Young seals were heard calling during the night, and their dams were feasting on salmon struggling in the nets stretched half across the river close to the camp. As they proceeded up, the balsam-poplar and birch were nearly in full leaf, and grew in graceful clusters on the precipitous sandy banks, and the spruce and birch were gradually attaining the size of handsome trees. About two miles below the first rapids was a salmonfishing station, leased by two American gentlemen, but at that time deserted in consequence of the civil war raging in the States. At the foot of the rapids was another fishing-station, formerly tenanted by one of the most successful salmon fishermen in Canada, Captain James Strachan, of Toronto. His spruce-bark lodge still remained on the bank where it had been pitched some years before, and near it were the rude but ample comforts and conveniences with which sportsmen in Canada often surround themselves in the woods, when time and means are at their command, and which contribute in no small degree to the enjoyment of a camp in the wilderness. We have already had an opportunity of calling attention to the wonderful resources of Eastern Canada to the angler when noticing Colonel Sir James Alexander's delightful little book "Salmon-Fishing in Canada," in which the Waltonian will find full instructions as to how he is to proceed to reach the numerous streams that flow down from the interior to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and what he is to do to secure good living and plenty of fish. It is not at all an expensive proceeding. Mr. Hind now opens new country, and, as we shall afterwards have occasion to show, one of unlimited piscatorial resources. In the present day, when all the best rivers in Norway are rented year by year by the same tenacious anglers, and not even space for the cast of a line remains at any favourable spot throughout the length and breadth of the land, Mr. Hind's work will be found well worthy of perusal, were it for this single circumstance alone. There is also not only no danger in these wilds, but in this particular instance all that Captain Strachan had left behind him had been respected by the few Indians who come down the river, or by the solitary trapper who now and then passes the same way during the winter season to hunt for the highly-prized martens. A few Indians were met with at this point, but these were only Indians of the coast, who had been seal-hunting, and among them, indeed, was Louis's father-in-law.

The path was found to be rough at the first portage, but with a little cutting the canoes and baggage were passed over it. A precipitous hill had to be clambered over, beyond which the path was carried over level rocks or down steep hills. Rain coming on, large pieces of bark were stripped off the spruce-trees, with which an impervious covering was at once extemporised.

The Moisie Rapids are very grand. A river one hundred and thirty to one hundred and eighty yards broad leaps through a chasm of zig-zag form in six successive steps. The fall does not exceed sixty feet in a distance of three and a half miles; but the body of water in the spring of the year is immense, and being pent up in a comparatively narrow channel between rocks and hills about four hundred feet in height, it serves well to convey to the mind those impressions which are always created by Nature in her wild and stormy moods.

A singular feature also first presented itself at these rapids, which we

afterwards find constituting one of the most remarkable characteristics of the interior, and even of the rocky and lacustrine uplands, and this was the numbers of boulders, or large rounded masses of rock. Here they lay in long rows of huge rounded and polished masses, piled one above another at each turn of the river, wherever lodgement could be found. "They are," Mr. Hind says, "imposing monuments of the power of water and ice; but, as we afterwards found in the upper country, the boulders of the Grand Rapids are few and diminutive when compared with the infinite number of colossal erratics which lie scattered over the valleys, the hillsides, and the mountain-tops, as the table-land of the Labrador Peninsula is approached."

If there is one idea that has always associated itself in our minds more than another with Labrador, it is that of the Labrador felspar, or Labradorite, with its beautiful play of iridiscent colours; blue, green, yellow, brown, and red, and its pseudo metallic lustre; but we certainly did not expect to hear that it is so common as not only to constitute a feature in the country, but actually to play a part in its legendary lore. "As I stood," says Mr. Hind, "upon a Cyclopean pebble of brilliant Labradorite, brought no doubt by ice from the upper country, and worn into a polished rounded form by ages of exposure to running water, I was able to create a mental picture of the flashing fire-rocks of the Montagnais, the fire-mountains which the Nasquapees told us existed far towards the height of land, seen only green and bright by sunlight and moonlight, but never when the Manitou, who dwells in these mountains, is displeased with the wandering and helpless children of the forests and lakes of Labrador. This dream was scarcely realised to its full extent. I saw the 'fire-rock,' but not flashing, as the Indians described; but I do not doubt that small areas of Labrador felspar exist, which glitter with the brilliant play of colours characteristic of this beautiful mineral.” The Indians call these rapids Skatchewan—that is, “swift river," just as the Bow rivers are called Saskatchewan, or, "swift as a bow ;" and the river itself they call Mista-shipu, which means 66 great river," like Missi-sippi, so closely does the Montagnais dialect of the Cree language on the Gulf of St. Lawrence resemble those at the foot of the Rocky Mountains three thousand miles distant.

