guide for finding them was their promise to hunt in a certain quarter ; but he looked at the jaunt with indifference, and calculated on meeting them in six or seven days, for which time only he had provision. Few persons in this country suffer more from want of food than those occasionally do who are employed on this service. They are furnished with a sufficiency of provision to serve until they reach the part where the Indians are expected to be; but it frequently occurs, that on their arrival at the spot, they have gone elsewhere, and that a recent fall of snow has hidden their track, in which case the voyagers have to wander about in search of them; and it often happens, when they succeed in finding the Indians, that they are unprovided with meat. Mr. Isbester had been placed in this distressing situation only a few weeks ago, and passed four days without either himself or his dogs tasting food. At length, when he had determined on killing one of the dogs to satisfy his hunger, he happily met with a beaten track, which led him to some Indian lodges, where he obtained a supply of food.-pp. 98, 99.

On the 30th of January, they arrived at Carlton House, the next port to the northward; and there follows a very interesting account of the Stone Indians, who reside in that neighbourhood. Our limits, however, will permit us to notice only one or two of their peculiar characteristics;-for as we approach the latter part of the Narrative, we shall need more than all the space which we can allot to this article.

66

The Stone Indians appear to be even more than Spartan in their ideas of theft-for they not only steal what they can get, but experience very little shame on being found out. They are also strong enemies to the game laws, as is evinced by their maintaining that horses are common property, sent by the Almighty for the use of man, and therefore may be taken whenever met with." Their practice, in this instance, is in full accordance with their precepts - although they admit the right of the owners to watch them, and to prevent theft if possible." Their mourning colour is black, and that of rejoicing white. This seems strange enough ;-for, it is certainly something more

VOL. III. PART I.

than conventional ideas which has made black the emblem of mourning over so great a part of the world. It has undoubtedly a physical air of gloom corresponding with the inward sadness which it is intended to betoken. Captain Franklin extracts the following remarks on the Goitre from Dr. Richardson's Journal:

sources.

Bronchocele, or Goitre, is a common disorder at Edmonton. I examined several of the individuals afflicted with it, and endeavoured to obtain every information on the subject from the most authentic The following facts may be depended upon. The disorder attacks those only who drink the water of the river. It is indeed in its worst state confined almost entirely to the half-breed women and children, who reside constantly at the fort, and make use of river water, drawn in the winter through a hole made in the ice. The men, from being often from home on journeys through the plain, when their drink is melted snow, are less affected; and, if any of them exhibit during the winter, some incipient symptoms of the complaint, the annual summer voyage to the sea-coast generally effects a cure. The natives who confine themselves to snow-water in the winter, and drink of the small rivulets which flow through the plains in the summer, are exempt from the attacks of this disease.

These facts are curious, inasmuch as they militate against the generally-received opinion that the disease is caused by drinking snowwater; an opinion which seems to have originated from bronchocele being endemial to sub-alpine districts.

The Saskatchawan, at Edmonton, is clear in the winter, and also in the summer, except during the May and July floods. The distance from the rocky mountains, (which I suppose to be of primitive formation,) is upwards of one hundred and thirty miles. The neighbouring plains are alluvial, the soil is calcareous, and contains numerous travelled fragments of a very new magnesian limestone. At a considerable distance below Edmonton, the river, continuing its course through the plains, becomes turbid, and acquires a white colour. In this state it is drunk by the inmates of Carlton-House, where the disease is known only by name. It is said that the inhabitants of Rocky Mountain House, sixty miles nearer the source of the river are more severely affected than those at Edmonton. The same disease occurs near the sources of Elk and Peace Rivers; but, in those parts of the country which are distant from the Rocky Mountain Chain, it is unknown, although melted snow forms the only drink of the natives for nine months of the year.

A residence of a single year at Edmonton is sufficient to render a family bronchocelous. Many of the goitres acquire great size. Burnt

sponge has been tried, and found to remove the disease, but an exposure to the same cause immediately reproduces it.

A great proportion of the children of women who have goitres, are born idiots, with large heads, and the other distinguishing marks of cretins. I could not learn whether it was necessary that both parents should have goitres, to produce cretin children; indeed the want of chastity in the half-breed women would be a bar to the deduction of any inference on this head.-pp. 118, 119.

These observations we regard as exceedingly curious. While they seem to contradict the belief that this disorder is cured by snow-water, they confirm the connection between it and cretin-ism. This fact is one that has always appeared to us of extreme curiosity and interest, and we have long felt strong desire to see it accounted for on physical principles.

