company, without
having enriched themselves. Married to women of the country, and
incumbered with large families of half-breed children, these men prefer
to cultivate a little Indian corn and potatoes, and to fish, for a
subsistence, rather than return to their native districts, to give their
relatives and former acquaintance certain proofs of their misconduct or
their imprudence.

Fort William is the grand depot of the Northwest Company for their
interior posts, and the general _rendezvous_ of the partners. The agents
from Montreal and the wintering partners assemble here every summer, to
receive the returns of the respective outfits, prepare for the
operations of the ensuing season, and discuss the general interests of
their association. The greater part of them were assembled at the time
of our arrival. The wintering hands who are to return with their
employers, pass also a great part of the summer here; they form a great
encampment on the west side of the fort, outside the palisades. Those
who engage at Montreal to go no further than Fort William or _Rainy
lake_, and who do not _winter_, occupy yet another space, on the east
side. The winterers, or _hivernants_, give to these last the name of
_mangeurs de lard_, or pork-eaters. They are also called
_comers-and-goers_. One perceives an astonishing difference between
these two camps, which are composed sometimes of three or four hundred
men each; that of the pork-eaters is always dirty and disorderly, while
that of the winterers is clean and neat.

To clear its land and improve its property, the company inserts a clause
in the engagement of all who enter its service as canoe-men, that they
shall work for a certain number of days during their stay at Fort
William. It is thus that it has cleared and drained the environs of the
fort, and has erected so many fine buildings. But when a hand has once
worked the stipulated number of days, he is for ever after exempt, even
if he remain in the service twenty or thirty years, and should come down
to the fort every summer.

They received us very courteously at Fort William, and I perceived by
the reception given to myself in particular, that thanks to the Chinook
dialect of which I was sufficiently master, they would not have asked
better than to give me employment, on advantageous terms. But I felt a
great deal more eagerness to arrive in Montreal, than desire to return
to the River Columbia.

A few days after we reached F