he pipe of peace was then produced
and passed round in silence, each person taking a ceremonial puff.
Boiled bison beef was then brought to the guests in baskets made of
willow branches. Hendry told the great chief of the Blackfeet that he
had been sent by the great leader of the white men at Hudson Bay to
invite the Blackfeet Indians to come to these eastern waters in the
summertime, and bring with them beaver and wolf skins, for which they
would get, in return, guns, ammunition, cloth, beads, and other trade
goods. But this chief, though he listened patiently, pointed out that
this fort on Hudson Bay was situated at a very great distance, that
his men only knew how to ride horses, and not how to paddle canoes.
Moreover, they could not live without bison beef, and disliked fish.

After leaving the headquarters of the Blackfeet, Hendry rambled over
the beautiful country of fir woods and pine woods until he must have
got within sight of the Rocky Mountains, though these are not
mentioned in his journal. Then, after passing the winter (which did
not begin as regards cold weather till the 2nd of December, and was
over at the end of March) he returned to the French fort on the
Saskatchewan, where he was received by the Commandant, de La Corne,
with great kindness and hospitality. These Frenchmen, he found, were
able to speak in great perfection several Indian languages; they were
well dressed, and courtly in manners, and led a civilized life in
these distant wilds. They had excellent trade goods and were sincerely
liked by the Indians, but for some reason or other they lacked
Brazilian tobacco, which seems to have been a commodity much in favour
amongst the Indians. With this the Hudson's Bay Company were kept well
supplied, and that alone enabled them in any degree to compete with
the French. But in ten years more this French fort would be abandoned
owing to the cession of Canada to Britain.

The British, in fact, all through the first half of the eighteenth
century, by their superiority in sea power, were steadily strangling
the French empire in North America. Acadia, or Nova Scotia, and New
Brunswick had been, as we have seen, recognized as British in 1713,
and Newfoundland, also, subject to certain conditions, giving France
the exclusive right to fish on the _western_ and _northern_ coasts of
Newfoundland. The result was that when "New France", or Canada and
Louisiana combined, was at its greatest extent of conquered a