anxiety for the future; and having first, 

 like the rest, made my offering of tobacco, 

 I enquired, whether or not I should ever 

 revisit my native country? [He was then 

 a prisoner, still in some peril of death, after 

 many years of voyaging in the West]. The 

 question being put by the priest, the tent 

 shook as usual; after which I received this 

 answer: "That I should take courage, and 

 fear no danger, for that nothing would 

 happen to hurt me ; and that I should, in the 

 end reach my friends and country in safe- 

 ty." These assurances wrought so strongly 

 on my gratitude, that I presented an addi- 

 tional and extra offering of tobacco.' 



'I was on the watch through the scene I 

 have described, to detect the particular con- 

 trivance by which the fraud was carried 

 on; but, such was the skill displayed in the 

 performance, or such my deficiency of pene- 

 tration, that I made no discovery, but came 

 away as I went, with no more than those 

 general surmises which will naturally be 

 entertained by any reader.' 



David Thompson, incomparably the 

 greatest contributor to the precise geo- 

 graphic knowledge of North America, 

 (and the tenant of an unmarked grave in 

 Montreal) likewise a pious and trust- 

 191 



