The Great Lone Land / A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America

A full fed river winding slow, By herds-upon an endless plain.
And some one pacing there alone Who paced for ever in a glimmering land, Lit with a low, large moon. TENNYSON.

The Great Lone Land showing the route of Captain W F Butler F.R.G.S.
At York Factory on Hudson Bay there lived, not very long ago, a man who had stored away in his mind one fixed resolution it was to write a book.
When I put down, he used to say, all that I have seen, and all that I havn't seen, I will be able to write a good book.
It is probable that had this man carried his intention into effect the negative portion of his vision would have been more successfal than the positive. People are generally more ready to believe what a man hasn't seen'than what he has seen. So, at least, thought Karkakonias the Chippeway Chief at Pembina.
Karkakonias was taken to Washington during the great Southern War, in order that his native mind might be astonished by the grandeur of the United States, and by the strength and power of the army of the Potomac.
Upon his return to his tribe he remained silent and impassive; his days were spent in smoking, his evenings in quiet contemplation; he spoke not of his adventures in the land of the great white medicine-man. But at length the tribe grew discontented; they had expected to hear the recital of the wonders seen by their chief, and lo! he had come-back to them as silent as though his wanderings had ended on the Coteau of the Missouri, or by the borders of the Kitchi-Gami. Their discontent found vent in words.
Our father, Karkakonias, has come back to us, they said; why does he not tell his children of the medicine of the white man? Is our father dumb that he does not speak to us of these things?
Then the old chief took his calumet from his lips, and replied, 'If Karkakonias told his children of the medicines of the white man--of his war-canoes moving by fire, and making thunder as they move, of his warriors more numerous than the buffalo in the days of our fathers, of all the wonderful things he has looked upon-his children would point and say, Behold! Karkakonias has become in his old age a maker of lies! No, my children, Karkakonias has seen many wonderful things, and his tongue is still able to speak; but, until your eyes have travelled as far as has his tongue, he will sit silent and smoke the calumet, thinking only of what he has looked upon.