scurity had obliterated its perfection.
Then, to the sweet pleasure that I had tasted, succeeded a _triste_, not
to say, a sombre, melancholy. How comes it to pass, I said to myself,
that so beautiful a country is not inhabited by human creatures? The
songs, the hymns, the prayers, of the laborer and the artisan, shall
they never be heard in these fine plains? Wherefore, while in Europe,
and above all in England, so many thousands of men do not possess as
their own an inch of ground, and cultivate the soil of their
country for proprietors who scarcely leave them whereon to support
existence;--wherefore--do so many millions of acres of apparently fat
and fertile land, remain uncultivated and absolutely useless? Or, at
least, why do they support only herds of wild animals? Will men always
love better to vegetate all their lives on an ungrateful soil, than to
seek afar fertile regions, in order to pass in peace and plenty, at
least the last portion of their days? But I deceive myself; it is not
so easy as one thinks, for the poor man to better his condition: he has
not the means of transporting himself to distant countries, or he has
not those of acquiring a property there; for these untilled lands,
deserted, abandoned, do not appertain to whoever wishes to establish
himself upon them and reduce them to culture; they have owners, and from
these must be purchased the right of rendering them productive! Besides
one ought not to give way to illusions: these countries, at times so
delightful, do not enjoy a perpetual spring; they have their winter, and
a rigorous one; a piercing cold is then spread through the atmosphere;
deep snows cover the surface; the frozen rivers flow only for the fish;
the trees are stripped of their leaves and hung with icicles; the
verdure of the plains has disappeared; the hills and valleys offer but a
uniform whiteness; Nature has lost all her beauty; and man has enough to
do, to shelter himself from the injuries of the inclement season.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Fort Montee--Cumberland House.--Lake Bourbon.--Great Winipeg
Rapids.--Lake Winipeg.--Trading-House.--Lake of the Woods.--Rainy
Lake House, &c.

On the 18th of June (a day which its next anniversary was to render for
ever celebrated in the annals of the world), we re-embarked at an early
hour: and the wind rising, spread sail, a thing we had not done before,
since we quitted the river Columbia. In the afternoon the clouds
gat