s in the vicinity of Montreal, I
received a letter, commanding me, in the most peremptory manner, to
repair to Lachine,--"circumstances not foreseen at my arrival from the
interior required my departure without further delay." I accompanied
the bearer of Mr. K----'s letter, and found, on arriving at Lachine,
that I had been appointed to conduct some of Captain Back's party, who
proved rather troublesome to him at Montreal, to the Chats, and there
to await my passage to the north by the Brigade.

I had now served the Hudson's Bay Company faithfully and zealously
for a period of twelve years, leading a life of hardship and toil,
of which no idea can be formed except by those whose hard lot it may
be to know it by experience. How enthusiastically I had laboured for
them, may be better gathered from the foregoing narrative than from
any statement I could here make. And what was my reward? I had no
sooner succeeded in freeing my district from opposition, than I was
ordered to resign my situation to another, who would enjoy the fruits
of my labour:--when I arrived at the Company's head-quarters to take
my departure for a remote district, I was ordered to provide for
myself until I embarked; and when enjoying myself in the bosom of my
family, to suit the convenience of one of their correspondents, I was
torn away from them prematurely, and without warning,--treatment,
which caused one of them so severe a shock as nearly to prove fatal!

Before I take leave of the Montreal department, it may be well to
allude more particularly to the manners and customs of the natives.
The mode of life the Algonquins lead, while at their village, has been
already touched upon; within these few years a great change has taken
place, not in their morals, but in their circumstances. The southern
and western parts of their hunting-grounds are now nearly all
possessed by the white man, whose encroachments extend farther and
farther every year. Beaver meadows are now to be found in place of
beaver dams; and rivers are crossed on bridges formed by the hand of
man, where the labours of the beaver afforded a passage for the roving
Indian and hunter only a few years before.

Happy change, it may be said; but so say not the Indians; the days
of happiness are gone for them, at least for those of the present
generation; though I have no doubt that their posterity may, in course
of time, become reconciled to, and adopt those habits of life which
their alte