e
dried meat is prepared by cutting the flesh of the buffaloe thin, and
hanging it on stages of wood to dry by the fire; and is generally tied
in bundles of fifty or forty pounds weight. It is very rough, and
tasteless, except a strong flavour of the smoke. Pemican is made by
pounding the dried meat, and mixing it with boiled fat, and is then put
into bags made of buffaloe skin, which weigh about eighty and a hundred
pounds each. It is a species of food well adapted to travelling in the
country; but so strongly cemented in the bag, that when it is used, it
is necessary to apply the axe; and very much resembles in appearance
tallow-chandler's grease.

The 10th.--The plains have been on fire to a considerable extent for
several days past, and the awful spectacle is seen this evening,
through the whole of the northern, and western horizon. Idle rumours
prevail that the Sioux Indians will attack the Settlement; which
unhappily unsettle the minds, and interrupt the industry of the
colonists. But none of these things move me, in carrying on my plans,
and making arrangements to erect a substantial building, sixty feet by
twenty. The Red River appears to me, a most desirable spot for a
Missionary establishment, and the formation of schools; from whence
Christianity may arise, and be propagated among the numerous tribes of
the north. The settlers are now actively employed in preparing to sow
the small lots of land which they have cleared: but this season is
short from the great length of the winter.--The 20th being Sunday more
than one hundred of them assembled at the Fort for divine service; and
their children from the school were present for public examination.
They gave general satisfaction in their answers to questions from the
"Chief Truths of the Christian Religion, and Lewis's Catechism."--Text
Proverbs iii. 17.

By the arrival of the boats from Qu'appelle, on the 25th, I received
the little Indian boy, I noticed, when leaving the Hunter's Tents,
during my excursion to that quarter in January last. Soon after my
departure, the father of the boy observed, that "as I had asked for his
son, and stood between the Great Spirit and the Indians, he would send
him to me;" and just before the boats left the Post for the Red River,
he brought the boy, and requested that he might be delivered to my
care. Thus was I encouraged in the idea, that native Indian children
might be collected from the wandering tribes of the north, and ed