288 



Journdl of a Voyage through the 



support, leaving the earth, from various causes', in its 

 virgin* state. The proportion of it that is fit for cultivation 

 is very small, and is still less in the interior parts: it is 

 also very difficult of access ; and whilst any land remains 

 uncultivated to the South of it, there will be no tempta- 

 tion to settle it. Besides, its climate is not in general suf- 

 ficiently genial to bring the fruits of the earth to maturity. 

 It will also be an asylum for the descendants of the origi- 

 nal inhabitants of the country to the South, who prefer 

 the modes of life of their forefathers, to the improve- 

 ments of civilization. Of this disposition there is a re- 

 cent instance. A small colony of Iroquois emigrated to 

 the banks of the Saskatchiwine, in 1799, who had been 

 brought up from their infancy under the Romish mission- 

 aries, aad instructed by them at a village within nine miles 

 of Montreal. 



A further division of this country is marked by a ridge 

 of high land, rising, as it were, from the coast of Labra- 

 dor, and running nearly South- West to the source of the 

 Utawas River, dividing the waters going either way to the 

 river and gulf of St. Laurence and Hudson's Bay, as be- 

 fore observed. From thence it stretches to the North of 

 West, to the Northward of Lake Superior, to latitude 

 50. North, and longitude 89. West,^ when it forks from 

 the last course at about South-West, and continues the 

 same division of waters until it passes North of the source 

 of the Missisippi. The former course runs, as has been 

 observed, in a North- West direction, until it strikes the 

 river Nelson, separating the waters that discharge them- 

 selves into Lake Winipic, which forms part of the said 

 river, and those that also empty themselves into Hudson's 

 Bay, by the Albany, Severn, and Hay's or Hill's Rivers. 

 From thence it keeps a course of about West-North- 

 West, till it forms the banks of the Missinipi or Churchill 

 River, at Portage de Traite, latitude 55. 25. North. It 

 now continues in a Western direction, between the Sas- 

 katchiwine and the source of the Missinipi, or Beaver 

 River, which it leaves behind, and divides the Saskatchi- 

 wine from the Elk River; when, leaving those also be- 

 hind, and pursuing the same direction it leads to the high 

 land that lies between the Unjigah and Tacoutche rivers, 

 from whence it may be supposed to be the same ridge. 

 From the head of the Beaver River, on the West, the 

 same kind of high ground runs to the East of North, be- 



