more rigorous plan of search was instituted. Reuben was sent off with
one Indian to proceed down the river as far as he could go before night
came on, with directions to continue the journey in the morning as far
as to the place where they had encamped the preceding evening.
Mackenzie with the other Indian again went off up the river, intending
to make a thorough search in that direction. They had no food with
them, but, having their guns and the means of making fire, they had no
anxiety on that score, except in regard to an immediate meal, for game
was scarcer than usual at that particular spot.
It was agreed that if both should fail of success, they were to return
to the place where they then separated. But their anxieties were
brought to an end sooner than they had hoped for. Not very long after
parting, Mackenzie heard a very far-off shot, and then another, and in a
few minutes an answering double shot at a still greater distance. These
being the concerted signals, he knew that the canoe party must have been
discovered by Reuben; he therefore retraced his steps with a light
heart, despite the fact that he had worn the moccasins off his feet, and
was completely drenched with rain. It turned out that the delay had
been occasioned by the breaking of the canoe, and the consequent
necessity of landing to repair damages. Indeed, the sorely-battered
craft had become almost a wreck. As a fitting climax to this disastrous
day, the night finished off with thunder, lightning, and rain.
While thus forcing their way to the head-waters of the river, they met
with a small party of miserable-looking natives, who received them at
first with violent demonstrations of an intention to immolate them on
the spot if they should dare to land. It was evident that the poor
creatures had been subjected to bad treatment and deception by other and
more powerful tribes, because they remained in a state of great
suspicion and anxiety even after the interpreter had stated earnestly
that the intentions of the white men were friendly, and after gifts had
been presented to them. By degrees, however, they became more
confident, and as their anxieties diminished their curiosity increased.
"I do believe," said Lawrence, "that the critters have never seen white
folk before."
To most people it might have seemed ridiculous to have heard that
bronzed _voyageur_ calling himself and his brown-faced, smoke-dried,
weather-worn companions, by the title of white people; but Lawrence
referred to the natural colour of the race to which he belonged.
"They do seem rather koorious," observed Reuben, as one of the Indians
timidly touched his arm and looked wonderingly up into his blue eyes.
It was found, however, that these natives had heard of white people,
though they had not seen them; moreover, they displayed a number of
knives and iron implements which they said had been procured from people
inhabiting the banks of a river which might be reached over a
carrying-place of "eleven days in length," and which river flowed in an
_opposite direction_ from the Peace River. These people, they said,
travelled during a moon to get to the country of another tribe who dwelt
in houses, and these again extended their journeys to the sea, or, as
they called it, the "Stinking Lake," where they exchanged their furs
with white people, like our pioneers, who came to the coast of that lake
in canoes as big as islands!
Here, then, at last, was definite information, and the enterprising
discoverer was not long in availing himself of it. After gratifying his
new friends with sundry little gifts, a feed of pemmican, which they
relished amazingly, and a taste of sugar to tickle their palates, he
gained their confidence so much as to induce one of them to be his
guide, and immediately pushed forward.
In the course of the following week they gained the much-longed-for
height of land, and found two lakelets within a quarter of a mile of
each other, from one of which the waters find their way through Peace
River, on the east side of the mountains, into the Arctic Sea, while
from the other the waters flow south and west through the great River
Columbia to the Pacific Ocean.
But the succession of disasters that befell them here, and the
difficulties of the route--for it could not be called navigation--threw
all their previous experiences into the shade. One day, having made a
portage, they relaunched the canoe and began the well-nigh forgotten
process of _descending_ stream. They had not gone far when they struck
a rock and were driven down sideways with great violence, Mackenzie,
followed by his men, jumped into the shallow to turn the canoe straight,
but in a moment the water deepened and they had to scramble inboard
again hurriedly. Swiftarrow by some mischance was left behind to
struggle on shore as best he might. Before they could resume their
paddles they struck again; the stem of the canoe was shattered like an
egg-shell and hung only by the gunwales, so that Lawrence, who was
steering, had to quit his place. The violence of the stroke drove them
to the opposite side of the river, where the bow met with the same fate.
