1. To intimate that the family was gone forward.
2. That there was a Chief of the party.
3. That he was accompanied by a European servant.
4. And also by an Indian.
5. That there were two Indians in company.
6. That they should follow.
It is a common custom with the Indians to paint hieroglyphic characters on dressed buffaloe skins or robes; and a variety of figures are drawn on many of those which they barter at the Company's Posts. In the representation of a victory achieved over an enemy, the picture of the Chief is given, with the mark of his nation, and those of the warriors who accompanied him. A number of little images point out how many prisoners were taken; while so many human figures without heads shew the number who were slain. Such are the expressive signs of a barbarous people, in recording their war exploits, and communicating information without the knowledge of letters and the art of printing.
We proceeded, after the wife had put some kettles upon the back of a miserable looking dog, and had taken her accustomed burden, the tent with other articles, on her own. The little ones were also severally laden with a knapsack, and the whole had the appearance of a camp of gypsies moving through the country.
The 17th. Before we struck our tents this morning, the signs which the old man left upon the piece of wood yesterday, brought his two sons, whom he had left hunting, and who had walked nearly the whole of the night to overtake us. We had now no provisions but what we shot on our journey, and the addition to our party made every one active in the pursuit of game as it appeared. The next day we passed Cape Churchill, and came to a tent of Chipewyan or Northern Indians. The question was not asked if we were hungry, but immediately on our arrival the women were busily employed in cooking venison for us; and the men proposed to go with us to Churchill. As soon as we had finished eating, the tent was struck, and the whole party proceeded, with the old man a-head, with a long staff in his hand, followed by his five sons and two daughters, and the rest of us in the train, which suggested to my mind the patriarchal mode of travelling. The 19th, our progress was slow, from being again annoyed with mosquitoes, in a bad track, through a wet swampy ground. As soon as we had passed the beacon, which was erected as a landmark to the shipping that formerly sailed to Churchill, as the Company's principal depôt, before its destruction by Pérouse, two of the Indians left us, to take a circuit through some islands by the sea, to hunt for provision. We pitched our tents early, in expectation that they would join us, but we saw nothing of them that evening. It is customary, as we were then travelling, to take only one blanket, in which you roll yourself for the night, without undressing. On laying down, upon a few willow twigs, I soon afterwards felt so extremely cold, from the wind blowing strong off a large field of ice drifted on the shore, that I was obliged to call the servant to take down the tent, and wrap it round me, before I could get any sleep. The sudden variation of the weather, however, gave me no cold, nor did it interrupt a good appetite, which the traveller in these regions usually enjoys.
Had we not been delayed by the absence of the Indians a hunting we might have reached the Factory to-day, the 20th. They came in from their excursion at the time we were taking our breakfast, but without much success. They had killed an Arctic fox that supplied them with a meal, and a few ducks which they brought to our encampment, among which was the Eider duck, so remarkable for the beautiful softness of its down. In the evening one of the Chipewyan Indians, sent me some dried venison; and the next morning early we arrived at Churchill. The Esquimaux, Augustus, who accompanied Captain Franklin to the shores of the Polar Sea, came out to meet us, and expressed much delight at my coming to see his tribe, who were expected to arrive at the Factory every day. He had not seen his countrymen since he acted as one of the guides in that arduous expedition, and intended to return with them to his wife and children, laden with presents and rewards for his tried and faithful services.
July 25.—The servants, with the Officers, assembled for divine service, and laborious as is the office of a Missionary, I felt delighted with its engagements; and thought it a high privilege to visit even the wild inhabitants of the rocks with the simple design of extending the Redeemer's kingdom among them; and that in a remote quarter of the globe, where probably no Protestant Minister had ever placed his foot before. The next day a northern Indian leader, came to the Fort with his family; and upon making known to him the object of my journey to meet the Esquimaux, he cheerfully promised to give up one of his boys, a lively active little fellow, to be educated at the Native School Establishment at the Red River. He appeared very desirous of having his boy taught more than the Indians knew; and assisted me in obtaining an orphan boy from a widow woman, who was in a tent at a short distance, to accompany his son. I told him that they must go a long way, (Churchill being about a thousand miles distant from the Colony) but that they would be taken great care of. He made no objection, but said that they should go, and might return when they had learnt enough. This was a striking instance of the confidence of an Indian, and confirmed the opinion that they would part with their children to those in whom they thought they could justly confide, and to whose kind tuition they were persuaded they could safely entrust them. The Company's boats were going to York Factory, and would take them there; where, on my return, I expected to meet my successor as a Minister to the Settlement, on his arrival from England by the ship; and who would take them under his care in continuing the voyage to the school. ""Religion, (says Hearne) has not as yet began to dawn among the Northern Indians; for, though their conjurors do indeed sing songs and make long speeches to some beasts and birds of prey, as also to imaginary beings, which they say assist them in performing cures on the sick, yet they, as well as their credulous neighbours, are utterly destitute of every idea of practical religion.""
