Tue Last Years 163

in the North West Company. In the same
year he was in London, and there he was con-
sulted by another remarkable figure in the
history of Canadian exploration. Franklin
writes in the preface to the story of his terrible
first journey to the Arctic coast: “‘A short
time before I left London I had the pleasure
and advantage of an interview with the late
Sir Alexander Mackenzie, who was one of the
two persons who had visited the coast we were
to explore. He afforded me, in the most open
and kind manner, much valuable information
and advice.”

Mackenzie’s last years, spent chiefly on
his estate in the Highlands, seem to have been
happy. He became interested in agriculture
and in improving his property. He built a
wall which still protects from the incursions of
the sea the road from Avoch to Fortrose; and
he showed that his enterprise had not deserted
him by establishing a successful oyster-bed in
a near-by bay. He urged his friends in Canada
to follow his example of retiring to their native
Scotland to enjoy old age in peace. Writing
to Roderick McKenzie in 1819, he tells him