the same with those of
the Chipewyans but in personal character they have greatly the advantage
of that people, owing probably to local causes or perhaps to their
procuring their food more easily and in greater abundance. They hold
women in the same low estimation as the Chipewyans do, looking upon them
as a kind of property which the stronger may take from the weaker
whenever there is just reason for quarrelling, if the parties are of
their own nation, or whenever they meet if the weaker party are Dog-Ribs
or other strangers. They suffer however the kinder affections to show
themselves occasionally; they in general live happily with their wives,
the women are contented with their lot, and we witnessed several
instances of strong attachment. Of their kindness to strangers we are
fully qualified to speak; their love of property, attention to their
interests, and fears for the future made them occasionally clamorous and
unsteady; but their delicate and humane attention to us in a season of
great distress at a future period are indelibly engraven on our memories.
Of their notions of a Deity or future state we never could obtain any
satisfactory account; they were unwilling perhaps to expose their
opinions to the chance of ridicule. Akaitcho generally evaded our
questions on these points but expressed a desire to learn from us and
regularly attended Divine Service during his residence at the fort,
behaving with the utmost decorum.

This leader indeed and many others of his tribe possess a laudable
curiosity which might easily be directed to the most important ends; and
I believe that a well-conducted Christian mission to this quarter would
not fail of producing the happiest effect. Old Keskarrah alone used
boldly to express his disbelief of a Supreme Deity and state that he
could not credit the existence of a Being whose power was said to extend
everywhere but whom he had not yet seen, although he was now an old man.
The aged sceptic is not a little conceited as the following exordium to
one of his speeches evinces: "It is very strange that I never meet with
anyone who is equal in sense to myself." The same old man in one of his
communicative moods related to us the following tradition: The earth had
been formed but continued enveloped in total darkness, when a bear and a
squirrel met on the shores of a lake; a dispute arose as to their
respective powers, which they agreed to settle by running in opposite
directions round