136 



VISIT BAS LA RIVIERE. 



ment of sensual pleasures. If they die with 

 their hands imbrued with the blood of their 

 countrymen, and are lazy bad characters, the 

 stone canoe sinks with them, leaving them up 

 to their chins in water, that they may for ever 

 behold the happiness of the good, and struggle 

 in vain to reach the island of bliss. 



The 17th. I left the Colony in a cariole, 

 to visit the Company's Post at Bas la Riviere ; 

 we stopped the night, near the mouth of 

 the Red River, and crossed the point of 

 Lake Winipeg, on the ice, the following day, 

 in time to reach the Fort the same evening. 

 It is pleasantly situated by a fine sheet of 

 water ; and is the way the canoes take their 

 route to Fort William, Lake Superior, and 

 Montreal. During my stay, the officer of the 

 Post gave me the much admired fish of the 

 country, called by the Indians, tittameg, and 

 by the Americans, white Jish. Its usual weight 

 is about three or four pounds ; but it is caught 

 in some of the lakes of a much larger size; 

 and, with the sturgeon, is a principal article of 

 food, and almost the only support of some of 

 the establishments. Before I left, the officer 

 was married to one of the best informed and 

 most improved half-caste women I had seen. 

 She was the daughter of one of the chief 



