86 Thirty Years 



information as to the latter part of its course, as they 

 occasionally pursue it on the sea. He sketched on the 

 floor a representation of the river, and a line of coast 

 according to his idea of it. Just as he had finished, 

 an old Chipewyan Indian, named Black Meat, unex- 

 pectedly came in, and instantly recognized the plan. 

 He then took the charcoal from Beaulieu, and inserted 

 a track along the sea-coast, which he had followed in 

 returning from a war excursion, made by his tribe 

 against the Esquimaux He detailed several particu- 

 lars of the coast and the sea, which he represented as 

 studded with well- wooded islands, and free from ice, 

 close to the shore, but not to a great distance, in the 

 month of July. He described two other rivers to the 

 eastward of Copper-mine River, which also fall into 

 the Northern Ocean. The Anatessy, which issues from 

 the Contway-to or Rum Lake, and the Thloueea-tessy 

 or Fish River, which rises near the eastern boundary 

 of the Great Slave Lake ; but he represented them 

 both as being shallow, and too much interrupted by 

 barriers for being navigated in any other than small 

 Indian canoes. 



1 laving received this satisfactory intelligence, I 

 wrote immediately to Mr. Smith, of the North-West 

 Oonrpany, and Mr. M'Vicar, of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, the gentlemen in charge of the posts at the 

 Q-real Silvn- Lake, to communicate the object of the 



