e 23rd of June we started for the interior.

A melancholy feeling came over me as I turned and looked for the last
time upon York Factory, where I had spent so many happy days with the
young men who now stood waving their handkerchiefs from the wharf. Mr
Grave, too, stood among them, and as I looked on his benevolent, manly
countenance, I felt that I should ever remember with gratitude his
kindness to me while we resided together on the shores of Hudson Bay. A
few minutes more, and the fort was hid from my sight for ever.

My disposition is not a sorrowful one; I never did and never could
remain long in a melancholy mood, which will account for the state of
feeling I enjoyed half an hour after losing sight of my late home. The
day was fine, and I began to anticipate a pleasant journey, and to
speculate as to what part of the country I might be sent to. The whole
wide continent of North America was now open to the excursive flights of
my imagination, as there was a possibility of my being sent to any one
of the numerous stations in the extensive territories of the Hudson Bay
Company. Sometimes I fancied myself ranging through the wild district
of Mackenzie River, admiring the scenery described by Franklin and Back
in their travels of discovery; and anon, as the tales of my companions
occurred to me, I was bounding over the prairies of the Saskatchewan in
chase of the buffalo, or descending the rapid waters of the Columbia to
the Pacific Ocean. Again my fancy wandered, and I imagined myself
hunting the grizzly bear in the woods of Athabasca--when a heavy lurch
of the canoe awakened me to the fact that I was only ascending the
sluggish waters of Hayes River.

The banks of the river were covered with huge blocks of ice, and
scarcely a leaf had as yet made its appearance. Not a bird was to be
seen, except a few crows and whisky-jacks, which chattered among the
branches of the trees; and Nature appeared as if undecided whether or
not she should take another nap, ere she bedecked herself in the
garments of spring. My Indians paddled slowly against the stream, and I
lay back, with a leg cocked over each gunwale, watching the sombre pines
as they dropped slowly astern. On our way we passed two landslips which
encroached a good deal on the river, each forming a small rapid round
its base. The trees with which they had formerly been clothed were now
scattered about in chaotic confusion, leafless, and covered with mud;