WOODY DISTRICT. 273 



difference of tint sufficiently massive to please the eye, 

 except in a very few localities. The Banksian pine is 

 more frequently seen in considerable patches, and its ap- 

 pearance is agreeable to the voyager ; for, independent of 

 the fact that its spreading branches and general form, re- 

 sembling that of the Scotch fir, is a rest to the eye 

 wearied with the tapering stiffness of the spruce, it offers 

 the prospect of a dry and comfortable encampment. It 

 always grows in a sandy soil, and is remarkable among the 

 Rupert's Land trees for its freedom from underwood. Not 

 so the white spruce, which admits of a thick undergrowth 

 of willows, cornel bushes, viburnum, roses, brambles, and 

 gooseberries ; and, in the country south of Lake AVinipeg, 

 of maples, American yews, and many other shrubs and 

 trees. The willows, especially when conjoined with the 

 falling or inclined stems of forest trees — the growth of 

 bygone centuries, form a barrier to the progress of a white 

 man in the forest ; but the slim and agile native glides 

 through the tangled thicket with a noiseless and ghost- 

 like ease, impassive to the annoyance of the moscheto 

 clouds that darken the air. The prickly twining Panax 

 horridum, which interlaces and arms the brushwood on the 

 north-west coast up to the 58th parallel, has no represen- 

 tative on the east side of the continent, except perhaps the 

 Aralia hisjrida, which, though of the same family, has feeble 

 defences, and is not a climber. The Crataigi have the 

 most offensive weapons of any of the shrubs in Rupert's 

 Land. 



Even beyond the Saskatchewan, where the maples, am- 

 pelopsis, and some other trees and shrubs whose leaves 

 assume the orange and red tints before they fall, cease to 

 grow, the river banks are enlivened by the bright purplish 

 shoots of the white cornel berry {osier rouge) and the gay 

 spires of the Epilobium angustifolium, which rise above a 



VOL. II. T 



