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Chapter Four. Vicissitudes of the Voyage—Indians Met with, etcetera.
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We have passed over the first three weeks of the voyage rapidly, but it must not be supposed that therefore it was all plain sailing. On the contrary, the travellers were delayed by thunderstorms, and heavy rains, and gales, and impeded by ice, which, even in the middle of June lay thick on the waters in some parts. They were also tormented by hosts of mosquitoes, and at times they found difficulty in procuring food—despite the ability of our friends Reuben, Swiftarrow, and Lawrence, who were constituted hunters to the expedition. At other times, however, the supply of food was abundant and varied. On one occasion the hunters brought in seven geese, a beaver, and four ducks, besides which a large supply of excellent trout and other fish was obtained from the nets; and on another occasion they procured two swans, ten beavers, and a goose. But sometimes they returned empty-handed, or with a single bird or so, while the nets produced nothing at all. Deer were also shot occasionally, and they found immense numbers of wild cranberries, strawberries, rasps, and other berries, besides small spring onions; so that, upon the whole, they fared well, and days of abstinence were more than compensated by days of superabundance.
One evening while they were coasting along this great lake, some Indians were discovered on the shore, and the travellers landed to make inquiries of them as to the nature of the country beyond. There were three lodges belonging to the Red-knife Indians, who were so named because their knifes were made of the copper found in that region. To the leading man of these, English Chief, being interpreter, addressed himself.
English Chief, we may remark in passing, was one of the followers of the chief who conducted Hearne on his expedition to the Coppermine River; since which event he had been a principal leader of his countrymen who were in the habit of carrying furs to the English fur-traders at Churchill, on Hudson’s Bay, and was much attached to the interest of the Hudson Bay Company, which, at that time, was in opposition to the Canadian or Nor’-West Company. These circumstances procured him the title of the English Chief. An able, active, but self-sufficient and somewhat obstinate chief he was, and caused Mackenzie a good deal of anxiety and much trouble to keep him with the party.
In answer to his queries, the principal man of the Red-knife Indians said that there were many more of his tribe a short distance off, and that he would send a man to fetch them. He also said that the explorers should see no more of them at that time, because the Slave and Beaver Indians, as well as others of the tribe, were about to depart, and would not be in that region again till the time when the swans cast their feathers.
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Chapter Five.
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