Thus, through the whole course of the Winnipeg, from lake to lake, I could glean no tale or tidings of the great Ogima or of his myriad warriors.  It was quite dark when we reached, on the evening of the 30th July, the northern edge of the Lake of the Woods and paddled across its placid waters to the Hudson Bay Company’s post at the Rat Portage.  An arrival of a canoe with six strangers is no ordinary event at one of these remote posts which the great fur company have built at long intervals over their immense territory.  Out came the denizens of a few Indian lodges, out came the people of the fort and the clerk in charge of it.  My first question was about the Expedition, but here, as elsewhere, no tidings had been heard of it.  Other tidings were however forthcoming which struck terror into the heart of Hope.  Suspicious canoes had been seen for-some days past amongst the many islands of the lake; strange men had come to the fort at night, and strange fires had been seen on the islands-the French were out on the lake.  The officer in charge of the post was absent at the time of my visit, but I had met him at Fort Alexander, and he had anticipated my wants in a letter which I myself carried to his son.  I now determined to strain every effort to cross with rapidity the Lake of the Woods and ascend the Rainy River to the next post of the Company, Fort Francis, distant from Rat Portage about 1400 miles, for there I felt sure that I must learn tidings of the Expedition and bring my long solitary journey to a close.  But the Lake of the Woods is an immense sheet of water lying 1000 feet above the sea level, and subject to violent gales which lash its bosom into angry billows.  To be detained upon some island, storm-bound amidst the lake, %would never have answered, so I ordered a large keeled boat to be got ready by midday it only required a few trifling repairs of sail and oars, but a great feast had to be gone through in which my pemmican and flour were destined to play a very prominent part.  As the word pemmican is one which may figure frequently in these pages, a few words explanatory of it may be useful.  Pemmican, the favourite food of the Indian and the half-breed voyageur, can be made from the flesh of any animal, but it is nearly altogether composed of buffalo meat; the meat is first cut into slices, then dried either by fire or in the sun, and then pounded or beaten out into a thick flaky substance; in this state it is put into a large bag made from the hide of the animal, the dry pulp being soldered down into a hard solid mass by melted fat being poured over it-the quantity of fat is nearly half the total weight, forty pounds of fat going to fifty pounds of “beat meat;” the best pemmican generally has added to it ten pounds of berries and sugar, the whole composition forming the most solid description of food that man can make.  If any person should feel inclined to ask, “What does pemmicau taste like?” I can only reply, “Like pemmican,” there