high spirits, and after bidding a dozen adieux to their friends and companions, embarked at La Chine on the 5th of July. On arriving at St. Anne's, the devout voyageurs, according to usual custom, expressed a wish to go on shore to make {172} their vows at the holy shrine before leaving the island. There, prostrated on the ground, they received the priest's benediction; then embarking, with pipes and song, hied their way up the Ottawa or Grand River for Mackina, which place they reached on the seventeenth day.
Michilimackina, or Mackinaw, was their first resting-place after leaving La Chine; and here they had again to recommence the recruiting service, as at Montreal—with this difference, however, that the Montreal men are expert canoe-men, the Mackina men expert bottle-men. That Canadians in general drink, and sometimes even to excess, must be admitted; but to see drunkenness and debauchery, with all their concomitant vices, carried on systematically, it is necessary to see Mackina.
Here Hunt and M'Kenzie in vain sought recruits, at least such as would suit their purpose; for in the morning they were found drinking, at noon drunk, in the evening dead drunk, and in the night seldom sober. Hogarth's drunkards in Gin Lane and Beer Alley were nothing compared to the drunkards of Mackina at this time. Every nook and corner in the whole island swarmed, at all hours of the day and night, with motley groups of uproarious tipplers and whisky-hunters. Mackina at this time resembled a great bedlam, the frantic inmates running to and fro in wild forgetfulness; so that Mr. Hunt, after spending several weeks, could only pick up a few disorderly Canadians, already ruined in mind and body; whilst {173} the cross-breeds and Yankees kept aloof,
