NORTHERN OCEAN 93 



company, gave me little hopes of receiving assistance from 1770- 

 them, any longer than I had wherewithal to reward them for 

 their trouble and expense ; for during the whole time I had 

 been with them, not one of them had offered to give me the 

 least morsel of victuals, without asking something in exchange, 

 which, in general, was three times the value of [43] what they 

 could have got for the same articles, had they carried them to 

 the Factory, though several hundred miles distant. 



So inconsiderate were those people, that wherever they 

 met me, they always expected that I had a great assortment of 

 goods to relieve their necessities ; as if I had brought the 

 Company's warehouse with me. Some of them wanted guns ; 

 all wanted ammunition, iron-work, and tobacco ; many were 

 solicitous for medicine ; and others pressed me for different 

 articles of clothing : but when they found I had nothing to 

 spare, except a few nick-nacks and gewgaws, they made no 

 scruple of pronouncing me a "poor servant, noways like the 

 Governor at the Factory, who, they said, they never saw, but 

 he gave them something useful." It is scarcely possible to 

 conceive any people so void of common understanding, as to 

 think that the sole intent of my undertaking this fatiguing 

 journey, was to carry a large assortment of useful and heavy 

 implements, to give to all that stood in need of them ; but 

 many of them would ask me for what they wanted with the 

 same freedom, and apparently with the same hopes of success, 

 as if they had been at one of the Company's Factories. Others, 

 with an air of more generosity, offered me furs to trade with 

 at the same standard as at the Factory ; without considering 

 how unlikely it was that I should increase the enormous 

 weight of my load with articles which could be of no more 

 use to me in my present situation than they were to them- 

 selves. 



[44] This unaccountable behaviour of the Indians occa- 

 sioned much serious reflection on my part ; as it showed 

 plainly how little I had to expect if I should, by any accident, 



