North-West Continent of America. 



205 



assented to undertake the woods with me. Others, how- 

 ever, suggested that it might be better to proceed a few 

 leagues further up the river, in expectation of finding our 

 guide, or procuring another, and that after all we might 

 return hither. This plan I very readily agreed to adopt, 

 but before I left this place, to which I gave the name of 

 the West-Road River, I sent some of the men into the 

 woods, in different directions, and went some distance up 

 the river itself, which I found to be navigable only for 

 small canoes. Two of the men found a good beaten path, 

 leading up an hill just behind us, which I imagined to be 

 the great road. 



At four in the afternoon we left this place, proceeding 

 up the river ; and had not been upon the water more than 

 three quarters of an hour, when we saw two canoes com- 

 ing with the stream. No sooner did the people in them 

 perceive us than they landed, and we went on shore at the 

 same place with them. They proved to be our guide, and 

 six of his relations. He was covered with a painted .beaver 

 robe, so that we scarcely knew him in his fine habiliment. 

 He instantly desired us to acknowledge that he had not 

 disappointed us, and declared, at the same time, that it 

 Was his constant intention to keep his word. I accordinglv 

 gave him a jacket, a pair of trowsers, and an handkerchief, 

 as a reward for his honorable conduct. The strangers 

 examined us with the most minute attention, and two of 

 them, as I was now informed, belonged to the people 

 whom we first saw, and who fled with so much alarm from 

 us. They told me, also, that they were so terrified on that 

 occasion, as not to approach their huts for two days ; and 

 that when they ventured thither, they found the greater 

 part of their property destroyed, by the fire running in the 

 ground. According to their account, they Were of a dif- 

 ferent tribe, though I found no difference in their lan- 

 guage from that of the Nagailas or Carriers. They are 

 called Nascud Denee. Their lodges were at some dis* 

 tance, on a small lake, where they take fish, and if our 

 guide had not gone for them there, we should not have 

 seen an human being on the river. They informed me 

 that the road by their habitation is the shortest, and they 

 proposed that we should take it. 



Thursday 4. At an early hour this morning, and at the 

 suggestion of our guide, we proceeded to the landing- 

 place that leads to the strangers lodges. Our great diffi- 



