I have already observed that the salmon fail periodically, and the natives would consequently be reduced to the utmost distress, did not the goodness of Providence furnish them with a substitute.  Rabbits are sent to supply the place of the salmon; and, singular as it may appear, these animals increase in number as the salmon decrease, until they swarm all over the country.  When the salmon return, they gradually disappear, being destroyed or driven away by their greatest enemy, the lynx, which first appear in smaller, then in greater numbers;—­both they and their prey disappearing together.  As to the cause that induces those animals to appear and disappear in this manner, I cannot take upon myself to explain.

In the course of this summer one of our interpreters, a native, lost his life in rather a singular manner.  He had made a bear-trap, and wishing to ascertain how it would work, tried his own weight on the spring, which yielded but too readily, and crushed him in so dreadful a manner that he only survived his experiment but a few hours.  As he had withdrawn from the Company’s service this year, his body was disposed of after the manner of his own people, except that it was buried instead of being burned; this, however, was the first instance of an interment, it being introduced through our influence in pity to the unfortunate widows, who are exposed to the cruellest tortures at the burning of the body.  I never beheld a more affecting scene than the present.  Immediately as the coffin was lowered into the grave, the widow threw herself upon it, shrieking and tearing her hair, and could only be removed by main force:  several other females, relatives of the deceased, were also assembled in a group hard by, and evinced all the external symptoms of extreme grief, chanting the death-song in a most lugubrious tone, the tears streaming down their cheeks, and beating their breasts.  The men, however, even the brothers of the deceased, showed no emotion whatever, and as soon as the rites were ended, moved off the ground, followed by the female mourners, who soon after were seen as gay and cheerful as if they had returned from a wedding.  The widow, however, still remained by the grave, being obliged to do so in conformity with the customs of her nation, which required that she should mourn day and night, until the relatives of the deceased should collect a sufficiency of viands to make a feast in honour of his bones.

As already observed, the bodies were formerly burned; the relatives of the deceased, as well as those of the widow, being present, all armed; a funeral pile was erected, and the body placed upon it.  The widow then set fire to the pile, and was compelled to stand by it, anointing her breast with the fat that oozed from the body until the heat became insupportable:  when the wretched creature, however, attempted to draw back, she was thrust forward by her husband’s relatives at the point of their spears, and forced