I bade adieu to Mr. Ross, a warm-hearted Gael, on the 3d, and arrived at Fort Dunvegan on the 10th of September, then under the charge of Mr. McIntosh, chief factor, where I met with a Highland welcome, and passed the time most agreeably in the company of a well educated gentleman.  The Indians here are of the same tribe as those of Fort Vermillion, but are not guiltless of the blood of the whites.  This post is also surrounded by prairies.  A large farm is cultivated, yielding in favourable seasons a variety of vegetables and grain:  but the crops are subject to injury from frost; sometimes are altogether destroyed.  When the wind blows for some time from the west, it cools in its passage across the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains, to such a degree, that the change of temperature caused by it is not only severely felt in the vicinity of the mountains, but at a great distance from them, as far even as Red River.

From the great age attained by many of the retired servants of the Company, who pass their lives in this country, the salubrity of the climate may fairly be inferred.  Meeting a brigade of small canoes between Fort Vermillion and this place, and observing an old man with a white head and wrinkled face, sitting in the centre of one of them, I made up to him, and after saluting him a la Francaise, presented him with a piece of tobacco—­the Indian letter of introduction.  I inquired of him how long it was since he had left home.

“Sixty-two years, Monsieur,” was the reply; and as the canoes assembled around us, he pointed out to me his sons, and his sons’ sons, to the third and fourth generation.

I heard of no malady which the white inhabitants are liable to, except the goitres; caused, it is presumed, in part by the use of snow-water, and in part by the use of the river-water, which is strongly impregnated with clay, so much so, as sometimes to resemble a solution of the earth itself.

CHAPTER XVII.

ARRIVAL OF MR. F. FROM CALEDONIA—­SCENERY—­LAND-SLIP—­MASSACRE AT FORT ST. JOHN’S—­ROCKY MOUNTAIN PORTAGE—­ROCKY MOUNTAINS—­MAGNIFICENT SCENERY—­M’LEOD’S LAKE—­RECEPTION OF ITS COMMANDER BY THE INDIANS.

Mr. Paul Fraser, a senior clerk, arrived from Caledonia with three canoes, on the 26th of September, and on the 28th we took our departure.  Above Fort Dunvegan the current becomes so strong that the canoes are propelled by long poles, in using which the men had acquired such dexterity that we made much better progress than I could have expected.  As we ascended the river, the scenery became beautifully diversified with hill and dale and wooded valleys, through which there generally flowed streams of limpid water.  I observed at one place a tremendous land-slip, caused by the water undermining the soil.  Trees were seen in an inverted position, the branches sunk in the ground and the roots uppermost; others with only