At that moment Reuben seized the branches of a small overhanging tree
in a desperate hope of checking the canoe, but the tree proved so
elastic that he was jerked on shore in an instant as if by magic, and
the canoe swept over a cascade, where several holes were broken in her
bottom and nearly all the bars started. At the same moment the wreck
fell flat on the water; all the men jumped out, and Ducette, whose
courage forsook him, shouted, "Save yourselves!"
"Not so! Hold on to the canoe, men," cried Mackenzie sternly. The men
obeyed, and thus prevented the total loss of everything. Yard by yard,
on the verge of destruction they waded down the rapid, and guided the
wreck into shallow water, where some held her fast while the others, who
were quickly joined by Reuben and Swiftarrow, carried the lading safely
ashore. On this occasion several things were lost, the chief of these
being their whole stock of bullets, but they had plenty of shot left
from which ball could be made.
One might have thought this was at last sufficient to have turned them
back--so at least thought most of the men, who began to look
rebellious--but Mackenzie partly compelled, partly encouraged them to
advance. The canoe was dragged ashore and repaired, or rather
reconstructed, and eventually through indescribable difficulties he
reached the navigable stream which forms the head-waters of the Columbia
River. This he descended a considerable distance, and met with many of
the natives, who told him that the country below abounded with game and
the river with fish; but as the course of the latter ran towards the
south, and the distance by it to the sea was described as being
extremely great, he deemed it advisable to retrace his course a short
way and then strike westward overland to the Pacific.
The old canoe being now little better than a wreck, birch-bark was
procured and a new canoe built, after which the stream was ascended
until a spot was reached where the natives were in the habit of starting
overland for the sea coast. Here the canoe was hidden, an Indian guide
procured, and then these indomitable pioneers prepared to cross the
wilderness on foot.
CHAPTER TEN.
THE LAST.
We follow our travellers now over the last portion of their trying
journey. Well would it have been for them if they could have followed
their route as easily as you and I, reader, follow them in imagination.
Over mountain and swamp, through forest and brake, in heat and in cold,
sunshine and rain, they plodded wearily but resolutely on towards the
far west, until they reached the farthest west of all, where the great
continent dips into the greater Pacific.
At starting on this overland route they buried some provisions, and
putting in a place of security their canoe and such stores as they did
not require or could not carry, they set out, each man laden with a
burden varying from forty-five to ninety pounds weight, besides arms and
ammunition. They were led by an Indian guide with several of his
relations, and followed by their dog Wolf. This guide was deemed
necessary, not so much to show the way as to introduce them to the
various tribes through whose territory they should have to pass.
It takes a large portion of a quarto volume to recount their interesting
adventures by the way. How then, can we presume to attempt a fair
narrative in a few pages? The thing is impossible. We can but refer
our readers to Mackenzie's ponderous journal, in which, embedded amongst
a mass of important details, will be found a record of one of the most
interesting voyages ever undertaken.
As a matter of course difficulties assailed them at the outset. This
would seem to be the universal experience of pioneers. Game latterly
had begun to grow scarce, so that, their provisions being low, they were
obliged to go on short allowance--two meals a day. Their food, being
pemmican, required no cooking. Mingled heat, mosquitoes, sandflies, and
a rugged country, with short commons, and danger, as well as worry from
savages, was the beginning--and pretty much the middle and end--of their
experience. They were soon joined by an elderly man and three other
natives, and not only did these three Indians, but all the others along
the route, harass them by their caprice, unfaithfulness, and childish
petulance, and self-will.
One day their guide resolved to leave them; then, without being
solicited to stay, he changed his mind and went on with them. Again,
one night, at a time when they were anxious not to lose him, Mackenzie,
who knew he meant to take leave quietly, asked him to sleep with him.
