Page images
PDF
EPUB

entific navigator in our expedition: a gentleman, who possessed that particular modesty which is always the companion of merit, with feelings the most acute, refined by true sentiments of honour; to which (at one time

at least) he had hopes of adding some lustre in the present undertaking. His duty at length got the better of his feelings so far, as to lead him to ask, whether no other person could be sent by land, while captain Billings himself made a second attempt by sea? And, whether it was absolutely necessary for him (Billings) to go? Receiving only evasive answers, however, he entertained hopes of better success if captain Hall's arrival should strengthen his efforts."

Captain Hall, however, did not arrive, and the commander made sail for the bay of St. Laurence, where he found the two Russians; here he abandoned all the objects of his expedition, and set out with eleven companions to cross the country to the Kovima. Saretsheff was left with the command of the ship, and with orders to sail to Oonalashka, and pass the winter in collecting tribute from the islands, and proceed to Kamtshatka in the spring, where captain Billings said he would join him. Similar orders were left for captain Hall. Saretsheff, therefore returned to Oonalashka. Herecaptain Hall joined him, having followed Billings to the bay of Lausana. They laid up their vessels for the winter, and made their arrangements to pass it as well as they could in that cold situation. Mr. Sauer, and the purser, built themselves a hut and lined it with whales fins. The other officers and the greater part of the crew retained their births on board. Parties were sent out daily in their boats to collect drift wood for fuel. This, however, was in general so sodden with sea-water that it would not burn, and they were fortunate if during the day they collected a day's supply. The nation expecting their return had dried a quanty of fish, and collected berries.. "Here," says the author, "we now formed among ourselves a little republic, in perfect congeniality of sentiment, complete friendship and harmony, equal in our manners and way of living; uncontrou.dd by severity, yet observing strict order and subordination.”

But the scurvy soon attacked them. Mr. Sauer thought the best way to guard against it was to follow the same mode of living as the natives; he, therefore, made the chief part of his diet consist of

raw fish, muscles and limpets. They used every precaution in their power, beer was brewed, spruce made use of, but with no perceptible effect. At the beginning of 1792 Mr. Sauer was the only one of the company who was in no degree affected. Towards the end of February they died rapidly, sometimes three in a day. In March the wind veered to the southward, the spring vegetables began to appear, and the survivors gradually recovered. When they prepared to leave the island they found that the sails, cordage and rigging of every kind had suffered from the climate also; every thing was quite rotten. In the middle of May they left this place, the grave of seventeen of their stoutest hands, where they had remained eight months and sixteen days.

As they could not enter the port of Ochotsk with their largest vessel, the two captains left her at Kamtshatka, and proceeded there with as many hands as they could take on board the other. Mr. Sauer was one of those who remained, waiting for their deliverance the arrival of the transport ship with the annual supply of provision for the peninsula. Here he received tidings that captain Billings and his company, after the greatest hardships, had arrived at the river Anjarke. The natives had destroyed their measur ing lines and their writing materials, they had made no observations whatever. Mr. Sauer was directed to join the commandant at Yakutsk as soon as possible. Before he could depart he felt the shock of an earthquake. On the preceding day, a number of swallows of a species never seen there before, were perceived, flying about as if much frightened, and the inhabitants predicted some remark able event. The people here seem to have suffered much from their Russian masters. The Kamtshadal is scarcely allowed time in the fishing season to collect a supply of food for his own family.

"In 1768 the small-pox carried off 5,368 of the inhabitants; and since the departure of major Behm, the court of the interior (Zemski Sud) has discovered, that the Kamtshadals are indebted to government the whole tribute for the unfortunate sufferers by that disorder, and lay claims at present for the debt. The natives produce receipts; but are told, that an ukase from Irkutsk claims the

payment. They appointed a delegate to lay their grievances at the feet of their sovereign;

he, however, only reached Irkutsk, when he was promised redress, and sent back again: he returned last year, and is the chief of Shapinski village, a very intelligent man, and, I thought, very likely to help me to some information as to their former customs and religion, which are now quite abolished; nor is their language pure.

