44 



VISIT PEMBINA. 



A wish having been expressed to me, that I 

 would attend a general meeting of the principal 

 settlers at Pembina., I set off in a cariole for this 

 point of the Settlement, a distance of nearly 

 eighty miles, on the 12th. We stopped a few 

 hours at the Salt Springs, and then proceeded 

 on our journey so as to reach Fort Daer the 

 next morning to breakfast ; so expeditiously 

 will the dogs drag the cariole in a good track, 

 and with a good driver. We met for the pur- 

 pose of considering the best means of protec- 

 tion, and of resisting any attack that might be 

 made by the Sioux Indians, who were reported 

 to have hostile intentions against this part of 

 the colony, in the Spring. They had frequently 

 killed the hunters upon the plains ; and a war 

 party from the Mississippi, scalped a boy last 

 summer within a short distance of the fort 

 where we were assembled ; leaving a painted 

 stick upon the mangled body, as a supposed 

 indication that they would return for slaugh- 

 ter. 



The 18th being the Sabbath, I preached to a 

 considerable number of persons assembled at the 

 Fort. They heard me with great attention ; but 

 I was often depressed in mind, on the general 

 view of character, and at the spectacle of human 

 depravity and barbarism I was called to witness. 



