192 J. H. Lefroy on the Indian Population of British America, 
times, would justify anything that can be said as to the decline 
of the race. ‘“ There are abundant proofs,” says Catlin, “in the 
history of the country, to which I need not at this time more 
particularly refer, to show that the very numerous and respectable 
part of the human family, which occupied the different parts of 
North America, at the time of its first settlement by Anglo-Amer- 
icans, contained more than fourteen millions, who have been re- 
duced since that time, and undoubtedly in consequence of that set- 
tlement, to something less than two millions.” (Catlin, ii, p. 288.) 
In the elaborate alphabetical enumeration of Indian tribes and na- 
tions, upwards of 400 in number, prefixed to Drake’s well-known 
ook of the Indians: 10th Edit., 1848—we find the estimated 
numbers of a large proportion of them stated, but being of a gteat 
variety of dates, and the data probably of very variable authority, 
no general estimate can be based on it, without an analysis much 
more laborious than the result is likely to be accurate. 
In the course of a couple of summers spent a few years ago 10 
the Hudson’s Bay territory, I took pains to arrive at an estimate 
ing each Post, the number of young unmarried men, and an esti 
mate of their families. The first two were, no doubt, ascertained 
very correctly, as far as the enquiry went ; the last does not admit — 
of much doubt. With respect to the districts which I visited, but 
from which I did not procure these data, it is not difficult to base 
posts, there are no Indians, and that where there are trading posts, 
all the Indians of the district frequent them, habit having ret- 
ered the articles of European trade essential to their existence; 
consequently we may infer the number frequenting any given 
post pretty nearly when the scale of the establishment is known. 
There are, perhaps, a few exceptions to this remark in the dis- 
trict of Mackenzie’s River, where our intercourse with many 
tribes is of recent origin; but it is true almost everywhere else- 
Whenever a conjectural addition was made, by well informed 
persons on the spot to the more precise numbers, it has been 10° 
cluded in the following enumeration. 
_ The British territory, in relation to its native population, may 
be divided into four regions. First.—The region west of the 
Rocky Mountains, and north of the parallel of 49°. Second.— 
The region east of the Rocky Mountains, but north of the paral- 
lel of 55°; the whole of which is inhabited by tribes of a com- 
‘mon origin, and grouped by Ethnologists under the genetic 
designation of “ Tinné.” T'hird.—The region from the parallel 
