n the enterprise. They were determined to
regale and astonish the people of the "States" with the sight of a
Canadian boat and a Canadian crew. They accordingly fitted up a large
but light bark canoe, such as is used in the fur trade; transported
it in a wagon from the banks of the St. Lawrence to the shores of Lake
Champlain; traversed the lake in it, from end to end; hoisted it again
in a wagon and wheeled it off to Lansingburgh, and there launched it
upon the waters of the Hudson. Down this river they plied their course
merrily on a fine summer's day, making its banks resound for the first
time with their old French boat songs; passing by the villages with
whoop and halloo, so as to make the honest Dutch farmers mistake them
for a crew of savages. In this way they swept, in full song and with
regular flourish of the paddle, round New York, in a still summer
evening, to the wonder and admiration of its inhabitants, who had never
before witnessed on their waters, a nautical apparition of the kind.

Such was the variegated band of adventurers about to embark in the
Tonquin on this ardous and doubtful enterprise. While yet in port and
on dry land, in the bustle of preparation and the excitement of novelty,
all was sunshine and promise. The Canadians, especially, who, with their
constitutional vivacity, have a considerable dash of the gascon, were
buoyant and boastful, and great brag arts as to the future; while all
those who had been in the service of the Northwest Company, and engaged
in the Indian trade, plumed themselves upon their hardihood and their
capacity to endure privations. If Mr. Astor ventured to hint at the
difficulties they might have to encounter, they treated them with scorn.
They were "northwesters;" men seasoned to hardships, who cared for
neither wind nor weather. They could live hard, lie hard, sleep hard,
eat dogs!--in a word they were ready to do and suffer anything for the
good of the enterprise. With all this profession of zeal and devotion,
Mr. Astor was not overconfident of the stability and firm faith of these
mercurial beings. He had received information, also, that an armed brig
from Halifax, probably at the instigation of the Northwest Company, was
hovering on the coast, watching for the Tonquin, with the purpose of
impressing the Canadians on board of her, as British subjects, and thus
interrupting the voyage. It was a time of doubt and anxiety, when
the relations between the United States