A JOURNEY TO THE RED RIVER 63 



pany. The former traders ultimately amalgamated with 

 the Hudson people ; but before this took place, some- 

 thing very like a pitched battle occurred between em- 

 ployees of the rival trades, in which Mr. Semple, a 

 governor of the Hudson Company, and a number of his 

 men, were killed. The fighters were mostly half-breeds, 

 and it is said that their officers could not control them 

 when their blood was up. 



Fort William is now a Hudson post ; but very little 

 trade in peltry is done here. 1 It is a great fish-curing 

 depot, and this trade seems now to give it all its im- 

 portance. The fish mostly caught are the ever-cele- 

 brated (in America) white fish, and large trout weighing 

 twenty or thirty pounds. These two fish are the finest 

 flavoured in this part of America ; and the trout, not- 

 withstanding their size, are not coarse, but of a delicious 

 flavour. They, as well as the white fish, are split open, 

 salted, and dried in the sun ; and thus cured sent pretty 

 well to all parts of North America. This kind of salt- 

 fish is, however, in my opinion, far inferior to the cured 

 Newfoundland cod. 



Before quitting the Great Lakes I should like to 

 remark that the rocky cliffs of the northern shores, the 

 immense expanse of the waters, and the heavy, rolling 

 character of the billows, gave me the feeling of being on 

 a sea-coast. The lakes deserve the name of, and ought 

 to be called, inland seas. They are quite as much seas 

 as the Caspian, Black Sea, &c. The waters are beauti- 

 fully clear and pure ; and objects lying on the bottom 

 can be seen at a great depth ; as can also the fish swim- 

 ming in immense shoals. The bottom seems to be every- 

 where, on the north coasts at all events, either sandy or 

 rocky. 



Fort William is not worth two lines of description. 

 There is absolutely nothing attractive about the place, 



1 That is my opinion, and I must let it stand ; but it has been contra- 

 dicted. 



