AGAIN AT WORK
At the end of the year Mr. Horden returned to Moose with his wife and two
youngest children, and that same year the homeward-bound ship was once
more in imminent peril. And now our hero began a series of long journeys,
the longest he had made—one occupying three months and covering nearly
two thousand miles—amongst people of various languages. He thus vividly
describes it:
‘I left Moose Factory for Brunswick House in the afternoon of May 20,
1868. The weather was very cold, and on the following morning we left
our encampment amidst a fall of snow. All along the river banks the
ice lay piled up in heaps, occasionally forming a wall twenty feet
high. This ice was very detrimental to our progress; it prevented the
Indians from tracking the canoe, so that they were forced to use the
paddle or pole, which is harder work and does not permit of such rapid
progress. We got on pretty well until we came to where the river rushes
with awful rapidity between high and almost perpendicular rocks: it
certainly appeared like travelling to destruction. We had to cross the
river several times, so as to get where the current was weakest. We had
crossed twice, and bad enough it was each time; we were to cross the
third time; our guide demurred. It could not be done with safety; we
should be driven down a foaming rapid and destroyed.
‘But it was now just as dangerous to go backward as forward, so, after
a little persuading, the old man was induced to try. I took a paddle,
and we got out into the middle of the stream, paddling for our lives; we
were carried a considerable way down, but the other side was reached in
safety. Then we poled, or tracked, on, as we best could, very slowly,
until we had to cross again, and so on until the first portage was
reached. Over this we plod, and again our canoe floats into the river;
then pole, paddle, or track until a majestic fall or a roaring rapid
warned us to make another portage; and so on, again and again, day after
day.
‘As we went towards the south we actually saw some trees beginning to
bud. On the very last day of May, in the afternoon, I reached Brunswick
House. It is situated on a beautiful lake, the whole establishment
consisting of about five or six houses; it is a fur-trading post. The
Indians speak the Saulteaux language; there are about a hundred and fifty
of them here; they are quiet and teachable, but given to pilfering and
very superstitious. To comfort they seem to be strangers, lying about
anywhere at night, their principal resort being the platforms near the
trading-house. I believe that God’s blessing rested on my labours among
these Indians. This was their first introduction to the Christian
religion, and I trust that ere long many will be numbered among Christ’s
disciples.
‘After remaining with them nine days, I was obliged to hurry northward.
Our progress was rapid, the water was in good order. A few days at
Moose, and I went to the sea-coast to Rupert’s House. I found between
three and four hundred Indians assembled there, under the guidance of
their teacher, Matamashkum. Our joy was great and mutual; they have been
heathens, many of them have committed horrible crimes, but those days
have passed away, and now they rejoice in the merits of a Crucified
Saviour. Twice every day we had service, almost out of doors, for there
was no available room at the place capable of containing all. During the
day I had examinations, and baptisms, and weddings, and consultations;
and one afternoon we had a grand feast, for the Indians had made a good
hunt, and the fur-traders, delighted with what they had done, provided
the feast for them. There was nothing of dissipation. Eating and drinking
was quite a serious matter with them, and it was astonishing to see the
quantities of pea-soup, pork, geese, bread, biscuit, tobacco, tea and
sugar, they consumed; the providing a body of Indians with a good feast
is no light matter.
‘Having spent two Sundays at Rupert’s House, I took canoe and went to
Fort George, northwards along the sea-coast. For a portion of the way I
had company, as many Indians were also going north. This was the most
pleasant of all the journeys; the weather fine, the scenery often grand,
the wind fair. Two hundred miles were made in four days and a half. At
Fort George I met a good body of Christian Indians with their teacher,
William Keshkumash.
‘A few days here, and I embarked on board a schooner, to go yet further
north, to Great Whale River. Soon after getting out to sea we were among
the ice; however, on we go. It is the sea, but there is no water! We are
in an Arctic scene; we cannot go through, so we turn our head for Fort
George again, and wait there for nearly another week, and then try once
more. We get half way, then, as the vessel cannot move forward, I leave
it, and accompanied by two native sailors proceed in a small boat. Two
days bring us to an encampment of Indians. I now leave my boat and enter
a canoe, having with me Keshkumash, his wife, and their young son; two
other canoes, each containing a man and his wife, keep us company. We
have to work in earnest. Sometimes we got along fast, then we were in the
midst of ice and could not move at all, again we were chopping a passage
for the canoe with our axes; and then, when we could do nothing else,
we carried it over the rocks and set it down where the ice was not so
closely packed.
