44 LAKE SUPERIOR. 



ingly. For the same reason, perhaps, I found that I not only did 

 not miss the milk in the coffee, but could not drink it when it was 

 sent to us at the trading posts. Potatoes would no doubt be a good 

 thing, but our men did not know how to cook them. Before we 

 started, the question being raised as to the relative quantities of tea 

 and coffee to be bought, the most thought they should drink very 

 little coffee, but depend upon tea. On the contrary, however, I 

 believe there was hardly a cup of tea drank on our whole tour, (ex- 

 cept by the men,) when coffee could be had. The truth is, that tea 

 is very refreshing after a hard day's work, and it was prized accord- 

 ingly by the men, but we did not take exercise enough to care for it. 

 After we had done our meal, the men took theirs. At dark 

 Henry brought us a candle, and then he and the other men turned 

 in, all lying close together, sometimes entirely in the open air, 

 sometimes with their heads under the canoe, or if it rained they 

 made a kind of tent with the India-rubber cloth. They had each a 

 very comfortable supply of blankets, &c., and somewhat to my sur- 

 prise each was provided with a pillow. Our own bedding consisted, 

 in my case, for instance, of a buffalo robe by way of mattress, and two 

 very heavy Mackinaw blankets, which I had brought from Boston, 

 as they are dearer and of inferior quality at the Sault. Others had 

 the same, or an equivalent. I have heard of travellers who brought 

 blow-up mattresses of India-rubber, and if these things are managea- 

 ble, I should recommend their being taken, as we were often incon- 

 venienced by the large angular stones of the beaches on which it is 

 usually necessary to encamp. At all events I should decidedly 

 take a pillow of this description, for we soon found the voya- 

 geurs were wiser in this matter than we. In the morning we started 

 about sunrise, and usually made ten or twelve miles before break- 

 fast, giving the men a rest of about an hour at breakfast time. At 

 noon we stopped to lunch, making no fire. Our usual time for en- 

 camping for the night was seven o'clock, but this depended somewhat 

 upon our reaching a good camping-ground. Once an hour or so 

 during the day the men would lie upon their oars, and one of them 

 would light a short clay pipe, filled with kinni-kinnik* After a 



* A mixture of dried bear -berry leaves (Arctostaphyllus uva-ursi) and plug-tobacco, rub- 

 bed together between the thumb and fingers. Their tinder was a fragment of a tough, 

 yellowish fungus that grows on the maple and birch. 



