16 



LAKE WINIPEG. 



their known moral and enlightened education; 

 but their horrid imprecations proved a degen- 

 eracy of character in an Indian country. This 

 I lamented to find was too generally the case 

 with Europeans, particularly so in their bar- 

 barous treatment of women. They do not 

 admit them as their companions, nor do they 

 allow them to eat at their tables, but degrade 

 them merely as slaves to their arbitrary inclin- 

 ations ; while the children grow up wild and 

 uncultivated as the heathen. 



The scenery throughout the passage is dull 

 and monotonous (excepting a few points in some 

 of the small lakes, which are picturesque), till 

 you reach the Company's post, Norway House ; 

 when a fine body of water bursts upon your 

 view in Lake Winipeg. W e found the voyage, 

 from the Factory to this point, so sombre 

 and dreary, that the sight of a horse grazing 

 on the bank greatly exhilirated us, in the as- 

 sociation of the idea that we were approaching 

 some human habitation. Our provisions being 

 short, we recruited our stock at this post ; and 

 I obtained another boy for education, reported 

 to me as the orphan son of a deceased Indian 

 and a half-caste woman ; and taught him the 

 prayer which the other used morning and 

 evening, and which he soon learned: — " Great 