"He told me that the Kamtshadals called themselves Itolmatsh (he says they are the aborigines of the place), and the descendants of Newsteach or Newchatshatsh, and that their god was Newsteachtshitsh. Koutka is his intelligent spirit, the messenger of vengeance to their tormenting demons, and of the rewards to the spirits of benevolence: he travels about in an invisible carriage drawn by flying animals resembling mice, but smaller than the haman mind can conceive, and swift as a flash of lightning. "Our sorcerers (said he) were observers of omens, and warned us of approaching dangers, to avert which, sacrifices were made to the demons: we were then wealthy, contented, and free." He continued his discourse, thus, as nearly as I could translate: "I think our former religion was a sort of dream, of which we now see the reality. The empress is god on earth, and her officers are our tormentors: we sacrifice all that we have to appease their wrath, or wants, but La vain. They have spread disorders among us, which have destroyed our fathers and mothers; robbed us of our wealth and happiness. They have left us no hopes of redress; for all the wealth that we could collect for years would not be sufficient to secure one advocate in our interest, who dares represent our distress to our sovereign."

The salaries of the different officers at

Kamtshatka are so low, and the price of every thing so high, that they cannot possibly subsist without increasing their income at the expence of the natives.

"One of the captains of the district, who came here with his wife and family, finding himself extremely distressed, appropriated the tribute of one year to his own use, and wrote a letter to the empress; stating, that the severity of the climate, the prices of every article of life, and the wants of his fainily, had compelled him to make use of the tribute, consisting of such a number of sables and fox skins for their backs and bellies, which he rather chose to do than rob the poor na

tives (the only alternative). He requested her pardon, and an appointment where he could live upon his salary; and the industry of his family (of no benefit in Kamtshatka) might help to pay the amount of the articles that he had appropriated to his own use.

The empress ordered the governor to give him such an appointment, and pardoned him on account of the good reasons that he assigned; but this pardon was not to be regarded as a precedent; for such mercy was not to be extended to any future person who should dare to act in the same manner.

At length, in August 1793, M. Sauer embarked for Ochotsk, whence he proceeded immediately to Yakutsk, where he joined captain Billings. In January all the officers of the expedition met together at Irkutsk, and thence returned to Petersburg.

The

which neither time nor expence had been Thus terminated an expedition in spared, a nine years expedition, wherein not one of the points for which it was undertaken was ascertained, except the latitude of the mouth of the Kovima. It was the error of Catharine, and it has ever been the error of all despots, to think that every thing is to be accomplished by their almighty fiat. great autocratrix had been informed by the printed work of an Englishman, that her subjects had discovered new dominions for her of which she knew nothing, scientific voyages were become fashionable, and she too would send out an expedition of discovery. But Catharine had mistaken her element. Soldiers may be made by a law, but sailors cannot. With the bayonet she could drive her boors upon the bayonet, and conquer by the weight of numbers and mere physical force, but neither her decrees nor her knouts, nor even her honorary titles could never make a navigator. To set up a captain Cook was like her own imitation of Shakespeare. It is easier to destroy than to create. This unhappy woman (for what other epithet can be applied to the dead Catharine?) could desolate, but she could not people; she could blast the freedom and the intel lectual advancement of Poland, but she. could not thaw the icy ignorance of Russia. The luxuries of London and the vices of Paris might be transplanted to Petersburg, and would thrive there, but science is not to be so procured. Fruit may be forced in the hot-house, but they who would rear oaks must be content to plant acorns.

[blocks in formation]

