d towards night of the same day they
found themselves travelling through a country, where the timber only
grew here and there in small clumps, and the individual trees were small
and stunted. Next day still less timber was seen upon their route; and
when camping-time came, they were obliged to halt at a spot where
nothing but willows could be procured for their fire. They had, in
fact, arrived upon the edge of that vast wilderness, the Barren Grounds,
which stretches in all its wild desolation along the Northern half of
the American continent, (from the Great Slave Lake even to the shores of
the Arctic Sea on the north, and to those of Hudson's Bay on the east).
This territory bears an appropriate name, for, perhaps, upon the whole
surface of the earth there is no tract more barren or desolate--not even
the Sahara of Africa. Both are deserts of immense extent, equally
difficult to cross, and equally dangerous to the traveller. On both the
traveller often perishes, but from different causes. On the Sahara it
is _thirst_ that kills; upon the Barren Grounds _hunger_ is more
frequently the destroyer. In the latter there is but little to be
feared on the score of water. That exists in great plenty; or where it
is not found, snow supplies its place. But there is water everywhere.
Hill succeeds hill, bleak, rocky, and bare. Everywhere granite, gneiss,
or other primitive rocks, show themselves. No vegetation covers the
steep declivities of the hills, except the moss and lichen upon the
rocks, a few willows upon the banks of streams, the dwarf birch-tree
(_Betula nana_), or the scrub-pines, rising only to the height of a few
inches, and often straggling over the earth like vines. Every hill has
its valley, and every valley its lake--dark, and deep, and silent--in
winter scarce to be distinguished under the snow-covered ice. The
prospect in every direction exhibits a surface of rocks, or bleak hills,
half covered with snow. The traveller looks around and sees no life.
He listens and hears no sound. The world appears dead and wrapped in
its cold winding-sheet!

Amidst just such scenes did our voyageurs find themselves on the seventh
day after parting from the lake. They had heard of the Barren
Grounds,--had heard many fearful stories of the sufferings of travellers
who had attempted to cross them; but the description had fallen far
short of the actual reality. None of them could believe in the
difficulties to be en