world,--immense valleys sheltered by mountain ridges, and containing
beautiful lakes. In one instance, their tents were pitched in a valley
of about five hundred acres enclosed by mountains on three sides, and a
lake on the fourth. From the edge of the waters there arose a gentle
descent of six or eight hundred feet covered with vines, and composed of
the accumulated fragments of the heights above; and on the upper border
of this slope there stood perpendicular walls of granite of three or
four thousand feet high, while among those dizzy altitudes, the goats
and sheep bounded in playful security. This defile had been the scene of
an exploit. One of the Crees, whom they had met a few days before, had
been tracked into the valley along with his wife and family by five
warriors of a hostile tribe. On perceiving the odds against him, the man
gave himself up for lost, observing to the woman, that as they could die
but once, they had better die without resistance. The wife, however,
said, that "as they had but one life to lose, they had the more reason
to defend it," and, suiting the action to the word, the heroic wife
brought the foremost of the enemy down to the ground by a bullet, while
the husband disposed of two others by two arrows. The fourth warrior was
rushing on the woman with uplifted tomahawk, when he stumbled and fell.
She darted forward, and buried her knife in his heart. The sole
surviving assailant now turned and fled, discharging, however, a bullet
which wounded the man in the arm.

They had now reached that rocky range from which the eastern and western
rivers of those mighty provinces take their common departure. Here they
estimated the height of the pass to be seven or eight thousand feet
above sea-level, while the peaks seemed to be nearly half that height
above their heads.

Of course, the party often felt the torture of mosquitoes, but one
valley was so pre-eminently infested with those tormentors, that man and
beast alike preferred being nearly choked with smoke, in which they
plunged, for the sake of escaping their stings. But we advert to this
common plague of all forest travel, only for its legendary honours.

"The Canadians vented their curses against the OLD MAID, who had the
credit of having brought the scourge upon earth, by praying for
something to fill up the leisure of her single blessedness." And if, as
the author observes, "the tormentors would confine themselves to
nunneries and monaste