THE CREE LANGUAGE. 119 



On the 28tli of December, Milton left Carlton, 

 and resting one night at Treemiss's hut, arrived the 

 following day at La Belle Prairie. Cheadle and Mis- 

 quapamayoo had come in just before, and a very plea- 

 sant evening was spent in talking over all that had 

 happened during the separation. 



Associating entirely with Indians until the return 

 of our men, we rapidly picked up the Cree language, 

 and in the course of a few weeks could speak it 

 fluently if not grammatically. Nothing is easier than 

 to get a decent smattering of Cree, although the 

 construction of the language is extremely intricate. 

 The name of many articles is the explanation of their 

 use or properties, the word being a combination of a 

 participle and noun, the latter generally the word 

 gun, " a thing ;" as parshisi-gun, a " shooting thing ;" 

 miniquachi-gim, a '' drinking thing" or cup. This 

 also appears in their proper names, which are gene- 

 rally descriptions of some personal peculiarity ; as in 

 the names Kekekooarsis and Keenamontiayoo, which 

 have been mentioned before. The consonants d, /, and / 

 are not found in the Cree alphabet, and the Indians 

 find great difficulty in pronouncing the two first when 

 trying to use English words. The appropriate ges- 

 tures and expressive pantomime with which an Indian 

 illustrates his speech, render it easy to understand. 

 We soon learnt to interpret without much difficulty 

 the long hunting stories with which Keenamontiayoo 

 whiled away the evenings in our hut. The scene 

 described was partly acted ; the motions of the game, 

 the stealthy approach of the hunter, the taking aim, 



