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HOSPITABLE CHIPEWYANS. 



was not asked if we were hungry, but imme- 

 diately on our arrival the women were busily 

 employed in cooking venison for us ; and the 

 men proposed to go with us to Churchill. As 

 soon as we had finished eating, the tent was 

 struck, and the whole party proceeded, with 

 the old man a-head, with a long staff in his 

 hand, followed by his five sons and two daugh- 

 ters, and the rest of us in the train, which 

 suggested to my mind tiie patriarchal mode of 

 travelling. The 19th, our progress was slow, 

 from being again annoyed with mosquitoes, in 

 a bad track, through a wet swampy ground. 

 As soon as we had passed the beacon, which 

 was erected as a landmark to the shipping that 

 formerly sailed to Churchill, as the Company's 

 principal depot, before its destruction by 

 Perouse, two of the Indians left us, to take a 

 circuit through some islands by the sea, to hunt 

 for provision. We pitched our tents early, in 

 expectation that they would join us, but we 

 saw nothing of them that evening. It is cus- 

 tomary, as we were then travelling, to take only 

 one blanket, in which you roll yourself for the 

 night, without undressing. On laying down, 

 upon a few willow twigs, I soon afterwards felt 

 so extremly cold, from the wind blowing strong 

 off a large field of ice drifted on the shore, that 



