188 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. xn. 



found a cache, containing birch-bark for a tent and 

 fishing-hooks of Montagnais manufacture, a few plugs 

 of tobacco, a little dried caribou meat, and other trifles ; 

 tliey were neatly packed in birch-bark, and suspended 

 to the branch of a tree. Michel said they belonged 

 to Ambro-sis, his brother-in-law. 



' Why is lie called Ambro-sis, Louis ? ' 



'Michel says that he has two brothers-in-law called 

 Ambroise by the missionaries. One is older than the 

 other, and they belong to different families ; but in order 

 to distinguish one from the other, the elder is called 

 Ambro, the younger Ambro-sis, or little Ambro.' 



' Sis ' is, in Montagnais as in Ojibway, a diminutive, and 

 generally signifies ' little ' or ' small ' when applied to the 

 names of men or things. Nipi-sis signifies ' little water,' 

 probably so called on account of its shallowness. 



Michel complained at night of pains and cramps in his 

 limbs. The poor fellow had been wet for several days 

 together, and sometimes lay down to sleep under a canoe 

 without sufficiently drying his leggings. He found it 

 impossible to find dry spruce to lie on, and being, like all 

 Indians, very careless and indifferent to the future, he 

 would sleep in a wet blanket, regardless of consequences. 

 I made him take off his wet clothes, and wrap himself in 

 a dry blanket, while the men brought a canoe and placed 

 it bottom upwards near the camp fire ; they then collected 

 spruce boughs and made a dry bed under the canoe. The 

 unfailing dose of essence of ginger was then administered, 

 and Michel was told to he down. His feet were then 

 covered with spruce boughs and the fire kept up. Louis 

 undertook to feed it during the night, but before we 



