224 



Journal of a Voyage through the 



sented us with some fish which they had just taken in the 

 adjoining lake. 



Here I expected that our guides, like their predeces- 

 sors, would have quitted us, but, on the contrary, they 

 expressed themselves to be so happy in our company, and 

 that of their friends, that they voluntarily, and with great 

 cheerfulness, proceeded to pass another night with us. 

 Our new acquaintance were people of a very pleasing 

 aspect. The hair of the women was tied in large, loose 

 knots over the ears, and plaited with great neatness from 

 the division of the head, so as to be included in the knots. 

 Some of them had adorned their tresses with heads, with 

 a very pretty effect. The men were clothed in leather, 

 their hair was nicely combed, and their complection was 

 fairer, or perhaps it may be said, with more propriety, 

 that they were more cleanly, than any of the natives whom 

 we had yet seen. Their eyes, though keen and sharp, are 

 not of that dark colour, so generally observable in the va- 

 rious tribes of Indians ; they were, on the contrary, of a 

 grey hue, with a tinge of red. There was one man 

 amongst them of at least six feet four inches in height ; his 

 manners were affable, and he had a more prepossessing 

 appearance than any Indian I had met with in my journey ; 

 he was about twenty-eight years of age, and was treated 

 with particular respect by his party. Every man, woman, 

 and chiltl, carried a proportionate burden, consisting of 

 beaver-coating and parchment, as well as skins of the otter, 

 the marten, the bear, the lynx, and dressed moose-skins. 

 The last they procure from the Rocky-Mountain Indians. 

 According to their account, the people of the sea coast 

 prefer them to any other article. Several of their relations 

 and friends, they said, were already gone, as well pro- 

 vided as themselves, to barter with the people of the coast ; 

 who barter them in their turn, except the dressed leather, 

 with white people, who, as they had been informed, arrive 

 there in large canoes. 



Such an escort was the most fortunate circumstance that 

 could happen in our favour. They told us, that as the 

 women and children could not travel fast, we should be 

 three days in getting to the end of our journey ; which 

 must be supposed to have been very agreeable iniormation 

 to people in our exhausted condition. 



In about half an hour after we had joined our new ac- 

 quaintance, the signal for moving onwards was given by 