He willingly consented, the white man's cloak being a snug covering, and
thus was he guarded! but his guardian suffered severe consequences owing
to the filthy state of the Indian, whose garments were indescribable,
his body being smeared with red earth, and his hair with fish-oil!
Coming to a lake they observed the sky grow very black. "A
thunder-storm brewin'," suggested Reuben.
"Encamp, and up with the tent, boys," said Mackenzie.
The tent! It was a misnomer, their only shelter being a sheet of thin
oiled cloth and the overhanging trees. Down came a deluge that kept
them very close for a time; then, on resuming the march, the guide was
requested to go in advance and brush the water off the bushes, but he
coolly declined. Mackenzie himself therefore undertook the duty.
During this storm the ground was rendered white with hailstones as large
as a musket ball. The third day they met natives who received them
well. These were going to the great river to fish, and seemed--unlike
many other tribes--to venerate age, for they carried on their backs by
turns a poor old woman who was quite blind and infirm. Farther on they
met other Indians on their way to the same great river, which abounded
with salmon. These told them that they would soon reach a river,
neither large nor long, which entered an arm of the sea, and where a
great wooden canoe with white people was said to be frequently seen!
"Here is encouragement for us; let us push on," said Mackenzie. "Push
on," echoed Reuben and Lawrence and some of the other men; but some
grumbled at the hardships they had to endure, and the short allowance of
provisions, while the Indians threatened to desert them.
Mackenzie must have had something very peculiar in his look and manner,
for he seemed to possess the faculty of saying little in reply to his
men, and yet of constraining them to follow him. Doubtless, had some
one else written his journal we should have learned the secret. It
seems as if, when rebellion was looking blackest and the storm about to
burst, instead of commanding or disputing, he calmly held his tongue and
went off to take an observation of the sun, and on that process being
completed, he almost invariably found his men in a more tractable
condition! Occasionally we read of quiet remonstrance or grave
reasoning, and frequently of hearty encouragement and wise counsel, but
_never_ of violence, although he was sorely tried. Perchance they knew
that he was dangerous to trifle with! We cannot tell, but certainly he
seems to have been a splendid manager of men.
At last they reached an Indian village where they were hospitably
entertained, and presented with as much roasted salmon as they required.
These people lived almost exclusively on fish and berries; were more
cleanly than other tribes, and apparently less addicted to war or
hunting. Here two new guides were obtained, and the people conciliated
with gifts of beads, knives, and other trinkets.
Leaving them they spent a wretched night on the shores of a lake,
deluged with rain and tormented with sandflies and mosquitoes--the
former being perhaps the greatest pests of the country. Soon the guides
grew tired of their mode of travelling, and the allowance of provisions
had to be still further reduced. Fearing that they might run short
altogether, Mackenzie ordered Reuben and his son to fall behind, bury
some pemmican in reserve for their return, and make a fire over the spot
to conceal the fact that it had been dug into. They were now on
two-thirds of their regular allowance. Soon afterwards they came to a
river too deep to ford, but one of their guides swam across and brought
over a raft that lay on the other side. This ferried most of them over,
but Swiftarrow and some of the others preferred to swim across.
At length, after many days of suffering and toil they crossed the last
range of mountains and began to descend. Here magnificent cedars and
other trees were seen, some of the former being fully eighteen feet in
circumference. The natives whom they met with were sometimes stern,
sometimes kind, but always suspicious at first. The soothing effects of
gifts, however, were pretty much the same in all. Still the party had
several narrow escapes.
