Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/94

70 directions. They had to pass through vast and thick forests where there were no paths. Though without either watch or compass they found their road, by means known to themselves alone. The meeting was to be on a plain, and it is a fact that on the day appointed we heard their songs and cries, and saw the various bodies of Indians arrive from all sides almost simultaneously.

I was astonished, on my return, to find what peculiar ideas our hosts, the Americans of New England, had of the French. One day I dismounted from my horse at the house of a farmer upon whom I had been billeted. I had hardly entered the good man's house when he said to me,

"I am very glad to have a Frenchman in the house."

I politely enquired the reason of this preference.

"Well," he said, "you see the barber lives a long way off, so you will be able to shave me."

"But I cannot even shave myself," I