On arriving at the Grand River, I found travelling on the ice to be attended with great danger, and several accidents had already happened; but I had the good fortune to reach Grenville at the head of the Long Sault in safety; here, however, my farther progress was arrested for a fortnight, the roads being impassable.  I arrived at Lachine in the end of April, and after handing in the documents relative to my late charge, Mr. K——­ toldme I was at liberty to spend the intervening time until the embarkation, where and how I pleased.  Gratified by this indulgence, I was about to frame a speech expressive of my gratitude, when he continued,—­“for, Sir, you are to understand we do not keep a boarding-house here.”  This stopped my mouth, and I reserved my thanks for a future occasion; for I could not but feel, that being an officer of the Company, it was robbing me of a part of my pay under the pretext of an indulgence.  Availing myself, however, of this ungenerous grant of freedom, I spent some halcyon days in the company of relatives most dear to me, and expected no interruption to my enjoyment until the time appointed for the embarkation:  but a few days after I had joined my relatives in the vicinity of Montreal, I received a letter, commanding me, in the most peremptory manner, to repair to Lachine,—­“circumstances not foreseen at my arrival from the interior required my departure without further delay.”  I accompanied the bearer of Mr. K——­’s letter, and found, on arriving at Lachine, that I had been appointed to conduct some of Captain Back’s party, who proved rather troublesome to him at Montreal, to the Chats, and there to await my passage to the north by the Brigade.

I had now served the Hudson’s Bay Company faithfully and zealously for a period of twelve years, leading a life of hardship and toil, of which no idea can be formed except by those whose hard lot it may be to know it by experience.  How enthusiastically I had laboured for them, may be better gathered from the foregoing narrative than from any statement I could here make.  And what was my reward?  I had no sooner succeeded in freeing my district from opposition, than I was ordered to resign my situation to another, who would enjoy the fruits of my labour:—­when I arrived at the Company’s head-quarters to take my departure for a remote district, I was ordered to provide for myself until I embarked; and when enjoying myself in the bosom of my family, to suit the convenience of one of their correspondents, I was torn away from them prematurely, and without warning,—­treatment, which caused one of them so severe a shock as nearly to prove fatal!

Before I take leave of the Montreal department, it may be well to allude more particularly to the manners and customs of the natives.  The mode of life the Algonquins lead, while at their village, has been already touched upon; within these few years a great change has taken place, not in their morals, but in their circumstances.  The southern and western parts of their hunting-grounds are now nearly all possessed by the white man, whose encroachments extend farther and farther every year.  Beaver meadows are now to be found in place of beaver dams; and rivers are crossed on bridges formed by the hand of man, where the labours of the beaver afforded a passage for the roving Indian and hunter only a few years before.