At Fort Detroit, it was found that a small exploring party, under a
Captain Robson, was about to set out with the object of determining
whether or not certain rivers and lakes were navigable, and young Kerr,
boylike, eagerly volunteered to join the expedition.
Here began his strange adventures. The party, all told, consisted but of
eleven persons--Captain Robson, Sir Robert Davers, six soldiers, two
sailors, and young Kerr. Apparently they did not think it necessary to
take with them any colonists, or Indian scouts. It is a curious
characteristic of the average Britisher who finds himself in a new land,
that he appears to regard it as an axiom that he must necessarily know
much more than the average colonist; can, in fact, teach that person
"how to suck eggs." The colonist, of course, on his part--and in the
majority of cases with justice--regards the "new chum," or "tender
foot," as a somewhat helpless creature. But the Britisher despises, or
at least he used to despise, the mere colonist. Hence have arisen not a
few disasters. The little--travelled Britisher does not readily learn
that local conditions in all countries are not the same, that
dispositions and customs which suit one are totally out of place and
useless in another.
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