194 STARVING VISITERS. 



that " though she appeared to live, she was 

 already dead," and must be abandoned to her 

 fate. " There is a new fort," said they ; " go 

 there ; the whites are great medicine men, and 

 may have power to save you." This was a 

 month before ; since which time she had crawled 

 and hobbled along the rocks, the scanty supply 

 of berries which she found upon them just en- 

 abling her to live. Another day or two must 

 have ended her sufferings. 



The nights now began to get frosty, and 

 diminished the chance of taking fish in any 

 number, so that in a length of four hundred 

 fathoms of net, only twenty-seven, and those of 

 an indifferent sort, were caught. As these did 

 not suffice for the rations of the day, we were 

 reluctantly driven to our sea stock of pemmican. 



October. — Starving Indians continued to 

 arrive from every point of the compass, de- 

 claring that the animals had left the Barren 

 Lands where they had hitherto been accustomed 

 to feed at this season; and that the calamity was 

 not confined to the Yellow Knives, but that the 

 Chipewyans also were as forlorn and destitute 

 as themselves. There is no reasoning with a 

 hungry belly, that I am acquainted with. The 

 only way is to satisfy its demands as soon as 

 possible; and, indeed, when this is obstinately re- 

 fused, the Indian considers, and perhaps rightly, 



