A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Saturday, 22 September 2012

Courier De Bois.



"The pedlers call'd Coureurs de Bois export from hence every year several canows full of Merchandise which they dispose of among all the Nations of the Continent by way of exchange for Beaver-Skins. I saw twenty-five or thirty of these Canows return with heavy Cargoes; each Canow was managed by two or three men and carry'd twenty hundred weight, forty packs of Beaver Skins which are worth a hundred Crowns apiece. These canows have been a year or 18 months out."
"Short, thick, tireless men who resembled fiends in the oppressive heat, their shirts off, their skins like heated copper and their long black hair loose with their wild, black eyes glowing like coals."
Anonymous French Officer.

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