With much on the Mi’kmaq
HARDY, Campbell.
Sporting adventures in the New World; or, days and nights of moose-hunting in the pine forests of Acadia …
London, Hurst and Blackett, 1855.
2 vols, 12mo, pp. xii, 304, 16 (publishers’ advertisements); viii, 299, [1], 23, [1] (publishers’ advertisements); each volume with coloured frontispiece; vol. 1 quire D slightly loose, a little foxing to frontispieces and titles; overall a very good, clean copy in original light brown pictorial cloth, spines lettered in gilt, covers blocked in blind with gilt vignette of moose to upper covers, blue endpapers, ticket of Leighton Son & Hodge to rear pastedown of vol. 1; some wear to spine ends, especially to head of spine of vol. 2 (repaired), corners bumped; armorial bookplate of the Earls of Derby (with motto ‘Sans changer’) to front pastedowns.
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Sporting adventures in the New World; or, days and nights of moose-hunting in the pine forests of Acadia …
First edition of this most interesting account of Nova Scotia, Canada, by the Royal Artillery officer Campbell Hardy (1831-1919).
After a general description of Nova Scotia and its flora and fauna, Hardy describes voyages by canoe, salmon and trout fishing, and tracking and hunting moose, and has much to say on the Mi’kmaq people. Concerning European prejudices against the indigenous population, Hardy writes: ‘how erroneous are those opinions! It is the white man who has kept aloof from the Indian, oppressed him, deprived him of his natural means of supporting existence; and … by increasing might, laid hold of his whole territory, and now no longer deigns to own him, but as an encumbrance in his own fair country … first pay some attention to his habits and temperament, and then, cloaking your own rough English manner, go into his wigwam, and gain his confidence; and when you shall have heard his tale … if you leave not his tent ashamed of your own callous and oppressing race, you have not the heart of a Christian’ (vol. 2, pp. 217-220).
The two attractive frontispieces, after the author’s drawings, depict moose hunting and a bivouac.
Field 651; Sabin 30350.
