nto positive
hostilities--altogether a much more peacefully disposed people, because
less exposed to the dangerous influence of large assemblies.

Commencing with the Salteaux, I find that they extend westward from
Portage-la-Prairie to Fort Ellice, and from thence north to Fort Pelly
and the neighbourhood of Fort-a-la-Corne, where they border and mix with
the kindred race of Swampy or Muskego Crees. At Portage-la-Prairie and in
the vicinity of Fort Ellice a few Sioux have appeared since the outbreak
in Minnesota and Dakota in 1862. It is probable that the number of this
tribe on British territory will annually increase with the prosecution of
railroad enterprise and settlement in the northern portion of the United
States. At present, however, the Sioux are strangers at Fort Ellice, and
have not yet assumed those rights of proprietorship which other tribes,
longer resident, arrogate to themselves. The Salteaux, who inhabit the
country lying west of Manitoba, partake partly of the character of
Thickwood, and partly of Prairie Indians--the buffalo no longer exists in
that portion of the country, the Indian camps are small, and the
authority of the chief merely nominal. The language spoken by this tribe
is the same dialect of the Algonquin tongue which is used in the
Lac-la-Pluie District and throughout the greater portion of the
settlement.

Passing north-west from Fort Ellice, we enter the country of the Cree
Indians, having to the north and east the Thickwood Crees, and to the
south and west the Plain Crees. The former, under the various names of
Swampies or Muskego Indians, inhabit the country west of Lake Winnipeg,
extending as far as Forts Pelly and a-la-Corne, and from, the latter
place, in a north-westerly direction, to Carlton and Fort Pitt. Their
language, which is similar to that spoken by their cousins, the Plain
Crees, is also a dialect of the Algonquin tongue. They are seldom found
in large numbers, usually forming camps of from four to ten families.
They carry on the pursuit of the moose and red deer, and are, generally
speaking, expert hunters and trappers.

Bordering the Thickwood Crees on the south and west lies the country of
the Plain Crees--a land of vast treeless expanses, of high rolling
prairies, of wooded tracts lying in valleys of many-sized streams, in a
word, the land of the Saskatchewan. A line running direct from the
Touchwood Hills to Edmonton House would measure 500 miles in length, yet
w