Captain Franklin and his companion resumed their journey to the northward on the 8th of February. The following circumstance must be curious to naturalists:

The destructive ravages of fire were visible during the greater part of the day. The only wood we saw for miles together consisted of pine-trees, stript of their branches and bark by this element: in other parts poplars alone were growing, which we have remarked invariably to succeed the pine after a conflagration.-p. 121.

On the 26th of March, after passing several minor posts on their route, the travellers arrived at Fort Chipewyan, being 857 miles from Cumberland-House. The incidental notices of the Indians are of much interest. It appears that, in the midst of all their defects and they are many-they possess strong, and what is more, lasting, feelings. When one dear to them dies, they destroy every thing they possess; "their clothes and tents are cut to pieces, their guns broken, and every other weapon rendered useless, if some person do not remove these articles from their sight, which is seldom done." The utter misery which results from

this infuriate destruction of their property, can little be conceived by those who do not know to what an extent the Indians suffer want at all times;-what must it then be when the very means of their existence are gone ?-For many months, also, after the loss of a relation, they remain sunken in the apathy and stupor of grief, to a degree that wholly incapacitates them for any exertion. They sit and wail in despair and helplessness; the wonder to us is, that they do not absolutely perish from want. We should scarcely credit the following extraordinary circumstance, were it not for the total absence of every thing which bears the least colour of exaggeration throughout the book.Dr. Richardson, also, alludes to similar cases on record. If it, indeed, be true, it shews how much nobler is the moral than the physical man ;-it proves that the intensity of holy feeling and affection can triumph over even the most fundamental laws of nature:

A young Chipewyan had separated from the rest of his band for the purpose of trenching beaver, when his wife, who was his sole companion, and in her first pregnancy, was seized with the pains of labour. She died on the third day after she had given birth to a boy. The husband was inconsolable, and vowed in his anguish never to take another woman to wife, but his grief was soon in some degree absorbed in anxiety for the fate of his infant son. To preserve its life he descended to the office of nurse, so degrading in the eyes of a Chipewyan, as partaking of the duties of a woman. He swaddled it in soft moss, fed it with broth made from the flesh of the deer, and to still its cries applied it to his breast, praying earnestly to the great Master of Life, to assist his endeavours. The force of the powerful passion by which he was actuated produced the same effect in his case, as it has done in some others which are recorded; a flow of milk actually took place from his breast. He succeeded in rearing his child, taught him to be a hunter, and when he attained the age of manhood, chose him a wife from the tribe. The old man kept his vow in never taking a second wife himself, but he delighted in tending his son's children, and when his daughterin-law used to interfere, saying that it was not the occupation of a man, he was wont to reply, that he had promised to the great Master of Life, if his child was spared, never to be proud, like the other

Indians. He used to mention, too, as a certain proof of the approbation of Providence, that although he was always obliged to carry his child on his back while hunting, yet that it never roused a moose by its cries, being always particularly still at those times. Our informant* added that he had often seen this Indian in his old age, and that his left breast, even then, retained the unusual size it had acquired in his occupation of nurse, pp. 157, 158.

The following is an extraordinary instance of the power of superstition :

The Northern Indians suppose that they originally sprang from a dog; and, about five years ago, a superstitious fanatic so strongly pressed upon their minds the impropriety of employing these animals, to which they were related, for purposes of labour, that they universally resolved against using them any more, and, strange as it may seem, destroyed them. They now have to drag every thing themselves on sledges. This laborious task falls most heavily on the women; nothing can more shock the feelings of a person, accustomed to civilized life, than to witness the state of their degradation. When a party is on a march the women have to drag the tent, the meat, and whatever the hunter possesses, whilst he only carries his gun and medicine case. In the evening they form the encampment, cut wood, fetch water, and prepare the supper; and then, perhaps, are not permitted to partake of the fare until the men have finished. A successful hunter sometimes has two or three wives; whoever happens to be the favourite, assumes authority over the others, and has the management of the tent. These men usually treat their wives unkindly, and even with harshness; except, indeed, at the time when they are about to increase the family, and then they shew them much indulgence.—p. 160,

161.

At Fort Chipewyan, Dr. Richardson and Mr. Hood rejoined the party. Very interesting extracts are given from their journals concerning their winter residence at Cumberland-House. Besides the scientific details, most of which refer especially to the appearance of the Aurora Borealis,-Dr. Richardson has furnished an account of the Cree Indians, of much interest, and in considerable detail;—and Mr. Hood a narrative of an excursion which he made some way into the country. We must, however, proceed with the narrative.

*Mr. Wentzel.