Basse-a-Loin 
THE hog’s back 
picturesque,time-painted building; its many additions 
prompt one to think that it may have started on a 
ramble about the yard; it was the home of Mackenzie 
who knew all there was to know of the fur trade, and 
who was intimately associated with John Jacob 
Astor in the American Fur Company. 
There was I’Auberge de Boutonne, too, already 
familiar in literature as Button’s Inn; nothing is left 
now to mark even the spot where it once stood; long 
ago the painted Indian sign ceased to swing in the 
breeze and longer still since the portage stage, with 
its jolly rotund driver and expectant passengers, 
ceased to rattle cheerily into the courtyard. To-day 
steam and electricity have taken the place of the 
stage and dray and the iron horse follows reluctantly 
the trapper’s trail; science, after searching in vain 
for an easy path across the unyielding ridge, was at 
last compelled to fall back upon the road hewn out 
of the solid forests by the pioneer a score of decades 
before. 
Returning to our quarters at the village inn, we 
cannot but feel the air of restfulness pervading the 
whole place; here they have plenty of time and no 
one hurries; the village oracle will soon introduce 
himself and thenceforward other society will hold 
few charms. At the mn you will he made welcome 
and you may he expected to hang up your hat on a 
peg provided therefor, without liveried assistance 
and the usual accompanying transposition of a—-it 
harrows me to say it—of a quarter. 
IT have lived for a time under the friendly roof 
and then depart without having partaken of a hsh 
supper, is to have lived almost in vain; the dining¬ 
room is the same as of other days and as you sit at 
the large comfortable table you may look for miles 
out upon the ever varying and always fascinating 
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