‘After two days and a half of this we came to a standstill, and I
determined to go on foot. I took one Indian with me, and we set off. Our
walk was over high bare hills; rivers ran through several of the valleys,
these we waded. About ten o’clock that night I sat down once more in a
house, very, very tired, and very, very thankful. I spent several days
with the Indians of this place; they are a large tribe of Crees, but
speak somewhat differently from those of Moose. Most of them believed the
words that were spoken, but some cared for none of those things, being
filled with their own superstitions.
‘By-and-by the schooner Fox made her appearance, and I embarked once
more, to endeavour to get to the last inhabited spot, Little Whale River.
We went half way, and then the ice sent a hole through the Fox’s side;
this we covered with a sheet of lead. I now again deserted the Fox, and
took to the canoe, in which, in somewhat less than two days, I got at
last to my journey’s end. And that journey’s end is a dreary, dreary
place, with scarcely any summer. It was August, and the ice was lying
thick at the mouth of the river. But my work was not dreary. I here met
Eskimo, the most teachable of people. They were very ready for school
or service, and although their attainments were not high, so much was I
impressed with their sincerity and perseverance, that I admitted four
families into the Christian Church. This rewarded me for all my toil. I
can address them now as brothers and sisters; and I am sure that all my
friends will rejoice with me for the blessing with which God crowned my
labour.
‘I had my difficulties in getting back again; ice still disputed our
progress, but on August 30, late in the evening, the trusty Fox, battered
and bruised, came to anchor at Moose Factory, and I had the happiness of
once more meeting my family, and of finding that all had been quite well
during the whole of my absence.’
About this time Mr. Horden began to plead for help to train up one of the
most promising of his school-boys as a catechist. Friends of the Coral
Fund took up the lad, and the money expended upon his education was not
in vain, for that boy is now a native pastor in charge of Rupert’s House.
Of him and of his ordination we shall have more to relate by-and-by.
The school children in whom Mr. Horden had first taken an interest were
growing up. Some were already earning their living, some were married;
one girl had gone with her husband to the Red River settlement, and
was, wrote Mr. Horden, in 1869, in as respectable a sphere of life as
any Christian farmer’s wife in England could be. Another had married a
fine young Moose Fort hunter, an excellent voyager. After an absence of
several months, they with their little child came back to the place,
stayed a few days, and again departed. In May, at the breaking-up of the
river, the Indians came in. One canoe Mr. Horden felt sure was that of
Amelia and her husband, and he at once went to see them.
‘I saw,’ he says, ‘first a fair little boy, plump and hearty, showing
that great care had been taken of him. I then cast my eye on a woman
sitting near, whom I took to be a stranger; but another look showed me
that the poor emaciated creature was indeed none other than Amelia, who
had been brought to the brink of the grave by starvation. She had lost
her husband, but in all her privations she had taken care that her baby
son should not want. The tale of her suffering was very distressing.
After leaving Moose in the end of March, they by themselves had gone to
their hunting-grounds, hoping to get a few furs to pay off the debt they
had contracted with the fur-trader; for in the early part of the winter
they had been very unfortunate, a wolverine having destroyed nearly
all the martens they had trapped. Amelia’s husband was soon attacked
by sickness, which entirely laid him by; food was very scarce, and the
little the forest might yield he could not seek. He gradually became
worse and worse, his sufferings aggravated by want, his only source of
consolation was his religion; both expected to lay their bones, as well
as those of the child, where they were. He wrote a letter, and got Amelia
to go and hang it up where some Indians might pass in the summer, stating
their joint deaths and the cause, and requesting burial. The end came,
the once strong young man lay a corpse; but Amelia had something to live
for—for her little son she would struggle on. Unable to dig a grave, for
she had no strength and the ground was frozen as hard as a stone, she
covered the body with moss, and set off to the Main Moose River, hoping
there to fall in with Indians. She was not disappointed. After a while
she fell in with Isaac Mekawatch, a Moose Indian, who took care of her
and her child, and brought them in safety to the fort. Such incidents as
this are amongst the sad experiences of life in Moosonee.’
