Shall we take a peep into an Indian’s tent when encamped in the forest on a trapping expedition? A fire burns in the centre, but through the large opening overhead we see the snow lying thick on the branches of the trees. The day has just broken, but the Christian Indian has already engaged in worship and taken his morning meal. Then on with his snow-shoes, for there is no moving without them. The blanket which forms the tent door is raised, and he steps outside. How cold! and how drear the scene! how still and death-like! no birds, no sound, save the wind whistling through the forest. Now he is at a marten trap, a very simple contrivance, composed of a framework of sticks, in the middle of which a bait is placed, which being meddled with, causes the descent of a log, which crushes the intruder. Here is a beautiful dark marten, quite a prize. He takes it out and fastens it to a sledge, re-baits the trap, and on he goes to another. Ah! he sees tracks, but the marten has not entered the trap; on to another. What is this? He looks dismayed; a wolverine has been here, and has robbed the trap. He resets it and goes on to the next; the wolverine has been there too; to another and another, with the same result. He is disheartened, but it cannot be helped. So he trudges on over a round of thirty traps, taking altogether six fine martens; not a bad day’s hunt, all things considered. Evening is drawing on. He returns to the tent, and there awaits him a glorious repast, perhaps of beaver meat. He feels quite refreshed, and recounts all the vicissitudes of the day, the gains and disappointments.
On the morrow he takes the martens and skins them; and what is he to do with the bodies? Our Indian friends are not fastidious. He eats them. The skins he turns inside out, and stitches them up. In the spring he brings them to the fur-trading post, and there exchanges them, as we have seen, for all the requisites of Indian life. An Indian cannot afford to cast away anything; all he kills is to him ‘beef,’ sometimes good, sometimes not a little bad. ‘In my own experience,’ Mr. Horden says, ‘I have eaten white bear, black bear, wild cat, while for a week or ten days together I have had nothing but beaver, and glad indeed I have been to get it.’
When the Indians have come into the post the work of instruction at once commences. Amid school-work, services, visiting and talking with individuals, the missionary found his time fully occupied. Little leisure remained for his dearly-loved translation work—yet this progressed. In 1859 Mr. Horden had already the prayer and hymn book and the four Gospels printed in the syllabic character. The prayer and hymn book were printed in England. The Gospels he had himself printed at Moose. ‘The performance of this labour,’ he writes, ‘was almost too much for me, as, since last winter, although not incapacitated for work, I have felt that even a very strong constitution has limits, which it may not pass with impunity; I have occasionally suffered from weakness of the chest. I need not say with what delight the Indians received the books prepared for them. I did not think it right to provide them all gratis, I therefore charged two shillings each, a little less than one beaver skin, and with the money thus raised I am able to purchase a year’s consumption of paper. Our services are now conducted in a manner very similar to what they are at home. Our meetings for prayer are extremely refreshing, and my spirit is often revived by joining with my brethren around the throne of grace.’
It must be remembered that Mr. Horden had not only the Indians under his ministry, but the Europeans of the Hudson’s Bay Company; thus he had English as well as Indian services to hold, and as there were some Norwegians amongst the company’s servants who did not readily follow either the English or the Indian, he set himself to learn for their sake sufficient Norwegian to read the service and to preach to them in their own tongue.
To these languages he added Eskimo and Ojibbeway—the latter being the speech of the people of the Kevoogoonisse district, the former that of the natives of Whale River.
How could all this be crowded into the busy day of this father of his flock? How but by rising in the small hours of the morning, when by the light of a lamp in his little study he read, and wrote, and translated, and in addition to all else taught himself Hebrew.
CHAPTER V
A VISIT TO THE ESKIMO AT WHALE RIVER
In February 1861, Mr. Horden writes, ‘My hands are quite full; I find it impossible to do all that I should wish to do. On Sundays I hold three full services, and attend school twice, and every morning except Saturday I conduct school. On Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday evening I hold a service. These matters, with my house and sick visiting, leave me very little leisure. But as myself and my family enjoy good health, I can say that happiness is to be found as well among the primeval forests of Moosonee as in the more sunny land of our birth.’
For his Eskimo children the bishop always had a very special affection. Very early in his missionary career he managed, as we have seen, to pay them a visit. He then could not converse with them, nor could he do so without the aid of an interpreter when he paid a summer visit to Whale River about the year 1862. We give his own graphic account of this.