EXPEDITION TO THE LAURENTIAN HILLS. 197 



is now occupied by twenty or thirty lumbermen. The sound 

 of the great trees falling on the distant hill-sides, reminding 

 one of the reports of far-off cannon, and the occasional ap- 

 pearance of one of the shanty men's red canoes passing under 

 the shadows of the cedars on the eastern shores, are the prin- 

 cipal evidences that other human beings are near us. 



" ELEVEN DAYS ON SALMON LAKE. 



" "VVe have now been at Salmon Lake about eleven days. 

 They have been days of active campaigning. We have had 

 to secure means androutes of regular communication with the 

 outside world, bring up our baggage, select ground for our 

 liome-shanty, and commence the building of that structure ; 

 had to do what we could in the way of securing a supply of 

 fish, and attend to the daily duties of the camp-kitchen and 

 quartermaster's department. I do not know that the details of 

 any of these operations can be given in a way to make them 

 specially interesting to you. Still there are some things that 

 I will note. First, as to the 



" quartermaster's department. 



" I judge that it has been seldom that five men (three of 

 them six-footers, or thereabouts) have occupied more limited 

 quarters than have we for the last week. The old shanty 

 which we inhabit measures eight feet by ten on the floor, and 

 is five feet high under the middle of its shed roof. In one 

 corner is a stone fire-place, which discharges its smoke through 

 a square hole in the roof. Between the fire-place and the 

 door is a space about two feet and a half by three, sunk a little 

 lower tlian the average of the shanty floor, in which the cook 

 can stand to prepare the meals, and in wliich our shortest 

 man, Mr. Campbell, can stand wpriylit. The remainder of 

 the floor is covered with balsam-boughs for a common bed. 

 We can just crowd on to this bed (five of us) at night, by 

 stretching ourselves spoon-fashion, with our heads on a log- 

 pillow and our feet to the fire. It is rather a difficult matter 

 for one to turn over without a simultaneous movement of the 

 whole corps. By ' moving careful,' however, and with mili- 



