[AX] His name was Cos-abyagh, the Northern Indian name for the Rock Partridge.

[AY] As a proof of this, Matonabbee, (who always thought me possessed of this art,) on his arrival at Prince of Wales's Fort in the Winter of 1778, informed me, that a man whom I had never seen but once, had treated him in such a manner that he was afraid of his life; in consequence of which he pressed me very much to kill him, though I was then several hundreds of miles distant: On which, to please this great man to whom I owed so much, and not expecting that any harm could possibly arise from it, I drew a rough sketch of two human figures on a piece of paper, in the attitude of wrestling: in the hand of one of them, I drew the figure of a bayonet pointing to the breast of the other. This is me, said I to Matonabbee, pointing to the figure which was holding the bayonet; and the other, is your enemy. Opposite to those figures I drew a pine-tree, over which I placed a large human eye, and out of the tree projected a human hand. This paper I gave to Matonabbee, with instructions to make it as publicly known as possible. Sure enough, the following year, when he came in to trade, he informed me that the man was dead, though at that time he was not less than three hundred miles from Prince of Wales's Fort. He assured me that the man was in perfect health when he heard of my design against him; but almost immediately afterwards became quite gloomy, and refusing all kind of sustenance, in a very few days died. After this I was frequently applied to on the same account, both by Matonabbee and other leading Indians, but never thought proper to comply with their requests; by which means I not only preserved the credit I gained on the first attempt, but always kept them in awe, and in some degree of respect and obedience to me. In fact, strange as it may appear, it is almost absolutely necessary that the chiefs at this place should profess something a little supernatural, to be able to deal with those people. The circumstance here recorded is a fact well known to Mr. William Jefferson, who succeeded me at Churchill Factory, as well as to all the officers and many of the common men who were at Prince of Wales's Fort at the time.

[96] The lake which he has now reached and which he calls Athapuscow Lake, Arathapescow Lake of the Cook and Pennant maps, is Great Slave Lake of the present maps, or the Slave Lake of Alexander Mackenzie, and not the lake now known as Athabasca Lake; and the point at which he reached it was somewhere east of the entrance to the North Arm. According to l'Abbé Petitot, the name Athabasca is a Cree word, referring to a reedy, grassy mouth of a river, and means "The Herbaceous Network." It does not appear to have been the original name of any particular place or lake, but was doubtless applied to this lake by Hearne on account of the great marsh which covers much of the delta of Slave River, and later it was applied to the lake now known as Athabasca Lake on account of the character of the delta at the mouth of Athabasca River, near which Peter Pond, a trader from Montreal, established in 1778 the first trading-post on the Mackenzie waters. His map of 1785 designates the lake Arabasca Lake. Petitot states (Royal Geographical Society, vol. v. N.S. 1883, p. 728) that Great Slave Lake is called "'Thu-tué,' or 'Lake of the Breasts,' by the Chipewyans, because its eastern part is terminated by two extensive bays, in outline fancifully resembling the female bosom."

[97] Indian Deer = Wood Caribou (Rangifer caribou (Gmel.)).—E. A. P.

[98] Castor canadensis Kuhl.

[AZ] The difficulty here alluded to, was the numberless vaults the beaver had in the sides of the pond, and the immense thickness of the house in some parts.

[99] The eight different kinds of beavers referred to by Mr. Dobbs are rather eight different grades of beaver-skins classified on a strictly commercial basis. His statement is:

"There are eight kinds of Beavers received at the Farmer's Office.

"The first is the fat Winter Beaver, kill'd in Winter, which is worth 5s. 6d. per Pound.

"The Second is the fat Summer Beaver, killed in Summer, and is worth 2s. 9d.