A General History of the Fur Trade. 



51 



out their plains, which are brought, as has been observed, 

 from the Spanish settlements in Mexico ; and many of 

 them have been seen, even in the back parts of this country, 

 branded with the initials of their original owners names. 

 Those horses are distinctly employed as beasts of burden, 

 and to chase the buffalo. The former are not considered as 

 being of much value, as they may be purchased for a gun, 

 which costs no more than twenty-one shillings in Great- 

 Britain. Many of the hunters cannot be purchased with 

 ten, the comparative value of which exceeds the property 

 of any native. 



Of these useful animals no care whatever is taken, as 

 when they are no longer employed, they are turned loose 

 winter and summer to provide for themselves. Here ic is 

 to be observed, that the country, in general, on the West 

 and North side of this great river, is broken by the lakes' 

 and rivers with small intervening plains, where the soil is 

 good, and the grass grows to some length. To these the 

 male buffaloes resort for the winter, and if it be very severe, 

 the females also are obliged to leave the plains. 



But to return to the route by which the progress West 

 and North is made through this continent. 



We leave the Saskatchiwine * by entering the river which 

 forms the discharge of the Sturgeon Lake, on whose East 

 bank is situated Cumberland house, in latitude 53. 56. North, 

 longitude 102. 15. The distance between the entrance and 

 Cumberland house is estimated at twenty miles. It is very 

 evident that the mud which is carried down by the Saskatchi- 

 wine River, has formed the land that lies between it and the 

 lake, for the distance of upwards of twenty miles in the line 

 of the river, which is inundated during one half of the sum- 

 mer, though covered with wood. This lake forms an irre- 

 gular horse-shoe, one side of which runs to the North- West, 

 and bears the name of Pine-Island Lake, and the other known 

 by the name already mentioned, runs to the East of North, 

 and is the largest: its length its about twenty-seven miles, 

 and its greatest breadth about six miles. The North side 

 of the latter is the same kind of rock as that described in 

 Lake Winipic, on the West shore. In latitude 54. 16\ 



* It may be proper to observe, that the French had two settlements upon 

 the Saskatchiwine, long before, and at the conquest of Canada; the first 

 at the Pasquia, near Carrot River, and the other at Nipawi, where they 

 had agricultural instruments and wheel carriages, marks of both being 

 found about those establishments, where the soil is excellent. 



