108 Inasmuch 



been known to enter Pike or Jack River Riviere 

 aux brochets by mistake, intending to go to the 

 Red River Settlement. Our guide, however, 

 knew what he was about, and cautiously groped 

 his way along the reedy shore, in one place jumping 

 into the water and walking about to ascertain 

 as a help to his judgment of the locality, and 

 its accordance with his own memory the nature 

 of the bottom with his feet. This mode of pro 

 ceeding, however, was necessarily very slow; 

 and the day broke upon us disclosing a bed, on 

 either side, of green reeds or rushes extending for 

 miles together, out of which arose countless multi 

 tudes of wild-fowl, with no object in the distance 

 which looked liked a Church. The men in the 

 meantime, in both canoes, wet and weary as they 

 were, preserved an unfailing patience, good- 

 humour and cheerfulness; and such, in fact, was 

 their deportment from first to last. They had 

 now been paddling, with the exception of our 

 stay for breakfast at Fort Alexander, which was 

 rather unusually prolonged, and half an hour s 

 sailing on Lake Winnipeg, added to the stop made 

 for supper dinner we did not take on account 

 of a late breakfast they had been paddling, with 

 these exceptions, since a little after three on 

 Saturday morning, and it was nine on the Sunday 

 morning when we reached the Church and 

 Mission-house of the Indian Settlement, dis 

 tinctively so called. What we saw there, and 

 what contrast it exhibited with things which we 