ART. III. Vo oyages from Montreal, on the Ricer St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, in the Years 1785 and 1793: with a preliminary Account of the Rise, Progress, and present State of the Fur Trade of that Country: illustrated by Maps. By ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, Esq. 4to. pp. 544. OUR earliest travellers were all period excels all former ones: To go. liars, however they differed in religion, vernment we owe the discoveries in the country, or profession, Jew or Friar, Pace. To one private society we are Venetian or Englishman; in this pro indebted for the manly and masterly pensity they all agreed, and every works of Chandler, to another for Mr. one adopted and embellished the lie of Park's simple and affecting narrative. his predecessors. After Vasco de Gama Even men in high official situations have had explored a way to India, and Co- not thought it beneath them to appear lumbus had discovered a new world, as authors, and missions otherwise unthe accounts of distant countries became important have been thus made of lastmore numerous, and assumed a different ing interest. Thus we have obtained a and more respectable character. The magnificent work upon China, some inadventurers had so much of what was teresting journals of embassies in India, stimulant as well as true to relate, that and the account of the Cape by Mr. there no longer existed any motive or Barrow, a book which cannot be too temptation to invent; fiction could not highly praised. The spirit of individual be more novel and scarcely more surpri- and disinterested enterprise has appeared sing than truth. In general the mission again among us and enlarged our know aries are faithful journalists allow them ledge of Africa. Meantime the wildest their saints, their virgin, and the ma- parts of America have been explored by chinery of miracles, and in all else they adventurers in the fur trade. This trade may be safely trusted. Some know has given us the characteristic journal ledge of this kind embassadors also have of Mr. Cartwright, and Hearne's jour communicated to the world, in times ney, perhaps the most important of all when embassadors were chosen for their modern travels, for the picture which it personal qualification, not for their fa- presents of savage man. `mily interest. But the best of these works have been produced by mercantile adventurers. Many of our sailors under Elizabeth and James have left their jour nals, plain and honest, but most interesting details of dangers encountered by manly courage, and sufferings endured with desperate fortitude. For a while Jewellers were our ablest travellers. Tavernier, Bernier, Chardin have not been excelled. In the beginning of the last century English literature was retrograde: a race of little men had succeeded Taylor and Selden, and Bacon and Milton; in eloquence, in erudition, in philosophy, in poetry, we had declined. Our travellers began to quote the classics, to catalogue pictures, to copy inscriptions, and men of enterprise and observation were followed by antiquarians and dilletanti. Letter-writers and anecdote hunters next had their day, dealers in sentiment and scandal, as liberal in revealing their own virtues and fine feel ings, as they were in exposing and exaggerating the defects or follies of those who had hospitably entertained them. Trade had produced travels, and at length to write travels became a trade.

In this branch of literature the present

Our present traveller was engaged in the same commercial pursuit, and has prefaced his journal by a general history of the fur trade from Canada to the north-west. The importance of this trade was discovered soon after the first settlement of that country by the French. The Canadians who accompanied the Indians into the interior of the country to procure skins, soon adopted the manners of savage life. These men were called Coureurs des Bois, and soon be came the agents between the merchants and Indians. Three or four would join their stock, put their property into a birch-bark canoe, which they worked themselves, and accompany the natives, or proceed at once to the country where they were to hunt: these voyages extended at length to twelve or fifteen months. They then returned with a rich cargo, and during the few weeks necessary to arrange their accounts, squandered away their gains in beastly debauchery. As these men brought christianity into disrepute with the natives, the missionaries endeavoured to destroy their intercourse; and in consequence no one was permitted to go up the country to traffic without a licence from the government.

These

Ecences were at first granted only to such as could not be disapproved by the missionaries: they were afterwards bestowed as rewards upon officers or their widows, who were allowed to sell them to the merchants, and thus the Coureurs des Bois are again employed. But when military posts were established at the confluence of the different large lakes, the trade became more secure and respectable. Retired officers then carried it on in person, respectable men enlightened enough and virtuous enough to cooperate with the missionaries, whereby they both became respected. Our conquest of Canada destroyed the trade. In 1766 the English attempted to renew it, but the traders conducted themselves with such folly and such atrocious wickedness, that, in the year 1780, the natives formed a resolution to extirpate them.

"Nothing but the greatest calamity that could have befallen the natives, saved the traders from destruction: this was the smallpox, which spread its destructive and desolating power, as the fire consumes the dry grass of the field. The fatal infection spread around with a baneful rapidity, which no flight could escape, and with a fatal effect that nothing could resist. It destroyed with its pestilential breath whole families and tribes; and the horrid scene presented to those who had the melancholy and afflicting opportunity of beholding it, a combination of the dead, the dying, and such as, to avoid the horrid fate of their friends around them, prepared to disappoint the plague of its prey, by terminating their own existence.

"The habits and lives of these devoted people, which provided not to-day for the wants of to-morrow, must have heightened the pains of such an affliction, by leaving them not only without remedy but even without alleviation. Nought was left them but to submit in agony and despair.

"To aggravate the picture, if aggravation were possible, may be added the putrid car cases which the wolves, with a furious voracity, dragged forth from the huts, or which were mangled within them by the dogs, whose hunger was satisfied by the disfigured remains of their masters. Nor was it uncommon for the father of a family, whom the infection had not reached, to call them around him, to represent the cruel suffer ings and horrid fate of their relations, from the influence of some evil spirit who was preparing to extirpate their race; and to incite them to baffle death, with all its horrors, by their own poniards. At the same time, if their hearts failed them in this necessary act, he was himself ready to perform the deed of mercy with his own hand, as the last act of

his affection, and instantly to follow them to the common place of rest and refuge from human evil.”

