The great fur land; or, Sketches of life in the Hudson's bay territory

Preface

T N the preparation of this volume the aim of the author -"- has been to present some of the more picturesque phases of life in the Hudson's Bay Territory, Avithout wearying the reader with the personal business of the traveler. To this end he has shaped his material in the form of sketches, connected only by their order, which represents the seasons of the year in which the features treated periodically recur.

Wherever the personal knowledge of the author has been at fault, the following works of other travelers have formed the basis of his descriptions : Hargrave's Red Rivcr^ Butler's Great Lone Land and Wild North Land, Ballantyne's Hudson Bay, Southesk's Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains, and Milton and Cheadle's Northwest Passage by Land. Much of the material used in the composition of the volume has appeared heretofore in the shape of contributions to Appleton's Journal, ILarper's and Lippincotf s Magazitics, and the New York Evening Post.

H. M. R.

Chapter I

A Journey By Dog-Sledge. — A Reminiscence — The Passenger Cariole — Sledge-Dogs — The Freight-Sledge — A Heathen Cree — The Departure — Hybrid Mercuries — A New Sensation — Bibulous Surnames — A Hudson's Bay Fort — The Night Bivouac — The Hauling-dog's Day — Hie Jacet — A Dream — The Midnight Choir — The Morning Start — Lake- Travel by DogSledge — The Storm — Anathema Maranatha — Persuasion by the Whip — The Esquimaux Dog — An Invocation to the Manitou — Marche ! — The End of the Journey i

Chapter II

Canoe-Life. — The Advent of Spring — The Birch-bark Canoe — Its Uses — How it is Made — The Old Life of the Wilderness — Canotes De Maitre — A North Canoe — The Voyageurs' Boat-song — Arrival of a Canoe-brigade — Canoe-travel — A Summer Landscape — Approaching a Rapid — The Ascent — Patching a Leak — Poling — Shooting a Rapid — Sic Transit 27 •

CHAPTER in.

The Half-Breed Voyageur. — A Typical Half-Breed — His Mixed Language — His Origin — Primitive Courtship in the Woods — Number and Location of the Half-Breeds — The French Metis — His Home and Surroundings — The Bed of Ware — Occupations of our Half-Brother — His Improvidence — His Social Life — A Half- Breed "Noce" — Spring Work and Summer Labor — Prolonged Feasting with Famine to Follow — The Tastes of the Half-Breed — His Mixed Theology 40

CUAVTER IV.

rAO.K

THK Hudson's Bay CoMr.vNY. — Its Relations to the Country — Organization of the Comixiny — The Fur Trade — The Company's Ser\-ants — Life in the Service — The Kewauls of Long Seivice — Routine of Advancement — The Wintering Partner — Wives to Oixiei^ — The Aristocracy of the Wilderness — Change o{ IVigrammc — The Extent of the Fur Country — Its Divisions — Hudson's Bay Forts — Their Garrisons — Fort Gairy — Churchill Factory — Trading-Posts. — The Tn\de-R».x>m — A Trading Pj-ecaulion — System of Trading — Collection of Furs — The Life of the Servant 56

CHAPTER V.

Ijkk in a Hipson's Bay Comtany's Fort. — Business Routine — How it is AcijuiixHi — The Real Life of the Fort — The Otficers' Mess — Subjects of Conversation — A Transient Guest — Meal-time S<.Kiality — The Stranger within the Gates — The Mess-table — A Bill-of-Fare — Fovxl Supplies — Starvation — The Comforts of Upholstery — Peculiarities of Individual Taste — Daily Routine of Business — Indi;\n Customers — Trade at Posts — The Monotonous Houv^ — An Officer's Log- Book — Games, Literature, and Letter- Writing — The Musical Instruments — A Dance — Life after Service SS

CHAPTER VI.

