parts the articles of merchandise are kept: the
workshops, storehouses for the furs, and the servants' houses are ranged
on the outside of the square, and the whole is surrounded by a stockade
twenty feet high. A platform is laid from the house to the pier on the
bank for the convenience of transporting the stores and furs, which is
the only promenade the residents have on this marshy spot during the
summer season. The few Indians who now frequent this establishment,
belong to the _Swampy Crees_. There were several of them encamped on the
outside of the stockade. Their tents were rudely constructed by tying
twenty or thirty poles together at the top, and spreading them out at
the base so as to form a cone; these were covered with dressed
moose-skins. The fire is placed in the centre, and a hole is left for
the escape of the smoke. The inmates had a squalid look, and were
suffering under the combined afflictions of hooping-cough and measles;
but even these miseries did not keep them from an excessive indulgence
in spirits, which they unhappily can procure from the traders with too
much facility; and they nightly serenaded us with their monotonous
drunken songs. Their sickness at this time, was particularly felt by the
traders, this being the season of the year when the exertion of every
hunter is required to procure their winter's stock of geese, which
resort in immense flocks to the extensive flats in this neighbourhood.
These birds, during the summer, retire far to the north, and breed in
security; but, when the approach of winter compels them to seek a more
southern climate, they generally alight on the marshes of this bay, and
fatten there for three weeks or a month, before they take their final
departure from the country. They also make a short halt at the same
spots in their progress northwards in the spring. Their arrival is
welcomed with joy, and the _goose hunt_ is one of the most plentiful
seasons of the year. The ducks frequent the swamps all the summer.

The weather was extremely unfavourable for celestial observations during
our stay, and it was only by watching the momentary appearances of the
sun, that we were enabled to obtain fresh rates for the chronometers,
and allow for their errors from Greenwich time. The dip of the needle
was observed to be 79 deg. 29' 07", and the difference produced by reversing
the face of the instrument was 11 deg. 3' 40". A succession of fresh breezes
prevented our ascertaining