Tue VoyAGE To THE ARCTIC 53

macy from the English Chief to persuade them
to approach. “We made them smoke, though
it was evident they did not know the use of
tobacco; we likewise supplied them with grog;
but I am disposed to think that they accepted
our civilities rather from fear than inclina-
tion.”’ Presents of knives, beads, and the like
were received with a more genuine apprecia-
tion. The “information” they gave Macken-
zie was that the distance to the sea was so
great “that old age would come upon us
before the period of our return,” that the
country was peopled with monsters, and that
the river was blocked by two impassable falls.
The land, indeed, was desolate and awe-
inspiring, the climate brutal, the river often
treacherous and at certain seasons savage, the
life a struggle against starvation; it is no
wonder that the Indians peopled their coun-
try with malignant spirits and magnified its
dangers.

Mackenzie was not discouraged by these
fables, for he had learned to discount the
imaginative power of the natives, and to dis-
cover the germ of truth beneath the moun-