A HEAVY LOSS SANS TEA AND TOBACCO. 261 



back and been carried off, nor did we ever find any 

 further traces of him. 



This misfortune was no light one. We had now 

 neither tea, salt, nor tobacco, for our whole store of 

 these luxuries had been carried by the horse which 

 was lost. All our clothes, matches, and ammunition 

 were gone, except what we carried on our persons 

 at the time. All our papers, letters of credit, and 

 valuables, Milton's buffalo robe and blanket, Cheadle's 

 collection of plants, the instruments and watches, had 

 set out on their voyage towards the sea. But there 

 was much reason for conp;ratulation as well as lamen- 

 tation. No actual necessaries of life had gone ; we 

 had still the pemmican and flour. The journals, 

 too, without which the present valuable history 

 could never have been published, were saved with 

 Bucephalus. 



Mr. O'B. lost his letters of introduction, his tin 

 kettle, and a pair of spectacles; but his Paley, carefully 

 carried in his breast-pocket, still remained to him. 

 The loss of the spectacles, however, obliged him to 

 pursue his studies under great disadvantages, for he 

 w^as now reduced to reading with one eye only, for the 

 only pair he had left boasted of but a single glass. 

 As we sat over the camp fire^at night, talking about 

 our losses, drinking the last of our tea, and smoking 

 some of the last pipes we were destined to enjoy for 

 many weeks, Mr. O'B. improved the occasion with a 

 certain characteristic philosophy. He directed our 

 attention to the consideration of how much worse the 

 misfortune would have been if he, or one of us, had 



