till all the English were given up; that he himself would have gone to their huts and taken the prisoners from them; and that the inhabitants would be forbidden, under the severest penalties, from selling or giving them brandy.
I had two huts to myself, and a couple of nigger girls. It's better fun," said Peter, after a while, "having these black women than whites. The whites you've got to support, but the niggers support you! And when you've done with them you can just get rid of them. I'm all for the nigger gals." Peter laughed. But the stranger sat motionless with his arms about his knees.
In the evening, the huts of the different tribes are built as near to each other as practicable, each tribe locating itself in the direction from whence it came. The size and character of the huts, with the number of their occupants, vary according to the state of the weather, and the local circumstances of their position.
In order to have a good shelter for the long day before us, we decided to build two snow-huts. The snow was not good for this purpose, but, by fetching blocks from all sides, we managed to put up the huts. Hanssen built one and Wisting the other. In a temperature such as we now had, a snow-hut is greatly preferable to a tent, and we felt quite comfortable when we came in and got the Primus going.
During our afternoon march we passed several deserted Indian villages the round-shaped skeletons of the huts alone remaining to mark the former settlements. Not a member of the tribe, however, was to be seen; the beaver may build and the deer pasture hereabouts in peace. Towards evening we entered the valley drained by the stream called Weber's Creek.
There were a few orange trees about some of the huts, but most of the people were Mestizes, or half-breeds, and nothing but weeds grew around their habitations. Their plantations of maize were always some miles distant, and they never seem to think of moving their houses nearer to their clearings on the edge of the forest.
Ours is a world wherein God hath ordained that acorns should go on toward oaks, huts become houses, tents temples, babes men, and the generations journey on to that sublime event "toward which the whole creation moves." In this long upward march science declares the human body has had its place.
In the evening came deputies from the villages, at which we could not stay to sleep, with liberal presents of food. It would have pained them to have allowed strangers to pass without partaking of their hospitality; repeatedly were we hailed from huts, and asked to wait a moment and drink a little of the beer, which was brought with alacrity. Our march resembled a triumphant procession.
Word Of The Day