A Vo\"Ai":e with thk VoYAOKfKS. — The Boat-brig;ade — Indian and Half-caste Women — The Aboriginal I'owi^ttr — The Half-Bn?evl J"»M\:j,vi»r — Some Characteristics of the Half-caste — His Pei-sonal appearance and Habits — Buying a Wife — The System of Advances, and how it Works — Meeting en route — Queer Scenes attending the Dejxarture of the Brig;\de — Scenery on the Lower Course of the Red River of the North — The Transport Service of the Company — The FnMghting Season and its Routine — Inland Boats — Their Crews — En Route — The Delta of the Red River — A Midday Halt — Berry-Pemmican — Apj^earance of Pemmican — Its Sustaining Qualities aiul Flavor — Methods of Cooking it — Tea Drinking — Making a Portage — Standarvi Weight of Packages in the Fur Trade — How the J'MWj,fwr Portages the Cargo — Perils of Lake Navigation — Far Niente — A Shore Camj-" — Bedding — A Camp Scene — Mosquitoes and their Wa)-s — A Tanley — Incidents of the Voyage — The Winnipeg River — Breasting up a Fall — What Next ?

CONTENT.':. vn

PACK

— The Portage Landing — I-'orcing a Rapid — Tracking and its Difficulties — Onward Progress — Wash-day — An Al fresco Toilet — White Dog io6

CHAPTER VII.

The Great Fall Hunts. — Red River Settlement — The Plain- Hunters' Ancestry — The Semi-Annual Hunts — Preparation — The .Start for the Plains — The Rendezvous — Occupations of the Camp — Horse-Racing and Gambling — The Camp by Night — The Morning Headache — The Half-Hreed Plain hunter — A Donnybrook Fair — A Prairie Election — The Ofificers of the Hunt — The Code Napoleon — Departure for the Plains — The Line of March — A Burned Prairie — The Night Camp — Sunday Observances — Open-air Devotions — The Challenge and Race — Snaring a Bufifalo — The Feast and the Famine — Approaching the Herds — The Buffalo Runner — The Charge — How the Hunter Loads — Cutting Up — Pemmican — How it is Made — How it is Used — Dried Meat — Increasing Scarcity of Buffalo — Prolonged Feasting — The Return — Encroaching Civilization 136

CHAPTER VIII.

The FRATiiKNiTY OF Medicine-Men. — Life at Trading- Post — A Medicine-Feast — Spiritual Communion — Indian Medicines — Periodical Poisons and their Queer Effects — The Curious Contents of a Medicine-l>ag — Totems — The Medicine- Men — The Cures they Perform — Medical Students — A Queer Ceremony — Initiation by Torture — Indian Spiritualism — A Total Wreck — An Aboriginal Medical College — The Conjuror's Legerdemain — Old Prob — Mysterious Power 168

CHAPTER IX.

The Blacki-eet — A Pi.ain-Lndian "Trade."' — The Blackfeet Country — Perpetual Warfare — Origin of the Blackfeet — Their Confederacy — The Sircies — Language and Location of the Tribes — Dress and Appearance of the Blackfeet — Their Mental Characteristics — Civil Organization of the Confederac) — Fondness for Liquor — Funeral and Burial Ceremonies — Trade with the Blackfeet—^ Rocky Mountain House — The Aboriginal Commercial Traveler — His Purple and Fine Linen — " Drumming " — Preparations at the

Vin CONTENTS.

PAGE

Fort — The Trade-Room — How the Customer is Received — Approach of the Band — A Travaille — A Tepee — Blackfeet Ponies — A Palaver — An Indian Present — How the Indian Trades — The Ins and the Outs — The Rush to get In — Characteristic Objections — A Horse Trade — The Current Coin of the Fur Land — A New Suit and Its Fate — Liquor Trading — A New Legal Tender — Some Queer Scenes 1S5

CHAPTER X.