Beyond the Grand Portage the country has been hitherto undescribed, although there is reason to believe that the early Jesuit missionaries had a station on the summit of this stupendous barrier. The stones and fireholes for the vapour-bath were also seen in the neighbourhood of old Indian lodges, showing that, along the rivers and lakes from the Rocky Mountains to Labrador, we find the favourite remedy for sickness adopted and cherished by all the ramifications of the great Cree nation.

No bird, or squirrel, or rabbit was seen in the fine woods of the deep sheltered valleys leading to the summit of the Grand Portage. Bare rock, or larch, succeeded by thin clumps of stunted spruce, or half a dozen larch just coming into leaf, with a rich undergrowth of Labrador tea-plant, and mosses or lichens of every hue and depth of colour, are the features of the ground over which the well-worn Montagnais postagepath runs. In the rapids themselves salmon were passing up the river by tens, and hundreds, and thousands, swimming over the shoals or lying on them, gathering strength to force their way farther on. Every spot

on earth has its own peculiar charms, and here, as elsewhere, though the weather was variable, the air is spoken of as delightfully pure and exhilarating. The distant mountains looked green and tranquil, the winding river sparkled brightly in the noonday sun, delicate white flowers blossomed in every hollow where a little soil had accumulated, and in the shallow depressions of the surface rich mosses and lichens formed a carpet green and grey, red or pale yellowish white, according to the species which most prevailed.

There were also marten traps from one end of the portage to the other, and these had been constructed during the previous winter by Pierre, the Abenakis Indian, who was one of the guides.

"How long is your line of traps, Pierre ?" I inquired of the Abenakis Indian. Thirty miles," he replied.

Thirty miles! How do you attend to them all ?”

"I built my winter lodge about twelve miles above the Grand Portage, and made the traps for about fifteen miles above and fifteen miles below the lodge." "How long did it take you to visit your traps ?"

One week."

"And how many martens did you take last winter ?"

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Twenty-two; but a hunter on the Manicouagan took fifty-seven. I came too late in the fall, and the winter was half over before my marten road was finished."

"What did you get for your skins ?"

"Five dollars apiece."

Tell me how you set to work in the fall of the year, when you have made up your mind to build a line of marten traps, or marten road, as you call it ?”

Pierre took out his pipe at this question, slowly filled it, went to the fire and put an ember on the tobacco, and after a few puffs he returned to where we were sitting under an oil-cloth to shelter us from the rain, and, reclining on the ground, began his description as follows:

"The winter before last I was hunting on the Manicouagan, but so many Indians came on the river that I made up my mind to try some other ground. In the fall I brought my wife to the Moisie. I got together some flour and pork, and took my canoe up the river, leaving my wife in a little house I built on the Moisie Bay. I found a spot which we shall pass the day after to-morrow, put up a lodge, made a strong câche for my flour and pork, to keep them from the carcajoù, and set to work to build my traps. It was already late in the season-too late, for the snow was more than a foot deep and the river had taken strong. I worked hard, but it was nearly Christmas before all my traps on the line were finished. I set out early in the morning to visit my traps for about eight miles in one direction, and then returned to my lodge. The next day I went the same distance in the opposite direction, always getting home about dusk. The day after I took my blanket with me, some bread, pork, and bait, and walked in snow-shoes straight to one end of my line of traps; here I had a little sleeping-place made of spruce-bark, where I stayed the night. On the following day I went back visiting all the traps and putting in fresh bait when they had been disturbed; I did the same in the other direction, but sometimes went on to the Bay to see my wife. In this way I spent three months, until the snow began to go and the ice in the river to give. I only got twentytwo martens; the country hereabouts has been hunted too much; but I think I should have got more if the carcajoù had not taken my bait."

Some one asked Pierre whether carcajoux or wolverines were numerous on the Moisie, and how many of his traps they spoiled.

There are not many carcajoù here," answered Pierre, "but one fellow took all my bait-from my lodge to the farthest end of the line up the river. He followed me from trap to trap, and when I came back I found that he had been at every one and taken all the bait."

"What do you bait with ?"

cr

Oh, anything that a marten can smell-a wing or head of a bird, a bit of fish, or meat when I get a bear or fox; sometimes bits of the martens themselves anything will do, if it's only meat; they feed on mice chiefly, when they can get them."

The wolverine is such a thief that he will rob, as it were, for mere mischief sake. It is recorded of a hunter and his family that they left their lodge unguarded during their absence, and that on their return they found it completely gutted; the walls were there, but nothing else. Blankets, guns, kettles, axes, cans, knives, and all the paraphernalia of a trapper's lodge had vanished, and the tracks left by the animal showed who had been the thief. The family set to work, and by carefully following up all the paths, recovered, with some trifling exceptions, the whole of the property.

