sides in the
waters; so that food was abundant, and their slender stock of provisions
had not to be trenched upon, while the berries that grew luxuriantly
everywhere proved a grateful addition to their store. Thus, day by day,
they slowly retreated farther and farther from the world of mankind--
living in safety under the protection of the Almighty, and receiving the
daily supply of all their necessities from His fatherly and bountiful
hand; thus, day by day, they rose with the sun, and lay down at night to
rest upon the mountain's side or by the river's bank; and thus, day by
day, they penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of the unknown
wilderness.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A NEW SCENE--THE ESQUIMAU--DEER-SLAYING--ENEMIES IN THE BUSH.

Turn we now to another, a more distant, and a wilder scene. Near the
bleak shores of Hudson's Straits there flows a river which forms an
outlet to the superfluous waters of the almost unknown territory lying
between the uninhabited parts of Labrador and that tract of desert land
which borders Hudson's Bay on the east, and is known to the fur-traders
by the appellation of East Main. This river is called the Caniapuscaw,
and discharges itself into Ungava Bay.

The scene to which we would turn the reader's attention is upwards of
twenty miles from the mouth of this river, at a particular bend, where
the stream spreads itself out into a sheet of water almost worthy of
being called a lake, and just below which two bold cliffs shut out the
seaward view, and cause an abrupt narrowing of the river. The scene is
peculiar, and surpassingly grand. On each side of the stream majestic
mountains raise their bald and rugged peaks almost into the clouds.
Little herbage grows on the more exposed places, and nothing, save here
and there a stunted and weather-worn pine, breaks the sharp outline of
the cliffs. But in the gorges and dark ravines--for there are no
valleys--clumps of small-sized spruce--fir and larch trees throw a
softness over some of the details of a spot whose general aspect is one
of sterility. The mountains rise in a succession of irregular steps or
terraces, whose faces are so precipitous that they cannot be ascended.
To accomplish the feat of scaling the mountain-tops it would be
necessary to clamber up a ravine until the first terrace should be
gained, then, walking along that, ascend the next ravine, and so on. At
the upper end of the lake (as we shall hereafter call t