SNELL RLS IIIS LOE LEH GION AES ANS AIT OS EN TA NATE EES
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XXVIll A GENERAL HISTORY

and had a flated quantity of goods, confidered as fufficient for their
wants, their wages being from one to three thoufand livres. The canoe
men are of two defcriptions, foremen and fteerfmen, and middlemen.
The two firft were allowed annually one thoufand two hundred, and the
latter four hundred, livres each. The firft clafs had what is called an
equipment, confifling of two blankets, two fhirts, two pair of trowfers,
two handkerchiefs, fourteen pounds of carrot tobacco, and fome trifling
articles. The latter had ten pounds of tobacco, and all the other arti-
cles: thofe are called North Men, or Winterers; and to the laft clafs of
people were attached upwards of feyen hundred Indian women and

children, viétualled at the expence of the company.

This firft clafs of people are hired in Montreal five months before they
fet out, and receive their equipments, and one third of their wages in

advance; and an adequate idea of the labour they undergo may be

_ formed from the following account of the country through which they

pafs, and their manner of proceeding.

The neceflary number of canoes being purchafed, at about three hun-
dred livres each, the goods formed into packages, and the lakes and
rivers free of ice, which they ufually are in the beginning of May, they
are then difpatched from La Chine, eight miles above Montreal, with
eight or ten men in each canoe, and their baggage; and fixty-five pack-
ages of goods, fix hundred weight of bifcuit, two hundred weight of
pork, three bufhels of peafe, for the men’s provifion; two oil cloths to
cover the goods, a fail, &c. an axe, a towing-line, a kettle, and a fponge
to bail out the water, with a quantity of gum, bark, and watape, to
repair

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