40 The Home of the Wohcrcnc and Beaver. 



few days of eating and drinking and jollification. 

 Mackenzie says, " It is, indeed, very creditable to 

 them as servants, that though they are sometimes 

 assembled to the number of twelve hundred men, 

 indulging themselves in the free use of liquor, and 

 quarrelling with each other, they always show the 

 greatest respect to their employers, who are com- 

 paratively but few in number, and beyond the aid of 

 any legal power to enforce due obedience — in short, 

 a degree of subordination can only be rnaintained 

 by the good opinion these men entertain of their 

 employers which has been uniformly the case since 

 the trade has been formed and conducted on a 

 regular system." 



Let us take a peep at the Grande Portage at six 

 o'clock on a July evening, and thus gain some in- 

 sight into the mode of living current at that remote 

 place. The men have returned from transporting 

 goods over the nine miles that must be traversed to 

 reach unbroken water ; some of them have carried 

 two packages of ninety pounds each across, and 

 returned with the same weight of skins, performing 

 the double journey over very rough ground in little 

 more than six hours. They are now dispersed in 

 every direction, some reclining and smoking while 

 their squaws mix their homiinee ; others, whose 

 domestic arrangements are not so complete, per- 



