my debut at the post.  The natives being daily expected from the interior, all parties watched their arrival night and day.  This was not a very harassing duty to us, as we relieved each other; but the situation of our superior was exceedingly irksome and annoying.  The moment an Indian canoe appeared (the Indians always arrived at night), we were ordered to apprize him of it; having done so, he was immediately at the landing-place, our opponents being also there, attending to their own interests.  Some of the natives were supplied by the Company, others by the petty traders; and according as it happened to be the customers of either that arrived, the servants assisted in unloading the canoes, conveying the baggage to their houses, and kindling a fire.  Provisions were furnished in abundance by both parties.  While these preliminary operations were being performed by the servants, the traders surrounded the principal object of their solicitude—­the hunter; first one, then another, taking him aside to persuade him of the superior claims each had on his love and gratitude.  After being pestered in this manner for some time, he, (the hunter,) eventually allowed himself to be led away to the residence of one of the parties, where he was treated to the best their establishment afforded; the natives, however, retaining their furs, and visiting from house to house, until satiated with the good cheer the traders had to give them, when they at length gave them up, but not always to the party to whom they were most indebted.  They are generally great rogues; the sound of the dollars, which the Company possessed in abundance, often brought the furs that were due to the petty trader to the Company’s stores; while some of our customers were induced by the same argument to carry their furs to our rivals.

For a period of six weeks or so, the natives continued to arrive; sometimes in brigades, sometimes in single canoes; during the whole of this period we were occupied in the manner now described, day and night.  So great was the pressure of business, that we had scarcely time to partake of the necessary refreshment.  When they had at length all arrived, we enjoyed our night’s rest, if indeed our continually disturbed slumbers could be called rest:—­what with the howling of two or three hundred dogs, the tinkling of bells with which the horses the Indians rode were ornamented, the bawling of the squaws when beaten by their drunken husbands, and the yelling of the savages themselves when in that beastly state, sleep was impossible,—­the infernal sounds that continually rent the air, produced such a symphony as could be heard nowhere else out of Pandemonium.  No liquors were sold to the natives at the village, but they procured as much as they required from the opposite side of the lake.  Some wretches of Canadians were always ready, for a trifling consideration, to purchase it for them; thus the law prohibiting the sale of liquor to the Indians was evaded.  After wallowing in intemperance