Winter Travel. — Autumn in the Fur Land — Wheels vs. Runners — The Red River Cart — The Carriage of Madame — Raw-hide Harness — Sliaganappi — Tlie Cart-Pony — A Native Horseman — An Indian Pony — The Careening Cariole and its Uses — Locomotion on Snovvshoes — Sledge-dogs — The Hudson's Bay Dog-sledge — • The Freight-Sledge — Dog Harness — The Dog as a Draught Animal — Intense Cold — How the Winter Traveler Dresses — How the Half-Breed Dresses— Tents in Winter — The Yellow Dog — The Morning Start — The Traveler's Irritation — A Fight in Harness — A Winter Landscape — The Traveler's Sensations — Incidents of the Journey — The Night Camp — An Open-air Bedroom — The Daily Routine of Travel 213

CHAPTER XL

The Fur Hunter. — Wood Indians — The System of Advances — The Trapper's Dress — His Outfit — The Start into the Forest — The Trapper's Life — Reading Signs — How to make a Marten-trap — Lenten Feasts — Steel Traps for Wolves and Foxes — The Poisoned Bait — A Beaver Colony — The Trapper conies — The Beaver Lodge — Trapping Beaver in Summer — The Wolverine — The Way he gets a Living — His Destructiveness and Persecution of the Trapper — Pleasures and Pains of the Trapper's Life — The Vast Forests in Winter — Short Commons — Sleeping Out 240

CHAPTER XII.

A Winter Camp. — A Social Photograph— The Winter Hunters — Half-Breed Houses — The Wife's Relations — Work of the Women — Treatment of Infants — Half-Breed Hospitality — Forest Gourmands — Prolonged Feasting with Famine to Follow — A Bill of Fare — The Hudson's Bay Ration — Some Phases of Matiimony

CONTENTS. IX

PAGE

— The Inconvenience of having but one Room — Wooing in Company — Gabriel Dines — Seclusion by Courtesy — How the Half- Breed Lover Courts his Sweetheart — Half-Breed Pet Names — Love's Whippers-in — The Worth of Sisters and a Father to a Maiden whose Lover is Shy — The Wedding Gifts — Later Progress of the Wooing — The Groom's Leggins — The Wedding — The Indian Hanger-on — Communism in the Woods — How the Indian Begs — The Indian in his Cups — Home of the Hanger-on — The Indian Languages — Home Costume of the Red Man — The Missionary Priests and their Curious Flocks — The Merchant of the Plains — His Store and Customers — The Free-trader's Station in Camp — Liquor Trade — March to the Settlements — Disposition of the Furs — Sojourn of the Trader in Civilization — The Winter Hunt — Departure for the Bufl'alo Grounds — Strategy of the Hunt — Stalking — Cutting up the Buffaloes — A Forest Meat-house — End of the Expedition — The White Stranger — The Poetry of Wild Life 254

CHAPTER XIII.

The Frost King. — The Prairie Ocean — Its Antiquity — Some Curious Features — Sun Guidance — Lost upon the Prairie — The Plains in Winter — The Mirage — The Guideboards of the Plain-dweller — A Winter Scene — Frozen Noses — Some Phenomena of Arctic Weather — A Poudre Day — Incidents of Winter Travel — The Melancholy Still Days — Night on the Prairies — Clothing for Cold Weather — A Winter Landscape — The Terrors of a Blizzard — A Freezing Experience ■. 289

CHAPTER XIV.

A Half-Breed Ball. — The Invitation — Mental Pictures — Consular Archives — The Habiliments of Rejoicing — An Upset — Peculiarities of my Attendant — Discharged from the Sledge — My Host and his Guests — A General Introduction — Pauline — French Osculation — The Groom Expectant — My Hostess and her Cuisine — A Time to Dance — A Half-Breed Terpsichore — I Dance — Then Swear Off — The Ball Supper — A Satisfied Appetite — Disposal of Wearied Guests — Morning and Departure 315

CHAPTER XV.

A Wood-Indian "Trade." — How the Hudson's Bay Company gathers Furs — The Extent and Methods of Business — Winter

CONTENTS.

