--no man can feast better either.
For long days and nights, he will go without sustenance of any kind; but
see him when the buffalo are near, when the cows are fat; see him then if
you want to know what quantity of food it is possible for a man to
consume at a sitting. Here is one bill of fare:--Seven men in thirteen
days consumed two buffalo bulls, seven cabri, 40 lbs. of pemmican, and a
great many ducks and geese, and on the last day there was nothing to eat.
I am perfectly aware that this enormous quantity could not have
weighed less than 1600 lbs. at the very lowest estimate, which would
give a daily ration to each man of 18 lbs.; but, incredible as this may
appear, it is by no means impossible. During the entire time I remained
at Fort Pitt the daily ration issued to each man was 10 lbs. of beef.
Beef is so much richer and coarser food than buffalo meat, that 10 lbs.
of the former would be equivalent-to 15lbs. or 16 lbs. of the latter, and
yet every scrap of that 10 lbs. was eaten by the man who received it. The
women got 5 lbs., and the children, no matter how small, 3 lbs. each.
Fancy a child in arms getting 3 lbs. of beef for its daily sustenance!
The old Orkney men of the Hudson Bay Company servants must have seen in
such a ration the realization of the poet's lines, "O Caledonia, stern
and wild! Meet nurse for a poetic child," etc. All these people at Fort
Pitt were idle, and therefore were not capable of eating as much as if
they had been on the plains. The wild hills that surround Fort Pitt are
frequently the scenes of Indian ambush and attack, and on more than one
occasion the fort itself has been captured by the Blackfeet. The region
in which Fort Pitt stands is a favourite camping-ground of the Crees,
and the Blackfeet cannot be persuaded that the people of the fort are not
the active friends and allies of their enemies in fact, Fort Pitt and
Carlton are looked upon by them as places belonging to another company
altogether from the one which rules at the Mountain House and at
Edmonton. "If it was the same company," they-say, "how could they give
our enemies, the Crees, guns and powder; for do they not give us guns
and powder too?" This mode of argument, which refuses to recognize that
species of neutrality so dear to the English heart, is eminently
calculated to lay Fort Pitt open to Blackfeet raid. It is only a few
years since the place was plundered by a large band, but the general
forbearance displayed b