I found that, as the Esquimaux inhabitants had left Churchill a month previous to our arrival, no interpreter from that quarter could be procured before their return in the following spring.  The Governor however undertook to forward to us, next season, the only one amongst them who understood English, if he could be induced to go.

The Governor selected one of the largest of the Company’s boats for our use on the journey, and directed the carpenters to commence refitting it immediately; but he was only able to furnish us with a steersman; and we were obliged to make up the rest of the crew with the boatmen brought from Stromness and our two attendants.

York Factory, the principal depot of the Hudson’s Bay Company, stands on the west bank of Hayes River, about five miles above its mouth, on the marshy peninsula which separates the Hayes and Nelson Rivers.  The surrounding country is flat and swampy and covered with willows, poplars, larch, spruce, and birch-trees; but the requisition for fuel has expended all the wood in the vicinity of the fort and the residents have now to send for it to a considerable distance.  The soil is alluvial clay and contains imbedded rolled stones.  Though the bank of the river is elevated about twenty feet it is frequently overflown by the spring floods, and large portions are annually carried away by the disruption of the ice which, grounding in the stream, have formed several muddy islands.  These interruptions, together with the various collection of stones that are hid at high-water, render the navigation of the river difficult; but vessels of two hundred tons burden may be brought through the proper channels as high as the Factory.

The principal buildings are placed in the form of a square having an octagonal court in the centre; they are two storeys in height and have flat roofs covered with lead.  The officers dwell in one portion of this square, and in the other parts the articles of merchandise are kept:  the workshops, storehouses for the furs, and the servants’ houses are ranged on the outside of the square, and the whole is surrounded by a stockade twenty feet high.  A platform is laid from the house to the pier on the bank for the convenience of transporting the stores and furs, which is the only promenade the residents have on this marshy spot during the summer season.  The few Indians who now frequent this establishment belong to the Swampy Crees.  There were several of them encamped on the outside of the stockade.  Their tents were rudely constructed by tying twenty or thirty poles together at the top, and spreading them out at the base so as to form a cone; these were covered with dressed moose-skins.  The fire is placed in the centre and a hole is left for the escape of the smoke.  The inmates had a squalid look and were suffering under the combined afflictions of the whooping-cough and measles; but even these miseries did not keep them from an excessive indulgence in spirits, which they