PAGE

ill the Forts — Indian Trappers' Spring Visit — The Company's Prices and Profits — High Prices paid for Muskets and Blankets — The Cost of Goods — The Liquor Traffic — A Fair Standard of Value — An Indian's Queer Ways of Sliopping — The White Medicine- Man — The Luxuries of Life — The Trappers' Relations to the Company — The Preservation of Game — The System of Advances — Tea and Tobacco — Spring Work — The Wealth of Furs — The Pine Marten — The Fisher — The Mink — The Raccoon — Costly Fox-fur — The Decline in demand for Beaver-skins — Muskrats — The Lynx and Sea Otter — Bear and Rabbit Skins — The Robe of Commerce — The Buffalo's Coat — Likeness to Lions — Women's Work — Painting the Robes — The Indian's Friend — Finis 326

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

One of the Team 5 V.

The Line of March 9 -

The Night Camp ... 17

A Half-Breed's Cabin 43

A Hudson's Bay Company's Post 55

A Hudson's Bay Company's Outpost 75

A Portage Landing 99

A Northern River 105

Making a Portage 119

A Portage Camp 133

Tracking 134-/-

A Blackfeet Grave 193 f

The Trading Store . 201 f

Cart-Wheel Scow 215-*

A Carioi.e 221 -J

Hudson's Bay Dogs ... i 223 ^

A Freight-Sledge 226 -

A Fight in Harness .... 233 -

Steel Traps 245 -

Half-Breed Leggins 267 -

Indian Costume ... 273 -

A Fire-Bag 339

THE GREAT FUR LAND.

CHAPTER I.

A JOURNEY BY DOG-SLEDGE.

A MEMORY which refuses to associate with ordinary, ■^^^ remembrances, and has an odd preference for the company of sportive and incongruous dreams, is that of a certain charming gentleman, of extremely punctilious bearing, careering wildly over a frozen Northern prairie in a dogsledge. He Avas the proprietor and determined wearer of the only silk hat within a radius of four hundred miles, and still adhered to the use of a shawl as an outer covering long years after it had ceased to be employed as an article of wear. Added to this was an irreproachable suit of black broadcloth, the like of which was not to be encountered within the same radius, and a pair of tight boots, that would have frozen the feet of a half-breed runner. In this civilized apparel he was essaying his first ride in a dog-sledge, and a more incongruous spectacle it has never been my lot to behold.

Seated in a cariole resembling in shape a heelless shoe, the unfortunate gentleman was whirling over the drifted plain in rapid but tortuous course. Having, in the confidence of perfect ignorance, refused the proffered services of a driver lest he should excite ridicule by being guarded and guided like an infant in a baby-cab, he was now reaping the fruits of his rashness in a series of the most remarkable gyrations of which the human body is capable. The dogs being unacquainted with the language of their freight, and evidently animated by the spirit of evil, wandered at their own sweet will over the snow-covered plain ; their will generally prompting them to plunge headlong into every drift, or to skirt the steep sides of the long ridges. Under these depressing circumstances, it behooved the neophyte to use his utmost endeavor to retain an upright position, in order to avoid a sledge-ride in which his own body would be used as the runners, and the cariole assume the place of passenger.

Being limited by the construction of the sledge to the use of his hands alone, hitherto employed in holding his shawl, he was forced to drop that favorite covering in order that, by swaying rapidly from side to side and plunging his hands in the snow, he might right the sledge. This continuous seesaw, and the crowning incongruity of the silk hat, gave him at length the appearance of a jumping-jack, or " the gentleman in black," as he starts suddenly from the box and swings pendulous from side to side. His frantic shouts of " Whoa ! " availed nothing ; the dogs, having been sent out to give their passenger a ride, were evidently bent upon doing it, and wandered vaguely about on the drifting snow. At length, a more than usually vertical drift being reached, the tired arms gave out, and the cariole, left without support, poised a moment in mid-air, then turned over, leaving the recumbent voyager with his legs still fastened to the sledge, but with arms thrust deep into the snow and head calmly pillowed in the depths of his hat. From this position he was powerless to move, except at the will of the dogs, who had now faced about in their harness, and seated themselves to gaze imperturbably upon the wreck. The spectacle of this representative of a higher civilization lying stranded upon a thin board in a limitless ocean of snow, proved too much for half-breed courtesy ; and there he lay until the owner of the cariole had sufficiently recovered from successive convulsions of laughter to run to his assistance.

