Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/303

 connived at, or if committed sans permission, only slightly punished.

Numbers of the women reside during certain periods of the year in small huts about the fort, from which it is difficult to keep the men. They generally retire with the fall of the leaf to their respective villages, and during the winter months seldom visit Fort George. But on the arrival of the spring and autumn brigades from the interior they pour in from all parts, and besiege our voyageurs much after the manner which their frail sisters at Portsmouth adopt when attacking the crews of a newly arrived India fleet. Mothers participate with their daughters in the proceeds arising from their prostitution; and, in many instances, husbands share with their wives the wages of infamy. Disease is the natural consequence of this state of general demoralisation, and numbers of the unfortunate beings suffer dreadfully from the effects of their promiscuous intercourse.

Now that the North-west and Hudson's Bay Companies have become united, and that rivalship in trade cannot be brought forward as an excuse for corrupting Indians, it would be highly desirable that the missionaries would turn their