38 THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE BY LAND. 



pioneers of any new country suffer greater hardships 

 and discouragements than were experienced by these 

 unfortunate people during the first seven or eight 

 years after their arrival. They were attacked by the 

 Canadians and half-breeds in the employ of the 

 North-West Fur Company, who looked on them with 

 jealousy, as proteges of their rivals of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, and were compelled to flee to Pembina. 

 Here they spent the winter living on the charity of 

 the Indians and half-breeds, and suffering the greatest 

 hardships from the scarcity of provisions, and want of 

 proper protection against the severity of the climate. 

 When they returned to the colony they were again 

 attacked by their persevering enemies, the North- 

 Westers, many of their number shot down, the 

 rest driven a second time into exile, and their homes 

 pillaged or burnt. They went back a third time, but 

 their attempts to live by the cultivation of the soil 

 were defeated by various misfortunes. Crops pro- 

 mising to repay them a hundred-fold were devoured 

 by swarms of grasshoppers, which appeared two years 

 in succession, and all they were able to save was a 

 small quantity of seed collected by the women in their 

 aprons. These insects came in such armies that they lay 

 in heaps on the ground ; fires lighted out of doors were 

 speedily extinguished by them, the earth stank, and 

 the waters were polluted with the mass of decom- 

 posing bodies. The grasshoppers disappeared, and 

 have not since re-visited the colony ; but they were 

 succeeded by myriads of blackbirds, which made 

 terrible havoc with the grain. It was not until the 



