86 A JOURNEY TO THE 



1770- [35] Knowing that our constant loads v/ould not permit 



J""^' us to carry much provisions with us, we agreed to continue a 

 day or two to refresh ourselves, and to dry a little meat in 

 the sun, as it thereby not only becomes more portable, but is 



26th. always ready for use. On the twenty-sixth, all that remained 

 of the musk-ox flesh being properly dried and fit for carriage, 

 we began to proceed on our journey Northward, and on the 



30th. thirtieth of June arrived at a small river, called Cathawhachaga,^ 



sally detested by all who know them, that no Indians will tent with them, and 

 they are frequently murdered slyly. I have seen several of those poor wretches 

 who, unfortunately for them, have come under the above description, and 

 though they were persons much esteemed before hunger had driven them to 

 this act, were afterward so universally despised and neglected, that a smile 

 never graced their countenances : deep melancholy has been seated on their 

 brows, while the eye most expressively spoke the dictates of the heart, and 

 seemed to say, " Why do you despise me for my misfortunes ? the period is 

 probably not far distant, when you may be driven to the like necessity ! " 



In the Spring of the year 1775, when I was building Cumberland House, an 

 Indian, whose name was Wapoos, came to the settlement, at a time when fifteen 

 tents of Indians were on the plantations: they examined him very minutely, 

 and found he had come a considerable way by himself, without a gun, or 

 ammunition. This made many of them conjecture he had met with, and 

 killed, some person by the way ; and this was the more easily credited, from 

 the care he took to conceal a bag of provisions, which he had brought with him, 

 in a lofty pine-tree near the house. 



Being a stranger, I invited him in, though I saw he had nothing for trade ; 

 and during that interview, some of the Indian women examined his bag, and 

 gave it as their opinion that the meat it contained was human flesh : in con- 

 sequence, it was not without the interference of some principal Indians, whose 

 liberality of sentiment was more extensive than that in the others, the poor 

 creature saved his life. Many of the men cleaned and loaded their guns ; 

 others had their bows and arrows ready ; and even the women took possession 

 of the hatchets, to kill this poor inofiensive wretch, for no crime but that of 

 travelling about two hundred miles by himself, unassisted by firearms for 

 support in his journey. 



{} After leaving Lake Beralzoa, and before reaching Cathawhachaga River, 

 he had crossed Thlewiaza or Little Fish River, Magnus Lake, and several other 

 lakes and streams which are probably tributaries of the Tha-anne or Rocky- 

 Bank River. Cathawhachaga is evidently the Kazan River which I descended 

 in 1894, and it is interesting to note that while, in Hearne's time, it was within 

 the hunting grounds of the Chipewyan Indians, at the time of my visit, one 

 hundred and twenty-four years later, these Indians had left it, and its banks 

 were inhabited entirely by Eskimos. Hearne doubtless crossed the river four 

 miles above its discharge into Yath-kyed Lake, at a place called by the Eskimos 