A determination to avoid a like experience led the writer, some time afterward, before undertaking a winter's journey across the frozen expanse of Lake WinnijDeg, to pursue a little judicious training, surreptitiously undergone upon an unfrequented by-road, before even attempting to decide upon the merits of the various teams presented for that service.

To begin my journey, I purchased a board about nine feet long and sixteen inches wide, which was duly steamed and turned up at one end. To it wooden bows were fastened, while over it was stretched a stout covering of raw-hide. This accomplished, the board resembled the front of a slipper. To complete the likeness, a heel-top was made by attaching an upright back about two feet from the rear end, and extending the raw-hide covering to it. Then the shoe was submitted to an Indian friend, who decorated its outer surface with mystical emblems in red and yellow pigments, covering the whole with a coating of oil. When the motive power was furnished, the s^.ip would be ready to sail.

The selection of the propelling force was more difficult of accomplishment. Dogs of high and low degree were brought for inspection ; for dogs in the North have but one occupation — to haul. From the Esquimaux down through all the stages of canine life to the Indian mongrel, all are alike doomed to labor before a sledge of some kind during the winter months ; all are destined to howl under the beatings of a brutal driver ; to tug wildly at the moose-skin collar ; to haul until they can haul no longer, and then to die. When I look back at the long line of seared and whip-marked heads, whose owners were put through their best paces in demonstration of their perfect fitness for the work, what a host of sadly-resigned faces rises up before me ! There were heads lacking an ear, an eye ; heads bearing the marks of blows with sticks, whips, the heels of boots ; heads that had been held down and beaten out of all semblance of life ; and heads yet all bleeding and torn with the brutal lashings thought necessary to impart an air of liveliness before a probable purchaser ! The same retrospect brings up the hybrid drivers of those dogs, upon the majority of whose countenances a painful indifference to suffering and an inherent brutality were plainly visible — dusky, athletic fellows, whose only method of dealing with the poor dog, who gave up everything in life for them, was by blows and fierce invective.

For a time all teams submitted for inspection seemed wanting in some essential quality. At length, however, my prospective driver informed me of a half-breed acquaintance who was the possessor of a team which he thought would answer the purpose. His mongrel friend resided sixty miles away ; but distance and time go for naught in the North — in fact, are about the only possessions with which the inhabitants are plentifully endowed ; so we compassed the space and purchased the dogs. There were four of them — long-haired,

A yO URNE Y BY DOG- SLEDGE.

clean-legged, fox-headed animals, with more the appearance of wolves than of dogs. With them came four sets of har-

ONE OF THE TEAM.

ness, each set having a tinkling row of bells in its back-band which, being of different tones, rang a merry chime as their wearers trotted briskly along. This completed the passenger accommodation ; now for the baggage-van.

Another board, ten feet in length and fourteen inches wide, was purchased, steamed, and turned up at one end. But, instead of the raw-hide covering, shoe-latchets were inserted in the outer edges of the board, which would tie down tightly to its surface the load of provision, bedding, and camp-equipage, necessary for the journey. For this sledge the motive power was selected less critically ; strength was the requisite, not symmetry ; so dogs of strong sinew and large bone were chosen, regardless of looks. For provision, we had pemmican — the pounded dried meat of the buffalo mingled with fat — and black tea ; the dogs had frozen whitefish.

