IIO Mackenzie’s Voyages

certain features more intimately associated with the trader’s
affairs.

The weather began to show increasing signs of inclemency.
It froze rather hard in the night and the thickness of the
ice in the morning was sufficient notice for them to proceed
without the least delay. “I accordingly gave the natives
such good counsel as might influence their behaviour,
instructed Mr. Finlay, and took my leave under several
volleys of musketry.” The loaded canoes had already been
sent on two days before with orders to proceed with all
speed. Passing the Smoky, which comes in on the east, with
a breadth of about half of that of the main branch, the party
arrived at a point six miles farther up. The speed at which
they had travelled in their race to reach their destination
before the freeze-up had quite exhausted the men. Not a
single hut was in readiness to receive them.

The principal chief of the neighbourhood and seventy
men who had been anxiously awaiting their arrival received
them “with every mark of satisfaction and regard which
they could express. If we might judge by the quantity of
powder that was wasted on our arrival they certainly had not
been in want of ammunition, at least during the summer.”

These people had given his predecessor some trouble.
Therefore, no sooner was his tent pitched than Mackenzie
summoned the Indians, gave each of them four inches of
Brazil tobacco and a dram of spirits, and lighted the pipe.
He admonished them, telling them that they would be treated
kindly if they deserved it, but that he should be equally severe
“if they failed in those returns which I had a right to expect
of them. I presented them with a quantity of rum which I
recommended to be used with discretion, and added some
tobacco, as a token of peace.”

When Mackenzie speaks of recommending that liquor