On one occasion Mackenzie, when alone, was surrounded and seized, but he
soon freed himself, and just at that moment when his life seemed to hang
on a hair, Reuben Guff happened to come up, and the natives took to
flight. Some of these natives were very expert canoe-men, caught salmon
by means of weirs, dwelt in wooden houses elevated on poles, boiled
their food in water-tight baskets by putting red-hot stones into them,
made cakes of the inner rind of the hemlock sprinkled with oil, and
seemed to have a rooted antipathy to flesh of every kind. Some of the
salmon they caught were fully forty pounds' weight. The chief of one
tribe said that, ten years before, he had gone down to the sea in a
large canoe, and there had met with two large vessels full of white men
who treated him very kindly. These, Mackenzie concluded, must have been
the ships of Captain Cook, an opinion which was strengthened by the
discovery that the chief's canoe was ornamented with sea-otters' teeth,
which bear some resemblance to human teeth, for which they had been
mistaken by the great navigator. At last, on the 20th of July, the
heroic perseverance of Mackenzie met with its reward. On that day he
obtained a canoe, and descending a river, entered an arm of the Pacific!
He did not himself, indeed, deem the object of the expedition attained
until he had battled on for a couple of days longer--in the face of the
opposition of his own men and hostility of the natives--and had obtained
reliable observations which settled beyond all dispute, his exact
position on the globe. But to all intents and purposes he had
accomplished his great object on that day,--namely, the crossing of the
American Wilderness to the Pacific Ocean.
Even in the midst of his triumph this long-enduring man was worried by
petty trials, for one of the Indian guides took it into his head to
desert. As he was the son of a chief, and, it was to be feared, might
prejudice the natives against them, Reuben Guff was directed to pursue
him. That worthy took with him Swiftarrow, and exerting his long sinewy
legs to the utmost, soon overtook the fugitive and brought him back.
But it was no part of Mackenzie's plan to tyrannise over men. He
received the deserter kindly, gave him a pair of moccasins, some
provisions, a silk handkerchief, and some good advice, and then sent him
back to his friends. The other Indian who remained with them succeeded
about the same time in killing a large porcupine, which was very
acceptable to all--especially to its captor, who ate so largely of it as
to be obliged to undergo a prolonged period of repose in order to sleep
it off.
At length, being in a state of semi-starvation, with a leaky canoe, and
unfriendly natives around, Mackenzie took a last observation, which gave
52 degrees 20 minutes 48 second North latitude and 128 degrres 2 minutes
West longitude.
Then he turned his face eastward. Before quitting the coast, however, a
smooth rock was selected and thereon was written, in large letters,
with a mixture of melted grease and vermilion, this brief
memorial--"Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second
of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three."
The return journey was scarcely less arduous than the outward, but they
undertook it with the knowledge that every step carried them nearer
home, and with the exhilarating consciousness that their labours had
been crowned with success. Besides this, they now knew what lay before
them each day--as far as the route was concerned--and at the various
places where provisions had been secreted the party was strengthened and
enabled to advance with greater vigour. On arriving at the Great River
they found their canoe, goods, and provisions just as they had left them
about five weeks before. Here they made preparations for proceeding to
the head-waters of the Columbia River, crossing over to those of the
Peace River, and so returning by the way they had come. In order to
mark this happy point in the expedition, Mackenzie treated himself and
men to a dram, "but,"--observe that I quote his words, reader,--"we had
been so long without tasting any spirituous liquor, that we had _Lost
all relish for it_!" Rejoice in _that_ testimony, ye teetotallers.
Think of it, ye topers. Put it in your pipes, ye smokers--and make the
most of it!
"Nearing home at last, boys," said Mackenzie many weeks afterwards, as,
having descended the turbulent Peace River, they rounded a point of land
and came in sight of their old winter-quarters; "shake out the flag, and
give them a volley and a cheer."
The men obeyed, and were in such high spirits, and made such active use
of their paddles, that they reached the landing-place before the two men
who had been left there in the spring, could recover their senses
sufficiently to answer their questions! But _this_ was not home yet.
Some days had still to elapse ere these toil-worn men could lay aside
their paddles and rest their wearied limbs.
At last, after an absence of eleven months, they reached Fort Chipewyan,
where their leader resumed the duties of the fur-trade, and Swiftarrow
once more kissed the brown cheek of Darkeye, who filled his heart with
grim delight by placing in his paternal arms a soft, round, fat, little
brown female baby, with eyes as dark and bright as her own, and a nose
which was a miniature facsimile of its father's.
