312 THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE BY LAND. 



more sandy hills were covered with, small spruce, 

 and there, too, grew quantities of bilberries as large as 

 English grapes, and of delicious flavour. Here and 

 there wild cherry-trees, or thorns loaded with large 

 black haws, supplied us with a grateful though 

 unsatisfying food. We w^ere up before daylight on 

 the 23rd, eager to reach the Fort, and journeyed 

 through as pleasant a country and along as easy 

 a road as the day before, revelling in the broad sun- 

 light. At noon signs of man became more numerous. 

 We found the print of a moccasin in the sand of the 

 river-bank, and saw an old canoe on the opposite 

 shore. Presently we were startled by the rustling of 

 the bushes which closed in the track before us, and, 

 directly after, an Indian appeared, followed by a squaw 

 having a child upon her back. These were the first 

 human beings we had seen since leaving the Tete 

 Jaune Cache, and the man was immensely astonished 

 by the greeting we gave him, shaking hands with 

 him violently, laughing, and asking questions he 

 could not understand. He evidently knew the word 

 Kamloops, and we concluded from his signs that we 

 should meet more Indians shortly, and might reach 

 Kamloops that night. We hurried forward again for 

 another ten or twelve miles, but there was not a sign 

 of the Fort, nor did we meet more Indians. On this 

 evening we ate the last morsel of dried horse, but 

 resolved to trust now to obtaining food from the 

 Indians whom we expected to meet before long. 



By midday on the 24th we reached another beau- 

 tiful little prairie, across which paths came into the 



