PREFACE. 



lantic and Pacific Oceans, which is proved by my 

 second journal. Nor do I hesitate to declare my 

 decided opinion, that very great and essential ad- 

 vantages may be derived by extending our trade 

 from one sea to the other. 



Some account of the fur trade of Canada from 

 that country, of the native inhabitants, and of the 

 extensive districts connected with it, forms a pre- 

 liminary discourse, which will, I trust, prove in- 

 teresting to a nation whose general policy is blended 

 with, and whose prosperity is supported by, the 

 pursuits of commerce. It will also qualify the reader 

 to pursue the succeeding voyages with superior in- 

 telligence and satisfaction. 



These voyages will not, I fear, afford the variety 

 that may be expected from them; and that which 

 they offer to the eye, is not of a nature to be effec- 

 tually transferred to the page. Mountains and val- 

 lies, the dreary waste, and wide-spreading forests,, 

 the lakes and rivers, succeed each other in general 

 description ; and, except on the coasts of the Pacific 

 ' Ocean, where the villages were permanent, and the 

 inhabitants in a great measure stationary, small 

 bands of wandering Indians are the only people 

 whom I shall introduce to the acquaintance of my 

 readers. 



The beaver and the buffalo, the moose-deer and 

 the elk, which are the principal animals to be found 

 in these countries, are already so familiar to the na- 

 turalists of Europe, and have been so often as well 

 as correctly described in their works, that the bare 

 mention of them, as they enlivened the landscape, 

 or were hunted for food ; with a cursory account of 

 the soil, the course and navigation of lakes and rivers, 

 and their various produce, is all that can be reason- 

 ably expected from me. 



I do not possess the science of the naturalist; and 

 tven if the qualifications of that character had been 