My driver was a heathen Cree. He was, moreover, a linguist, speaking several aboriginal dialects and a kind of mongrel French. Five golden sovereigns constituted the bond of union between us. He was a lank, muscular man, the bones of whose huge frame stood out conspicuously at the joints and angles, and the muscles showed distinctly in his gaunt meagreness. He had yellow paint on his face, and was arrayed in rather bewildering apparel. His headgear was the luxuriant chevdure with which Nature had endowed him. On his feet he wore moccasins ; on his limbs he wore leggins, which extended only a certain way above the knee, leaving that Providence which " tempers the wind to the shorn lamb " a dreary waste of yellow-mottled skin upon which to experiment ; on his body he wore a cotton shirt perennially innocent of soap. Attached to this shirt, and stretched straight and taut across the pit of his stomach, he wore a brass watchchain. Over all, like the mantle of Charity, was strapped a green blanket. Thus attired, he resembled a settled melancholy, or a god of bile from a dyspeptic's inferno. Nevertheless, he could travel from forty to sixty miles a day, running alongside the sledge.

It was the loth of December when we left Fort Garry, bound down the Red River of the North, across the frozen length of Lake Winnipeg, to Norway House, at its northern extremity. There started with us the four dog-trains and two drivers which constitute the Great Northern Packet of the Hudson's Bay Company, and which, with its connecting links, scatters news over all that vast region lying between the forty-ninth and sixty-seventh parallels of latitude, in North

A JOURNEY BY DOC-SLEDGE. y

America, and reaching east and west from Labrador to Alaska. Our route being the same, we joined company with the hybrid Mercuries, and began our journey amid much cracking of whips, howling of dogs, and profanity discreetly veiled by delivery in the heathen tongues.

To the novice the spectacle presented by a number of gayly-accoutered dog-trains gliding merrily by is a cheerful one. The tiny bells keeping time to the foot-falls of the shaggy train ; the cariole fantastically decorated in bright, warm colors ; the passenger cozily wrapped in furs and woolens of shades suggestive of warmth and comfort ; the active driver trotting unweariedly alongside, until the sledge with all its belongings becomes a mere speck of black upon the limitless expanse of snow — all conspire to commend dogsledging to the transient spectator as the ideal of winter travel, the veritable poetry of motion. The swan-like motion of the sledge as its thin bottom yields in graceful curves and undulations, to adapt itself to inequalities of surface beneath it, is strangely suggestive of the progress of a canoe over waters faintly ruffled by a passing breeze. To lie in such a cradle, and be gently rocked over a varying landscape hour after hour, would seem an idyllic life in which satiety could never come. But, suppose the cold to be of that intensity which it is neither possible to picture nor describe ; of that degree in which, after having spoken of the whip-handle which burns the hand that touches it, the tea that freezes while it is being drunk ; in which an instant's exposure of the face leaves the cheek or the classical nose upon which one prides himself white and rigid as a piece of marble ; in which the traveler, with head bowed to meet the crushing blast, goes wearily on, as silent as the river and forests through which he rides, and from whose rigid bosom no sound ever comes, no ripple ever breaks, no bird, no beast, no human face appears — a cold of which, having said all this, there is a sense of utter inability to convey any adequate idea, except that it means sure and certain death, with calm and peaceful face turned up to the sky, and form hard and unimpressible as if carved from granite, within a period whose duration w^ould expire in the few hours of a winter's daylight if there were no fire or means of making it upon the track.

Suppose, too, that the gently-undulating motion of the sledge, in accommodating itself to the inequalities of the frozen surface, which seemed so suggestive of a canoe floating cork-like upon rippling water, felt, now^ that one is seated in the sledge, like being dragged over a gravel-walk upon a sheet ; or that the track has been completely snowed up, and the wretched dogs are unequal to the emergency. Mistatim, the leader, is willing, but young, thin, and weak ; the middle one, Shoathinga, is aged and asthmatic ; and the shafter, Kuskitaostiquarn, lame and lethargic. From morning till night the air resounds with howling and the cries of their drivers anathematizing Shoathinga and Kuskitaostiquarn. The sledges constantly upset from running against a stump or slipping over a hillside ; and, when one hauls and strains to right them, the dogs lie quietly down, looking round at him, and not offering to pull an ounce to help. When the driver, aggravated beyond endurance, rushes up, stick in hand, and bent on punishment, they make frantic exertions, which only render matters worse, resuming their quiescent attitude the moment he returns again to haul at the sleigh ; and all this time, per-

