button-hiding
game called Pugasawin, and which is always accompanied by a
monotonous chant and the tom-tom, anything serving for that
hideous instrument if a drum is not at hand. They are all
inveterate gamblers in that country, and lose or win with
equal indifference. Others played a peculiar game of cards
called Natwawaquawin, or "Marriage," the loser's penalty
being droll, but unmentionable. These amusements, which
often spun out till morning, were broken up by another
rattling storm, which lasted all night and all the next day.
We had lost all count of storms by this time, and were stolidly
resigned. The day following, however, the wind was fresh and
fair, and we made great headway, reaching the mouth of Swan
River--Naposeo Sepe--about mid-day.

This stream is almost choked at its discharge by a conglomeration
of slimy roots, weeds and floatwood, and the banks are "a
melancholy waste of putrid marshes." It is a forbidding entrance
to a river which, farther up, waters a good farming country,
including coal in abundance.

The wind being strong and fair, we spun along at a great rate,
and expected to reach the treaty point before dark, reckoning,
as usual, without our host. The wind suddenly wheeled to the
south-west, and a dangerous squall sprang up, which forced us
to run back for shelter fully five miles. There was barely time
to camp before the gale became furious, raging all night, and
throwing down tents like nine-pins. About one a.m. a cry arose
from the night-watch that the boats were swamping. All hands
turned out, lading was removed, and the scows hauled up on the
shingle, the rollers piling on shore with a height and fury
perfectly astonishing for such a lake. By morning the tempest
was at its height, continuing all day and into the night. The
sunset that evening exhibited some of the grandest and wildest
sky scenery we had ever beheld. In the west a vast bank of
luminous orange cloud, edged by torn fringes of green and gray;
in the south a sea of amethyst, and stretching from north to
east masses of steel gray and pearl, shot with brilliant shafts
and tufts of golden vapour. The whole sky streamed with rich
colouring in the fierce wind, as if possessed at once by the
genii of beauty and storm. The boatmen, noting its aspect,
predicted worse weather; but, fortunately, morning belied the
omens--our trials were over.

We were now nearing Shaw's Point, a long willowed spit of land,
called after a whimsi