In 1870 Mr. Horden wrote: ‘I have this summer travelled about thirteen
hundred miles, and during a part of this time I experienced a
considerable degree of hardship, which brought me down greatly. I am now,
however, well as ever I have been in my life. It was a very long journey,
and occupied many weeks, yet I did not travel out of my parish all the
time. When I was at Matawakumma, five hundred miles south of Moose, I was
upwards of eleven hundred miles from Little Whale River.
‘I left Moose on June 13, and overtook a boat going to the Long Portage,
with goods for the supply of New Brunswick, and I went forward in it.
Travelling by boat is very monotonous work indeed. At breakfast-time,
dinner-time, and when the day’s work was done, we endeavoured to catch
a few fish, our rod a long rough stick cut from the woods, a piece of
strong cord for a line, to which we attached a large hook baited with
salt pork; with this we would occasionally draw out a perch, a trout, a
pike from six to twelve pounds in weight. At the Long Portage I changed
my mode of travelling, my companions now using the canoe. With my new
friends I got on extremely well, taking advantage of every opportunity
to instruct them in divine things. Most of them received the instruction
gladly, but a few held back; they love their old superstitions, their
conjurations, dreams, spirits, and all the other things which so sadly
debase the Indian mind. In due time New Brunswick was reached, and I at
once began my work.
‘The Indians here, before they had ever seen a missionary, used to meet
for prayer and exhortation, having learnt a little from an Indian who had
seen one. Desirous of knowing how they conducted their service, about
which I had heard a great deal, I arranged one evening to be present as a
spectator. They showed no shyness, but consented at once.
‘At the time appointed, all being assembled, one gave out the verse of a
hymn, which was sung by all; another then repeated a text of Scripture,
then a second verse of the hymn was sung, followed by a second text; all
then knelt down, I by the side of the old chief, and about six began to
pray aloud at the same time, each in his own words. Ojibway’s prayer was
very simple, of course, but it was a cry to Jesus for mercy; and can we
doubt that his prayer was heard? Kneeling by his side was one sent by God
to show him the way of salvation.
‘One of those who opposed the Gospel said: “I would not give up my
children to you for baptism on any account. My eldest child has been
twice so ill that I thought she would die, but an Indian, by his charms,
saved her; and recently a spirit appeared to me, telling me to take heed
and never give up my children, for if I did, he would no longer take care
of them, and they would die.”
‘I remained at Brunswick until the Indians departed to Michipicoton
for supplies of flour. I went with them a little way, and then on to
Flying Post by a road untrodden by any save the Indian on his hunting
expeditions. I found it a terrible route—the worst I have ever
travelled—but having no one to think of but myself, I did not mind it—I
was about my Master’s business. In due time we reached Flying Post. Our
last portage was eight miles of truly horrible walking; it cost us many
weary hours.
‘The Indians of Flying Post evinced a great desire for instruction. This
was my first visit; I baptized seventeen persons. From Flying Post I
went on to Matawakumma. At Matawakumma the Indians are decreasing, as
at Flying Post. The decay of a people brings sad reflections, and the
Indians seem doomed to extinction. I found a church partly built under
the guidance of their trader, Mr. Richards, who takes a deep interest
in his Indians’ welfare. A bell and a set of communion plate I hope to
get out next ship time; the little church in the wilderness will then be
tolerably well furnished.
‘I here made the largest comparative collection I have ever made in my
life, no less than 8_l._ 2_s._ 8_d._ The poor people were truly liberal
in their poverty, and some of these poor sheep for the first time
approached the table of the Lord. Some of them are very intelligent, can
read well, and thoroughly understand their Christian responsibilities and
appreciate their privileges. And now, my work done, I turn my canoe-head
Mooseward, and pass over grand lakes, down a large river, run the rapids,
admire the falls, carry over the portages, hurrying towards the sea, and
after an absence of between eight and nine weeks I found myself once more
in the bosom of my family.’