One week after their arrival, Reuben and Lawrence, Swiftarrow and
Darkeye, entered Mackenzie's room to bid him farewell.
"I'm sorry you are bent on leaving me," said their former leader; "but
you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have contributed greatly
to the success of our two expeditions. You have indeed proved
yourselves able pioneers."
"Thank'ee, sir," said Reuben, while a quiet smile of satisfaction
lighted up his grave features. "It was all along a hobby o' mine, an'
of Lawrence too, to do a bit o' diskivery; an' now we're content--for it
ain't possible, I fancy, to do much more in that line than push your
canoe into the Frozen Sea on the one hand, or the Pacific on the other.
It's harder work than I thowt it would be--though I didn't expect
child's play neither; an' it's our opinion, sir, that you are the only
man in the country as could have done it at all. We intend now to go
back to the settlements. As for the red-skin," he added, glancing at
Swiftarrow, "he ha'n't got no ambition one way or another as to
diskivery; but he's a good and true man, nevertheless, you'll allow.
And now, sir, farewell. May a blessing from above rest on you and
yours."
Saying this the bold backwoodsman shook Mackenzie by the hand and left
the room. Every one in the fort was on the bank to bid them farewell.
Silently they stepped into their canoe, and in a few minutes had paddled
out of sight into the great wilderness of wood and water.
Reader, our tale, if such it may be styled, _is_ told. As for the hero
whose steps for a time we have so closely followed, he became one of the
most noted traders, as he was now one of the most celebrated
discoverers, in North America. He afterwards became for a time the
travelling companion in America of the Duke of Kent, father of Queen
Victoria; was knighted in acknowledgment of his great and important
achievements; married one of Scotland's fair daughters; and finally died
in the midst of his native Highland hills, leaving behind him a volume
which--as we said at the beginning--proves him to have been one of the
most vigorous, persevering, manly, and successful pioneers that ever
traversed the continent of North America.
THE END.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
EXTRACT OF LETTER REFERRED TO ON PAGE 85.
From William Mackenzie, Esquire, of Gairloch, to George Mackenzie,
Esquire, of Avoch, dated Leamington, 24th May 1856.
When in Stockholm in 1824, Lord Blomfield, our Minister there, did me
the honour of presenting me to the King, _Bernadotte_, father of the
present King of Sweden.
At the King's special request, the audience was a private one, and I was
further especially requested to oblige by coming in my full Highland
dress. The audience lasted fully an hour. Such an interest did
Napoleon's first and most fortunate Marshal take in everything that was
Highland, not even the skiandhu escaped him.
I now come to _your_ family portion of the audience.
As we chatted on, old Bernadotte (leaning familiarly upon my O'Keachan
claymore) was pleased to say in that _suaviter in modo_ for which his
eagle eye so fitted him, "Yes, I repeat it, you Highlanders are
deservedly proud of your country. Your forefathers and your people are
a race apart, distinct from all the rest of Britain in high moral as
well as martial bearing, and long, I hope, may you feel and show it
outwardly by this noble distinction in dress. But allow me to observe,
Sir, that in your family name, in the name of Mackenzie, there is a very
predominant lustre, which shall never be obliterated from my mind.
Pray, are you connected in any way with Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the
celebrated North American traveller, whose name and researches are
immortalised by his discoveries in the Arctic Ocean, and of the river
which since then does honour to his name?" I informed His Majesty that
as a boy I had known him well, and that our family and his were nearly
connected. This seemed to give me still greater favour with him, for,
familiarly putting his hand on my shoulder-brooch, he replied that _on
that account alone_ his making my acquaintance gave him greater
satisfaction. He then proceeded to tell Lord Blomfield and me how your
father's name had become familiar to him, and so much valued in his
eyes. He said that at one time Napoleon had arranged to distract the
affairs of Britain by attacking her in her Canadian possessions--not by
a direct descent upon them, but by a route which men expected would take
England quite by surprise and prove infallible.