OF THE FUR TRADE, &«. CX1X

They believe, that immediately after their death, they pafs into ayo-
ther world, where they arrive at a large river, on which they embark ina
{tone canoe, and that a gentle current bears them on to an extenfive lake,
in the centre of which is a moft beautiful ifland; and that, in the view of
this delightful abode, they receive that judgment for their condué& dur-
ing life, which terminates their final ftate and unalterable allotment. If
their good aétions are declared to predominate, they are landed upon
the ifland, where there is to be no end to their happinefs; which, how-
ever, according to their notions, confifts in an eternal enjoyment of
fenfual pleafure, and carnal gratification. But if their bad aétions weigh
down the balance, the {tone canoe finks at once, and leaves them up to
their chins in the water, to behold and regret: the reward enjoyed by
the good, and eternally {truggling, but with unavailing endeavours, to
reach the blifsful ifland, from which they are excluded for ever.

They have fome faint notions of the tranfmigration of the foul; fo
that if a child be born with teeth, they inftantly imagine, from its pre-
mature appearance, that it bears a refemblance to fome perfon who
had lived to an advanced period, and that he has affumed a renovated

life, with thefe extraordinary tokens of maturity.

The Chepewyans are fober, timorous, and vagrant, with a felffh dif
pofition which has fometimes created fufpicions of their integrity. Their
ftature has nothing remarkable in it; but though they are feldom corpu-
lent, they are fometimes robuft. Their complexion is {warthy; their fea-
tures coarfe, and their hair lank, but not always of a dingy black; nor have’
they univerlally the piercing eye, which generally animates the Indian

countenance,