passed for bad Indians; and besides, in the dead of winter, neither the Blackfeet on the east, nor the Nez Percés on the north, can wage war with the Snakes at that season of the year.
In recapitulating the number of casualties or disasters which befell the Pacific Fur Company during its short existence, we cannot help lamenting so great a sacrifice of human life in so limited a period. The tragical list stands thus:—
{283} Lost on the bar 8
Land expedition 5
Tonquin 27
Astoria 3
Lark 8
Snake country 9
Final departure 1
Total 61
Well might we, with Virgil, say, "Who can relate such woes without a tear!"
We have now brought together, and within a small compass, the accounts of all the different and widely extended branches of the concern. That concern which proposed to extend its grasping influence from ocean to ocean, and which, to use the projector's own words, "was to have annihilated the South Company; rivalled the North-West Company; extinguished the Hudson's Bay Company; driven the Russians into the Frozen Ocean; and with the resources of China to have enriched America." But how vain are the designs of man! That undertaking which but yesterday promised such mighty things, is to-day no more.
Various in those days were the opinions entertained
