THE EED EIVER EXPEDITION. 303 



education or civilisation. Great, therefore, was our 

 astonishment at finding the table neatly arranged 

 with breakfast things, laid out on a clean table-cloth, 

 when we entered the house the morning after our 

 arrival. Thrice blessed is the man who first dis- 

 covered the pleasures of eating. Your gourmet in 

 refined life really knows nothing of them ; nor has 

 he ever enjoyed the rapturous sensations which 

 broiled fish, boiled potatoes, and tea, afforded us 

 that morning. En route, our daily meals were 

 always cooked and eaten in a hurry. A picnic 

 once a-year is very pleasant to the man accustomed 

 to eat his dinner for the following 364 days in a 

 white cravat, and with his legs under an artistically- 

 decorated table; but to eat one's breakfast, dinner, 

 and supper of salt-pork, beans, and biscuit, sitting 

 on a log or stone, day after day for months together, 

 is, to say the least of it, rather monotonous, and 

 makes one appreciate the luxury of a chair, table, 

 and clean table-cloth in a remarkable degree. 



At Rat Portage more letters were received by the 

 officer commanding from the Red River Settlement, 

 urging the necessity of haste, and begging of him to 

 send on even a couple of hundred men in advance, 

 for the purpose of inspiring confidence, and of putting 

 an end to the feelings of doubt and apprehension of 

 impending danger, then universal amongst the loyal 

 inhabitants. Riel was still in Fort Garry, surrounded 

 by armed men and the banditti composing his gov- 



