Tracking Up-Stream eee!

from him, ascertaining that another river, very much larger
than this, flowed on the far side of the western mountains
into the Belhoullay Toe, or White Man’s Lake. The natives
living there were wicked giants possessed of the evil eye.
Their canoes were extremely large, and those who lived
around the entrance to the river killed a kind of beaver,
the skin of which was almost red. As there was no known
communication by water with this river, the natives who
saw it went over the mountains.

Mackenzie, not forgetting his business interests, prepared
the way for future trade in a discussion regarding the fur
resources of the country.

An incident that occurred here throws an interesting light
on the Indian’s way of reacting to his environment. “‘My
Indians were very anxious to possess themselves of a woman
that was with the natives, but, as they were not willing to
part with her, I interfered to prevent her being taken by
force; indeed I was obliged to exercise the utmost vigilance
as the Indians who accompanied me were ever ready to take
what they could from the residents without making them
any return.”

Another Indian was met the following day who en-
deavoured to convey his notion of the circumjacent land,
and particularly of a river to the west, by delineating a map
on the sand. “‘He accordingly,” after being bribed, “‘traced
out a very long point of land between two rivers though
without paying the least attention to their courses, which he
represented as running into the great ‘lake,’ at the extremity
of which, as he had been told by Indians of other nations,
there was a Belhoullay Couin, or White man’s Fort. ‘This I
took to be Unalascha Fort,! and consequently the river to

2 Unalaska, on one of the Aleutian Islands. A rendezvous of the
Russian hunters in Cook’s time.