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yournal of a Voyage through the 



night at their lodges, which were at no great distance, and 

 promised, at the same time, that they would, in the morn- 

 ing, send two men to introduce us to the next nation, who 

 were very numerous, and ill-disposed towards strangers. 

 As we were pushing from the shore, we were very much 

 surprised at hearing a woman pronounce several words in 

 the Knisteneaux language. She proved to be a Rocky- 

 Mountain native, so that my interpreters perfectly under- 

 stood her. She informed us that her country is at the 

 forks of this river, and that she had been taken prisoner by 

 the Knisteneaux, who had carried her across the moun- 

 tains. After having passed the greatest part of the sum- 

 mer with them, she had contrived to escape, before they 

 had reached their own country, and had re-crossed the 

 '^mountains, when she expected to meet her own friends ; 

 but after suffering all the hardships incident to such a 

 journey, she had been taken by a war-party of the people 

 with whom she then was, who had driven her relations 

 from the river into the mountains. She had since been 

 detained by her present husband, of whom she had no 

 cause to complain: nevertheless she expressed a strong 

 desire to return to her own people. I presented her with 

 several useful articles, and desired her to come to me at 

 the lodges, which she readily engaged to do. We arrived 

 thither before the Indians, and landed, as we had promis- 

 ed. It was now near twelve at noon, but on attempting to 

 take an altitude I found the angle too great for my sextant. 



The natives whom we had already seen, and several 

 others, soon joined us, with a greater number of women 

 than I had yet seen ; but I did not observe the female 

 prisoner among them. There were thirty-five of them, 

 and my remaining store of presents was not sufficient to 

 enable me to be very liberal to so many claimants, Among 

 the men I found four of the adjoining nation, and a 

 Rocky-Mountain Indian, who had been with them for 

 some time. As he was understood by my interpreters,' 

 and was himself well acquainted with the language of the 

 strangers,! possessed the means of obtaining every infor- 

 mation respecting the country, which it might be in their 

 power to afford me. For this purpose I selected an elder- 

 ly man, from the four strangers, whose countenance had 

 prepossessed me in his favour. I stated to these people, 

 as I had already done to those from whom I had hitherto 

 derived information, the objects of my voyage, and the 