The Company's present Establishment is about five miles up the river, from the point of rock at its entrance where the ruins of the old Factory are seen; which was the point Hearne started from on his journey to the Coppermine River, in the year 1770; and which was blown up by Pèrouse about the year 1784. It appears to have been strongly fortified, and from its situation must have been capable of making a formidable resistance to an enemy; and it can never cease to be a matter of surprise that it should have been surrendered without firing a shot. The walls and bastions are still remaining, which are strewed with a considerable number of cannon, spiked, and of a large calibre. Augustus used to visit this point every morning, in anxious expectation that his countrymen would arrive by the way of the coast, in their seal skin canoes. One day he returned to the Factory evidently much agitated; and upon inquiry I found that there was an Esquimaux family in a tent by the shore, under one of the rocks, one of whom had greatly alarmed him with the information, that soon after he left his tribe with Junius, (who is supposed to have perished as a guide in the Arctic Expedition,) one of Junius's brothers took his wife, and thinking that Augustus was displeased with him, and that he possessed the art of conjuring, had determined upon his death, and that this superstitious notion had so preyed upon his spirits as to terminate his existence. This circumstance, he added, had led a surviving brother to threaten revenge, and supposing that he might come to the Factory with the Esquimaux who were expected, he advised him to be on his guard. The next day, July the 29th, Augustus returned to the point of rock on the look out, but not without having first requested a brace of pistols, loaded his musket, and fixed his bayonet, yet nothing was seen of his countrymen. The next morning I accompanied him to the Esquimaux tent, with an interpreter, under the idea that I might obtain some interesting information; and was much pleased to find the family living in the apparent exercise of social affection. The Esquimaux treated his wife with kindness; she was seated in the circle who were smoking the pipe, and there was a constant smile upon her countenance, so opposite to that oppressed dejected look of the Indian women in general. I asked the Esquimaux of his country: he said it was good, though there was plenty of cold and snow; but that there was plenty of musk oxen and deer; and the corpulency of the party suggested the idea that there was seldom a want of food amongst them. I told him that mine was better, as growing what made the biscuit, of which they were very fond, and that there was much less cold, and that we saw the water much longer than they did. Observing that the woman was tattooed, I asked him when these marks were made, on the chin, particularly, and on the hands. His reply was, when the girls were marriageable, and espoused to their husbands; who had generally but one wife, though good hunters had sometimes two. Wishing to know whether they ever abandoned the aged and the infirm to perish like the Northern Indians, he said, never; assuring me that they always dragged them on sledges with them in winter to the different points where they had laid up provisions in the autumn, 'en cache;' and that they took them in their canoes in summer till they died. Knowing that some Indians west of the rocky mountains burn their dead, I asked him if this custom prevailed with the Esquimaux, he said, no; and that they always buried theirs. The name of this Esquimaux was Achshannook, and as Augustus could write a little, which he had been taught during the time he was with the expedition, I gave him my pencil, that the other might see what I wished to teach the Esquimaux children, as well as to read white man's book, which told us true of the Great Spirit, whom the Esquimaux did not know, and how they were to live and die happy. The woman immediately caught up her little girl about five years of age, and holding her towards me manifested the greatest delight, with Achshannook, at the wish I had expressed of having the Esquimaux children taught to write and read the book. They often pointed in the direction the others were coming, and gave me to understand that they would soon arrive. We returned to the Fort, and walking by the side of the river we saw numbers of white whales which frequent it at this season of the year, and many of which are harpooned from a boat that is employed, and usually carries three or four of the Company's servants. The harpooner killed one to-day, which measured fourteen feet long, and eight in girth, and weighed it was supposed a ton weight. The blubber is boiled at the Fort, and the oil sent to England as an article of the Company's trade. When the Esquimaux visit us from the tent, they generally go to the spot where the carcases of the whales are left to rot after the blubber is taken, and carry away a part, but generally from the fin or the tail; they have been known, however, to take the maggots from the putrid carcase, and to boil them with train oil as a rich repast. They are extremely filthy in their mode of living. The Esquimaux who was engaged at the Fort as an interpreter, used to eat the fish raw as he took them out of the net, and devour the head and entrails of those that were cooked by the Company's servants. And it is their constant custom, when their noses bleed by any accident to lick their blood into their mouths and swallow it.
Though the beaver, which furnishes the staple fur of the country, is not common in this immediate neighbourhood, an Indian was successful enough to kill one at a short distance down the river, which he brought to the Fort. It was roasted for dinner, and proved of excellent flavour, though I could not agree that the tail, which was served up in a separate dish, was of that superior taste it is generally considered to be. The sagacity of this animal has often been described; and I have frequently been surprised at the singular construction of their houses, the care with which they lay up their provision of wood, and the mode in which they dam up the water near their habitations. They cut with their teeth sticks of a considerable size, and when larger than they are able to drag, they contrive to fell them on the bank, so that they may fall and float down the stream to the place where they design to make the dam; and then entwine them with willow twigs, which they plaster with mud, so as effectually to obtain a head of water.
We met again on the Sabbath for divine worship on both parts of the day, as we had done on the previous Sunday. As the Esquimaux did not make their appearance, we began to think that the ice in the Bay might have prevented their coming to the Factory. We were relieved from our doubts however, on the 2nd of August, by Augustus running to the Fort with the information that his countrymen were seen coming along in their canoes. He waited till he ascertained that Junius's brother, who was said to have threatened his life, was not of the party, and then went to meet them. Some of them came over the rocks with the canoes upon their heads, as being a much nearer way to the Company's Post from the spot where they left the Bay, than following the course of the river. Their number, with a small party that came soon afterwards, was forty-two men, who brought with them a considerable quantity of the Arctic fox skins, musk-ox, and deer skins, with those of the wolf and wolverine, together with sea-horse teeth, and the horn of a sea-unicorn about six feet long for barter at the Company's Post. In appearance they strongly resembled each other, and were all clothed with deer-skin jackets and lower garments of far larger than usually Dutch size, made of the same material. Their stature was low, like that of the wife of the Esquimaux at the tent who was not five feet in height. They were all very broad set, with remarkably small eyes, low foreheads, and of a very fine bronze complexion. A few of the men however were nearly six feet in stature, and of a strong robust make. As soon as they had bartered the articles which they brought with them for those they requested in return, which were guns, ammunition, beads, and blankets principally, they were informed that I had travelled a long way to see them, and to have some talk with them.