The martens, strange to say, disappear periodically every ten years or so, and it is quite unknown what becomes of them. They are not found dead. The failure extends through the Hudson's Bay territories at the same time; and there are said to be tracts or regions to which they can migrate where the Hudson's Bay Company have not posts. Yet Mr. Hind remarks that Providence appears to have implanted some instinct in them by which the total destruction of the species is prevented. They must, therefore, migrate to parts not frequented by even the Indian hunters. The number of martens killed on the Mackenzie River alone averages from twenty-four to twenty-seven thousand. In Labrador the Indians also get bear-skins, cat or lynx, musk-rats, otter, beaver, and foxes. The lynx is so fierce that it will kill a hunter taken at a disadvantage, as is related in a melancholy story of one who fell and broke his leg, when the lynx sprang upon him. The marten, however, is worth all the rest put together, and, as Pierre remarked, when the martens go the company will go too, and the Indians will starve-they will die off like the marten or the rabbits during the bad years! The Indians who are not converted believe in wendigoes, giant cannibals twenty and thirty feet high, who live on human flesh; and when an Indian has been out hunting, and has never afterwards been heard of, they think that he has been devoured by a wendigo. In a country where bears, wolves, and lynxes exist, and are at times hard pressed by hunger, it does not require to suppose the existence of wendigoes to account for the occasional disappearance of a hunter. The lynx formerly played an important part in Labrador mythology:

They supposed that the world was created by Atahocam, and that a deity named Messou repaired it when it was old. One day Messou was hunting with lynxes instead of dogs; his savage companions swam into a great lake, and were lost. Messou searched for them every where without success, when a bird told him that he would find them in the middle of the lake. He entered the lake to bring back his lynxes, but the lake began to overflow its banks, and finally deluged the world. Messou, astonished, sent a crow to bring him a piece of earth, from which he intended to reconstruct the land, but the crow could not find any. He made an otter dive into the waters, but the otter was as unsuccessful as the crow. At last he sent the musk-rat, who brought him a little bit, from which Messou reconstructed the earth as it now is. He presented an Indian with the gift of immortality, enclosed in a little box, subject to the condition that he should not open it. As long as he kept the box closed, he was to

be immortal; but his curious and incredulous wife was anxious to see what the box contained; she opened it, and ever since the Indians have been subject to death.

66

The expedition left the Grand Portage with cheerful hearts. They had triumphed over their first difficulty, and they felt the courage within them to meet the others, which they full well knew, from the reports of the Indians, they would have to encounter. As soon as they got into the canoes, the usual light-heartedness of the French Canadian race showed itself, and they took off their caps and bade the Portage a respectful farewell, hoping, as one of them observed, never to have the misfortune to cross its path again." The scenery was also very imposing, and well calculated to rouse the feelings even of the savage. At one spot some stupendous sheets of ice hung over the edge of a perpendicular rock, and contrasted in the light of the evening sun with the red rocks and green vegetation in surpassing beauty. Can you paint that ?" asked Mr. Hind of his brother. "You can paint the rocks, the trees, and ice," he replied, "but the radiance and the light are beyond human art."

The river, indeed, grew in beauty as they ascended its current. Its waters became clear and swift, but cold as ice; the hills rose into mountains, and the towering rocks frowned magnificently on the stream. Not a sound of bird, or beast, or fish, broke the stillness; and there was nothing but the murmur of distant waterfalls to remind them that, in this beautiful but desolate wilderness, there was anything capable of producing a sound. The next day, however, they saw a loon, as also fresh traces of bear, reindeer, and beaver. The same day they came to a point where a river joined the main stream from the east, but they decided upon keeping to the latter, in the hopes of meeting with Nasquapees. Nor were they disappointed, for the very next day a canoe issued forth from the gorge above bearing Domenique, the chief of the Montagnais on the Moisie River, with his wife and family, and a young Nasquapee, whom they had the greatest difficulty in prevailing upon the old man to part with, even for a short time, to act as guide. Yet this poor chief and his family were actually almost starving.

The

At sunrise (says Mr. Hind) I went to Domenique's camp. They were just waking; but I was in time to see how they had spent the night. Ranged in a semicircle before the fire, placed at the foot of a large balsam spruce, the whole family lay side by side, the mother and father occupying the outer ends of the curve with the four children, and the young Nasquapee between them. children were covered with a blanket. The father and mother had each a sheet of birch-bark over them; the Nasquapee a couple of reindeer skins. Two dogs were lying under the birch-bark, close to the fire, at the feet of Domenique. The family bed consisted of spruce boughs laid on the wet moss, with the frozen soil beneath; their roof was the black sky, with twinkling stars coldly glittering between the motionless branches of the spruce, as silent, as lifeless, and as uncharitable as the grave.

The gorge had to be passed partly by one of the men going ahead and throwing out a long line, with a stick attached to it, as far into the river as possible; the stick was then caught, and being made fast to a tree, the canoes were thus hauled up round a difficult point. At other times, it was necessary to shoot across from one side to the other and get into an eddy. They had to mend the canoes after effecting the passage