le regard to comfort, as any people in being. They
pass summer and winter in the open air; they huddle together in an
encampment, without any other shelter from the inclemency of the
weather than what is afforded by the spreading branches of some
friendly pine, and use no more fire than what is barely sufficient to
keep them from freezing. Their wants are few, and easily provided
for; when they have killed a few deer to afford them sinews for making
rabbit-snares, they may be said to be independent for the remainder of
the season. Their work consists in setting those snares, carrying home
the game caught in them, eating them when cooked, and then lying down
to sleep. A taste, however, for articles of European manufacture is
gaining ground among them, and to obtain those articles a more active
life is necessary, so that some tolerable fur-hunters are now to be
found among them.

The Dogribs occupy the barren grounds that are around Great Bear Lake,
and extend to the Copper-mine River. That part of the country abounds
in rein-deer, whose skin and flesh afford food and raiment to the
natives. They are a strong, athletic, well-formed race of Indians, and
are considered more warlike than their neighbours, who evidently dread
them.

None of the Indians who frequent the posts on McKenzie's River have
hereditary chiefs; the dignity is conferred by the gentlemen in charge
of posts on the best hunters. On these occasions a suit of clothes
is bestowed, the most valued article of which is a coat of coarse red
cloth, decorated with lace; and, as the reward of extraordinary merit,
a felt hat is added, ornamented in the same manner, with a feather
stuck in the side of it. Thus equipped, the new-made chief sallies
forth to receive the gratulations of his admiring friends and
relatives, among whom the coat is ultimately divided, and probably
finishes its course in the shape of a tobacco-pouch. In course of
time, the individuals thus distinguished obtain some weight in the
councils of their people, but their influence is very limited; the
whole of the Chippewayan tribes seem averse to superior rule.

Like the Esquimaux and Carriers, they seem to have had no idea of
religion prior to the settlement of Europeans among them; all the
terms they at present use in reference to the subject seem of recent
origin, and invented by the interpreters. They name the Deity, "Ya
ga ta-that-hee-hee,"--"The Man who reclines on the sky;" angels are
cal