34 TOO DISTANT FOR SETTLEMENT. 



the most capable of developing it. If it turns out to be so 

 rich as it has been represented, it will be their interest to en- 

 courage emigration to it. And it is equally their interest with 

 ours to open a route to the Pacific, for the profits on the transit 

 will be theirs, and the more the country becomes known and 

 accessible, the more speedily will it add to the resources and 

 wealth of the province. 



It is indeed hardly conceivable that a country so far in 

 the interior can be profitably settled, so long as there is abund- 

 ance of better prairie land to be found 1,000 miles nearer 

 home. And there is a difficulty which has not been adverted 

 to, the hostility of the Indians, a very warlike race here, who 

 have hitherto baffled all attempts of the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany to form agricultural settlements. 



