90 A JOURNEY TO THE 



1770. nothing of. On the twenty-second, we met several strangers, 



22d! whom we joined in pursuit of the deer, &c. which were at 



this time so plentiful, that we got every day a sufficient 



number for our support, and indeed too frequently killed 



several merely for the tongues, marrow, and fat. 



After we had been some time in company with those 

 Indians, I found that my guide seemed to hesitate about 

 proceeding any farther ; and that he kept pitching his tent 

 backward and forward, from place to place, after the deer, 

 and the rest of the Indians, On my asking him his reason 

 for so doing ; he answered, that as the year was too far 

 advanced to admit of our arrival at the Coppermine River 

 that Summer, he thought it more advisable to pass the Winter 

 with some of the Indians then in company, and alleged that 

 there could be no fear of our arriving at that river early in the 

 Summer of one thousand seven hundred and seventy-one. 

 As I could not [40] pretend to contradict him, I was entirely 

 reconciled to his proposal ; and accordingly we kept moving 

 to the Westward with the other Indians. In a few days, 

 many others joined us from different quarters ; so that by 

 30th. the thirtieth of July we had in all above seventy tents, which 

 did not contain less than six hundred persons. Indeed our 

 encampment at night had the appearance of a small town ; 

 and in the morning, when we began to move, the whole 

 ground (at least for a large space all round) seemed to be 

 alive, with men, women, children, and dogs. Though the 

 land was entirely barren, and destitute of every kind of 

 herbage, except wish-a-capucca * and moss, yet the deer were 

 so numerous that the Indians not only killed as many as 

 were sufficient for our large number, but often several merely 

 for the skins, marrow, &c. and left the carcases to rot, 



* Wish-a-capucca is the name given by the natives to a plant which is 

 found all over the country bordering on Hudson's Bay ; and an infusion of it 

 is used as tea by all the Europeans settled in that country.^ 



[* This plant, Ledutnpalustre, commonly known as Labrador Tea, is common 

 everywhere in the swamps throughout the forests of the north.] 



