; q 
NORTHERN OCEAN. 
285 
On the twelfth, we faw feveral fwans. flying 1772. 
to the Northward; they were the firft birds Of —-y—_s 
paflage we had feen that Spring, except a few 
{fnow-birds, which always precede the migrating 
birds, and confequently are with much propriety 
called the harbingers of Spring. ‘The fwans al- 
fo precede all the other {pecies of water-fowl, and 
migrate fo early in the feafon, that they find no 
open water but at the falls of rivers, where they 
are readily met, and fometimes fhot, in confide- 
rable numbers. 
On the fourteenth, we arrived at another part 
of Thee.lee-aza River, and pitched our tents not 
far from fome families of ftrange Northern Indi- 
ans, who had been there fome time f{naring deer, 
and who were all fo poor as not to have one gun 
among them. 
The villains belonging to my crew were fo far 
from adminiftering to their relief, that they 
robbed them of almoft every ufeful article in their 
poffeffion; and to complete their cruelty, the men 
joined themfelves in parties of fix, eight, or ten 
in a gang, and dragged feveral of their young 
women to a little diftance from their tents, where 
they not only ravifhed them, but otherwife ill- 
treated them, and that in fo barbarous a manner, 
_as to endanger the lives of one or two of them. 
Humanity on this, as weil as on feveral other 
fimilar occafions during my refidence among 
thofe wretches, prompted me to upbraid them 
with 
pri. 
12th. 
s4th, 