A JOURNE Y BY DOG-SLEDGE.

iii,feii«;.,iiii&Ki,iiii>ii nil lO THE GREA T FUR LAXD.

haps, the unfortunate passenger lies, bound and helpless, half buried in the snow. Under these conditions the scene changes, and the envious spectator of the poetry of motion retires with more sympathy for those old voyageurs of the fur-trade, who used to pay stipulated sums to the happy inventors of new and strange oaths.

The fall of snow on land being insufficient for sledding purposes, we followed the frozen channel of the river as a track, the six trains gliding smoothly over the first stage of their journey. Harnessed in tandem fashion, one after another, the twenty-four dogs and accompanying sledges formed a long line, and presented a gallant spectacle. Fresh from a long rest, they trotted gayly along, affording their drivers but little pretext for blows or imprecation in the breath-taking pace they attained. True, the gaunt Cree dealt Whiskey a merciless flick, from time to time, and urged upon Brandy the necessity of minding his eye ; but I fancy it was owing more to a desire to keep his hand in play, and his vocabulary of invective in memory, than from any defect in their work. Nevertheless, such casual and indifferently-bestowed abuse revealed the fact that, of the eight animals who were doing their best individually and collectively, to haul me and my baggage over that waste of ice, five rejoiced in the names of Brandy and Whiskey, while the remaining three distributed Coffee and Chocolate between them. This knowledge was a blow under which I reeled. An apostle of temperance sweeping past lonely dwellings, and dashing with a wild scurry through Indian camps, shrieking for strong drink, and followed by a wild retainer opposing his demands with suggestions of coffee and chocolate, would likely convey to the startled

A yOURNE Y BY DOC-SLEDGE. 1 1

dwellers on the plain the idea of a migratory delirium tremens, or a peripatetic advertisement of " The Bar-tender's Own Book." Upon inquiry, however, my misery was found to have abundant company ; for, of the sixteen dogs attached to the packet-trains, no fewer than eleven reveled in an alcoholic nomenclature. The reason assigned by the drivers for so general use of spirituous appellations was, that the mere sound of these names was suggestive of warmth, comfort, and good cheer ; from which the wearied driver doubtless derived a satisfaction equal to washing

" . . . . his hands with invisible soap, In imperceptible water."

Still, upon second thought, it may be held that, as certain colors are suggestive of warmth and comfort — a stove painted red about the base ofttimes deludes the casual visitor with the idea of heat — so may the influence of certain names be productive of like genial effect upon the imagination. However it may be, I know that if such nomenclature be adopted without well-founded reason on the part of the dog-driver, it is the only thing in the many curious phases of his life that is so accepted. Not a thread in the web of his existence but has its use.

Twenty miles below our point of departure, and perched upon the lofty and precipitous bluffs of the river, we caught sight of one of those impossible pictures of mediaeval fortification w^hich so often adorn the lids of snuff-boxes, or the pages of ancient albums. There were the same peaked roofs and turrets, the same bleak view of unadorned stone-wall, with bastions, ramparts, gates, and all, as in the original. But no plumed knight or trusty squire issued from its portals, nor double-handed sword or glittering armor decked its halls. It was the abode of Dives, and Dives trades in beads and gilt, in furs and tobacco, in cattle and calico. As a company's * trading-post it proved a somewhat extensive collection of residences, shops, and stores. These were all inclosed within a stone-wall, pierced throughout its entire circuit with loop-holes, so arranged as to suggest the inquiry whether, in the extremely improbable event of the place being besieged, they would present greater facilities to the defenders of the establishment, or to the assailants in firing through them at the garrison within.