e coast, having become regular traders of late years, penetrate
a considerable distance into the interior; in this manner the goods
obtained from the Company's posts along the coast, or from foreign
trading ships, pass from hand to hand in barter, until they eventually
reach the borders of New Caledonia, where the trade still affords a
very handsome profit to the native speculator.

These Indians are not given to hospitality in the proper sense of
the word. A stranger arriving among them is provided with food
for a day only; should he remain longer, he pays for it; for that
day's entertainment, however, the best fare is liberally furnished.
Strangers invited to their feasts are also provided for while they
remain.

There is much more variety and melody in the airs they sing, than
I have heard in any other part of the Indian country. They have
professed composers, who turn their talent to good account on the
occasion of a feast, when new airs are in great request, and are
purchased at a high rate. They dance in circles, men and women
promiscuously, holding each other by the hand; and keeping both feet
together, hop a little to a side all at once, giving at the same time
a singular jerk to their persons behind. The movement seems to be
difficult of execution, as it causes them to perspire profusely; they,
however, keep excellent time, and the blending of the voices of the
men and women in symphony has an agreeable effect.

The Takelly, or Carrier language is a dialect of the Chippewayan; and
it is rather a singular fact, that the two intervening dialects of
the Beaver Indians and Tsekanies, kindred nations, should differ more
from the Chippewayan than the Carrier; the two latter nations being
perfectly intelligible to each other, while the former are but
very imperfectly understood by their immediate neighbours, the
Chippewayans.

An erroneous opinion seems to have gone abroad regarding the variety
of languages spoken by the Indians. There are, in reality, only four
radically distinct languages from the shores of Labrador to the
Pacific: Sauteux, Chippewayan, Atna and Chinook. The Cree language
is evidently a dialect of the Sauteux, similar in construction, and
differing only in the modification of a few words. The Nascopies, or
mountaineers of Labrador, speak a mixture of Cree and Sauteux, the
former predominating.

Along the communication from Montreal to the foot of the Rocky
Mountains, following the Peace River