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62 the voyageur as he paddles his canoes down the rivers of the north & west. The words are the ballad of the French peasant sometimes poetical but the chief merit of the song is the music - Seated at table I heard French & Indian spoken almost exclusively & the contenances of foreign appearance, French, Indian and half breed, beguile me into a belief of being in some foreign land - May it not be called foreign, twenty five hundred miles from home & in an Indian country - A few feet from the voyageur singers are the "sauvages" whose music presents a contrast to their more civilized neighbor. The instrument most popular with the Indian is a Drum made by stretching a piece of hide? crossed out - across over the top of a keg or similar to a tambourine. The music is a monotonous measure suited to the motions?