d
become a strong crust, which sometimes gave way in a circle round our
feet, immersing us in the soft snow beneath. The people were afflicted
with snow blindness; a kind of ophthalmia occasioned by the reflection
of the sun's rays in the spring.

The miseries endured during the first journey of this nature, are so
great, that nothing could induce the sufferer to undertake a second,
while under the influence of present pain. He feels his frame crushed by
unaccountable pressure, he drags a galling and stubborn weight at his
feet, and his track is marked with blood. The dazzling scene around him
affords no rest to his eye, no object to divert his attention from his
own agonizing sensations. When he arises from sleep, half his body seems
dead, till quickened into feeling by the irritation of his sores. But
fortunately for him, no evil makes an impression so evanescent as pain.
It cannot be wholly banished, nor recalled with the force of reality, by
any act of the mind, either to affect our determinations, or to
sympathize with another. The traveller soon forgets his sufferings, and
at every future journey their recurrence is attended with diminished
acuteness.

It was not before the 10th or 12th of April, that the return of the
swans, geese, and ducks, gave certain indications of the advance of
spring. The juice of the maple-tree began to flow, and the women
repaired to the woods for the purpose of collecting it. This tree which
abounds to the southward, is not, I believe found to the northward of
the Saskatchawan. The Indians obtain the sap by making incisions into
the tree. They boil it down, and evaporate the water, skimming off the
impurities. They are so fond of sweets that after this simple process,
they set an extravagant price upon it.

On the 15th fell the first shower of rain we had seen for six months,
and on the 17th the thermometer rose to 77 deg. in the shade. The whole face
of the country was deluged by the melted snow. All the nameless heaps of
dirt, accumulated in the winter, now floated over the very thresholds,
and the long-imprisoned scents dilated into vapours so penetrating, that
no retreat was any security from them. The flood descended into the
cellar below our house, and destroyed a quantity of powder and tea; a
loss irreparable in our situation.

The noise made by the frogs which this inundation produced, is almost
incredible. There is strong reason to believe that they outlive the
severity o