AGED INDIAN WOMAN. 193 



ticular as to the degree of affinity ; for an Indian, 

 who addressed me as " brother in law," being 

 asked why he gave me so affectionate an appel- 

 lation, answered with great naivete, " What! 

 does not the chief recollect that I spoke to him 

 at Chipewyan ?" 



On the 29th of September, a fire being 

 seen on the opposite side of the bay, a canoe was 

 despatched to see who had made it ; and soon 

 returned, not with a good load of meat, as we had 

 hoped, but with a poor old woman, bent double 

 by age and infirmities, and rendered absolutely 

 frightful by famine and disease. The ills that 

 " flesh is heir to" had been prodigally heaped on 

 her, and a more hideous figure Dante himself 

 has not conceived. 



Clad in deer skins, her eyes all but closed, her 

 hair matted and filthy, her skin shrivelled, and 

 feebly supporting, with the aid of a stick held 

 by both hands, a trunk which was literally hori- 

 zontal, she presented, if such an expression may 

 be pardoned, the shocking and unnatural appear- 

 ance of a human brute. It was a humiliating 

 spectacle, and one which I would not willingly 

 see again. Poor wretch! Her tale was soon 

 told : old and decrepit, she had come to be 

 considered as a burden even by her own sex. 

 Past services and toils were forgotten, and, 

 in their figurative style, they coldly told her, 



o 



