from those named, consisting of John Hepburn, seaman, an interpreter and fifteen voyageurs, including, unfortunately, an Iroquois Indian, called Michel Teroahante.  At two p.m. they entered Great Slave River, here three-quarters of a mile wide, and, passing Red Deer Islands and Dog River, encountered the rapids, overcome by seven or eight portages, from the Casette to the Portage of the Drowned, all varying in length from seventy to eight hundred yards.

On the 21st they landed at the mouth of Salt River to lay in a supply of salt for their journey, the deposits lying twenty-two miles up by stream.  These natural pans, or salt plains, he describes—­and the description answers for to-day—­as “bounded on the north and west by a ridge between six and seven hundred feet high.”  Several salt springs issue at its foot, and spread over the plain, which is of tenacious clay, and, evaporating in summer, crystallize in the form of cubes.  The poisson inconnu, a species of salmon which ascends from the Arctic Ocean, is not found, he says, above this stream.  A few miles below it, however, a buffalo plunged into the river before them, which they killed, and those animals still frequent the region.

On the 25th of July they passed through the channel of the Scaffold to Great Slave Lake, and, landing at Moose Deer Island, found thereon the rival forts, of course, within striking distance of each other, and in charge, as usual, of rival Scotsmen.  At Great Slave Lake I must part company with Franklin’s Journal, since our own negotiations only extended to its south shores.  But who that has read it can ever forget the awful return journey of the party from the Arctic coast, through the Barren Lands, to their own winter quarters, which they so aptly named Fort Resolution?  In the tales of human suffering from hunger there are few more terrible than this.  All the gruesome features of prolonged starvation were present; the murder of Mr. Hood and two of the voyageurs by the Iroquois; his bringing to the camp a portion of human flesh, which he declared to be that of a wolf; his death at the Doctor’s hands; the dog-like diet of old skins, bones, leather pants, moccasins, tripe de roche; the death of Peltier and Semandre from want, and the final relief of the party by Akaitcho’s Indians, and their admirable conduct.  And all those horrors experienced over five hundred miles beyond Fort Chipewyan, itself thousands of miles beyond civilization!  Did the noble Franklin’s last sufferings exceed even these?  Perhaps; but they are unrecorded.

To return to our muttons.  Some marked changes had taken place, and for the better, in Chipewyan characteristics since Franklin’s day; not surprising, indeed, after eighty years of contact with educated, or reputable, white men; for miscreants, like the old American frontiersmen, were not known in the country, and if they had been, would soon have been run out.  There was now no paint or “strouds” to