"It seems hard and cruel (does it not?) that we civilized people, with all the luxuries and comforts of the world about us, should be drawing from the backs of these useful animals the skins for our luxury, leaving their carcasses to be devoured by the wolves; that we should draw from that country some one hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand of their robes annually, the greater part of which are taken from animals that are killed expressly for the robe, at a season when the meat is not cured and preserved, and for each of which skins the Indian has received but a pint of whisky! Such is the fact, and that number, or near it, are annually destroyed, in addition to the number that is necessarily killed for the subsistence of three hundred thousand Indians, who live chiefly upon them." The author further declared that the fur trade in those "great western realms" was then limited chiefly to the purchase of buffalo robes. 1. _The Red River half-breeds._--In June, 1840, when the Red River half-breeds assembled at Pembina for their annual expedition against the buffalo, they mustered as follows: +-------------------------------------+ |Carts |1,210| +-------------------------+-----+-----+ |Hunters | 620| | +-------------------------+-----+ | |Women | 650|1,630| +-------------------------+-----+ | |Boys and girls | 360| | +-------------------------+-----+-----+ |Horses (buffalo runners) | 403| +-------------------------------+-----+ |Dogs | 542| +-------------------------------+-----+ |Cart horses | 655| +-------------------------------+-----+ |Draught oxen | 586| +-------------------------------+-----+ |Skinning knives |1,240| +-------------------------------------+ The total value of the property employed in this expedition and the working time occupied by it (two months) amounted to the enormous sum of £24,000. [Note 63: North American Indians, I, p. 263.]