276 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



fate, many of them with tears, saying they would risk 

 anything sooner than go on where there was to be 

 fighting their determination was not to be shaken by 

 any arguments or promises. The warlike character- 

 istics for which the !N"orth American Indian was so 

 celebrated, if they are faithfully described in " Hia- 

 watha" and Cooper's novels, have disappeared even 

 from the once celebrated tribe of Irroquois. Of this 

 latter race we had a considerable number as voyageurs, 

 a large proportion of whom were most anxious to turn 

 back from Fort Francis when they heard the startling 

 accounts of the number of Kiel's followers, and of his 

 determination to fight. Their minds were only to be 

 quieted by assuring them of the falseness of these 

 rumours. 



Shebandowan Lake, about 20 miles long and a few 

 wide, running in a "W. by N". direction, has no strik- 

 ing features to distinguish it from thousands of other 

 lakes in Canada. It has about the same proportion 

 of islands, and the same cliffless shore common to 

 nearly all of them. As it is almost at the summit 

 level forming the watershed between the basins of 

 the St Lawrence and the rivers which, flow into Hud- 

 son Bay, no mountains abut upon it, although there 

 are some hills in the distance. The north side had 

 been burnt over for miles inland, where blackened 

 trunks stood up against the sky-line as one viewed 

 the shore from the boats. For miles raspberry -bushes 

 had taken the place of the destroyed forest, the fruit 



