have such a good idea of the hydrography and bearings of the sea coasts which they frequent as to draw accurate charts of them. Thus Parry, in his second voyage, was guided in his operations by the sketches of the talented Iligliuk; and while Beechey was at Kotzebue Sound, the natives constructed a chart of the coast upon the sand, first marking out the coastline with a stick, and regulating the distance by the day's journey. The hills and ranges of mountains were next shown by elevations of sand or stone, and the islands represented by heaps of pebbles, their proportions being duly attended to. When the mountains and islands were erected, the villages and fishing-stations were marked by a number of sticks placed upright, in imitation of those which are put up on the coast wherever these people fix their abode. In this manner a complete hydrographical plan was drawn from Cape Derby to Cape Krusenstern. The Esquimaux have a decided predilection for commercial pursuits, and undertake long voyages for the purposes of trade. Thus on the continental line of coast, west of the Mackenzie, the Point Barrow Esquimaux proceed every summer with sledges laden with whale or seal oil, whalebone, walrus tusks, thongs of walrus hide, and seal skins, to the Colville River, where they meet the Esquimaux from Kotzebue Sound, who offer them in exchange articles procured from the Tchuktchi in the previous summer, such as iron and copper kettles, knives, tobacco, beads, and tin for making pipes. About ten days are spent in bartering, dancing, and revelry, on the flat ground between the tents of each party, pitched a bow-shot apart. The time is one of pleasant excitement, and is passed nearly without sleep. About July 20 this friendly meeting is at an end: the Kotzebue Sound Esquimaux ascend the Colville on their way homewards, while those from Point Barrow descend to the sea, to pursue their voyage eastward to Barter Reef, where they obtain in traffic from the eastern Esquimaux various skins, stone lamps, English knives, small white beads, and lately guns and ammunition, which, in the year following, they exchange for the Kotzebue Sound articles at the Colville, along with the produce of their own sea hunts. In this manner, articles of Russian manufacture, originally purchased at the fair of Ostrownoje by the Tchuktchi, or from the factors of the Russian Fur Company on Sledge Island in Behring's Strait, find their way from tribe to tribe. along the American coast as far as Repulse Bay, and compete among the tribes of the Mackenzie with articles from Sheffield or Birmingham. A hunter's life is always precarious-a constant alternation between abundance and want; and though the Esquimaux strikes many a seal, white-fish, or walrus in the course of the year, yet these animals do not abound at all seasons, and there are other causes, besides improvidence, which soon exhaust the stores laid by in times of abundance. Active exercise and constant exposure to cold are remarkable promoters of atomic change in the human body, and a very large supply of food is absolutely necessary to counterbalance the effects of a rapid organic combustion. As a matter of curiosity, Parry once tried how much an Esquimaux lad would, if freely supplied, consume in the course of a day, The undermentioned articles were weighed before being given to him he was twenty hours in getting through them, and certainly did not consider the quantity extraordinary. : The fluids were in fair proportion, viz. rich gravy soup, 14 pint; raw spirits, 3 wine glasses; strong grog, 1 tumbler; water, 1 gallon, 1 pint.* Kane averages the Esquimaux ration in a season of plenty at eight or ten pounds a-day, with soup and water to the extent of half a gallon, and finds in this excessive consumption-which is rather a necessity of their peculiar life and organisation than the result of gluttony-the true explanation of the scarcity from which they frequently suffer. In times of abundance they hunt indomitably without the loss of a day, and stow away large quantities of meat. An ex * Captain Hall, who in his search after the remains of the Franklin expedition has now spent several years among the Esquimaux, has so far acquired their appetite that he is able to consume 9 lbs. of meat a day without incon venience. any cavation is made either on the main-land-or, what is preferred, on an island inaccessible to foxes-and the flesh is stacked inside and covered with heavy stones. One such cache, which Kane met on a small island, contained the flesh of ten walrus, and he knew of others equally large. But by their ancient custom, all share with all; and as they migrate in numbers as their necessities prompt, the tax on each particular settlement is not seldom so excessive, that even considerable stores are unable to withstand the drain, and soon make way for pinching hunger, and even famine. THE FUR TRADE OF THE HUDSON'S BAY TERRITORIES. The Coureur des Bois-The Voyageur-The Birch-bark Canoe-The Canadian Fur Trade in the last Century-The Hudson's Bay Company-Bloody Fends between the North-West Company of Canada and the Hudson's Bay Company -Their Amalgamation into a New Company in 1821-Reconstruction of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1863-Forts or Houses-The Attihawmeg-Influence of the Company on its savage Dependents-The Black Bear or Baribal-The Brown Bear-The Grisly Bear The Racoon-The American Glutton-The Pine Marten-The Pekan or Woodshock-The Chinga-The Mink-The Cana dian Fish-otter-The Crossed Fox-The Black or Silvery Fox-The Canadian Lynx or Pishu-The Ice Hare-The Beaver-The Musquash. A S the desire to reach India by the shortest road first made the civilised world acquainted with the eastern coast of North America, so the extension of the fur trade has been the chief, or rather the only, motive which originally led the footsteps of the white man from the Canadian Lakes and the borders of Hudson's Bay into the remote interior of that vast continent. The first European fur traders in North America were French Canadians-coureurs des bois-a fitting surname for men habituated to an Indian forest life. Three or four of these irregular spirits' agreeing to make an expedition into the backwoods would set out in their birch-bark canoe, laden |