CHAPTER III.
The whole month of February was unusually mild, and at noon the sun not unfrequently asserted his increasing power by a gentle thaw. Messengers were continually arriving with favourable accounts from the Indian camps; a pleasing contrast to the preceding winter, which is rendered memorable to the poor natives by the ravages of an influenza—scarcely less dreadful than the cholera—that carried off nearly two hundred of the distant Chipewyans. I say distant because all who were within reach of the establishments were sent for and carried thither, where every care was taken of them; warm clothing and lodgings were provided; medicines administered; the traders and servants fed them, parting with their own slender stock of luxuries[1]
- ↑ A few pounds of tea, sugar, &c., allowed to officers and guides, and purchased by the common-men, are called "luxuries" in Hudson's Bay. The old Canadian "voyageurs," who lament the degeneracy of their successors, are nothing loth to imitate their example in adding these comforts to their fare; and an encampment of the present day exhibits a regular assortment of tea-kettles, pots, and pans.