At length, in 1783 the merchants of Canada who were engaged in this trade formed an association under the name of the North-west Company. A few merchants who conceived themselves wrongfully excluded, united to oppose them. Of these Mr. Mackenzie was a partner. He gives a harsh picture of commercial rivalry. "After the severest struggle ever known in that part of the world, and suffering every oppression which a jealous and rival spirit could instigate; after the murder of one of our partners, the laming of another, and the narrow escape of one of our clerks who received a bullet through his powder horn, in the execution of his duty, they were com pelled to allow us a share of the trade." This association was very successful. But in 1798 a schism took place and a new opposition was started. The trade is become so important, that Mr. Mackenzie is desirous to see it still farther extended by the countenance and support of the British government.

After this detail Mr. Mackenzie de scribes the navigation and all its interruptions from Montreal to Fort Che-pewyan, latitude 58° 38' N. longitude 110° 26' W. the place which he made his head quarters for eight years, and whence he departed on both his expeditions.

"Here," says he, "have I arrived with ninety or an hundred men without any provision for their sustenance; for whatever quantity might have been obtained from the natives in the summer, it could not be more than sufficient for the people dispatched to the different posts, and even if there was a casual superfluity, it was absolutely necessary to preserve it untouched, for the demands of the spring. The whole dependance, therefore, of those who remained, was on the lake, and fishing implements for the means of our support. The nets are sixty fathoms in length, when set, and contain fifteen meshes of five inches in depth. The manner of using them is as follows: a small stone and wooden buoy are fastened to the side-line opposite to each other, at about the distance of two fathoms: when the net is carefully thrown into the water, the stone sinks it to the bottom, while the buoy keeps it at its full extent, and it is secured in its situation by a stone at either end. The nets are visited every day, and taken out every other day to be cleaned and dried. This is a very ready operation when the waters are not frozen,

but when the frost has set in, and the ice has acquired its greatest thickness, which is sometimes as much as five feet, holes are cut in it at the distance of thirty feet from each other, to the full length of the net; one of them is larger than the rest, being generally about four feet square, and is called the bason: by means of them, and poles of a proportionable length, the nets are placed in and drawn out of the water. The setting of hooks and lines is so simple an employment as to render a description unnecessary. The white fish are the principal object of pursuit: they spawn in the fall of the year, and, at about the setting in of the hard frost, crowd in shoals to the shallow water, when as many as possible are taken, in order that a portion of them may be laid by in the frost to provide against the scarcity of winter; as, during that season, the fish of every description decrease in the lakes, if they do not altogether disappear. Some have supposed that during this period they are stationary, or assume an inactive state. If there should be any intervals of warm weather during the fall, it is necessary to suspend the fish by the tail, though they are not so good as those which are altogether preserved by the frost. In this state they remain to the beginning of April, when they have been found as sweet as when they were caught.

Thus do these voyagers live, year after year, entirely upon fish, without even the quickening favour of salt, or the variety of any farinaceous root or vegetable."

Some account is now given of the two chief tribes with whom the traders here are connected, the Knisteneaux and the Chepewyans. The superstitions of these latter people discover more imagination than is generally to be found in a savage creed.

"The notion which these people entertain of the creation, is of a very singular nature. They believe that, at the first, the globe was one vast and entire ocean, inhabited by no

living creature, except a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were lightning, and the clapping of whose wings were thun

der. On his descent to the ocean, and touching it, the earth instantly arose, and remained on the surface of the waters. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of animals from the earth, except the Chepewyans, who were produced from a dog; and this circumstance occasions their aversion to the flesh of that animal, as well as the people who eat it. This extraordinary tradition proceeds to relate, that the great bird, having finished his work, made an arrow, which was to be preserved with great ere, and to remain untouched; but that the Chepewyans were so devoid of understanding, as to carry it away; and the sacrilege

so enraged the great bird, that he never has since appeared.

[ocr errors]

They have also a tradition amongst them, that they originally came from another country, inhabited by very wicked people, and had traversed a great lake, which was narrow, shallow, and full of islands, where they had suffered great misery, it being alM ways winter, with ice and deep snows. the copper-mine river, where they made the first land, the ground was covered with copper, over which a body of earth had since been collected, to the depth of a man's height. They believe, also, that in ancient tines their ancestors lived till their feet were worn out with walking, and their throats with eating. They describe a deluge, when the waters spread over the whole earth, except the highest mountains, on the tops of which they preserved themselves.

[ocr errors]

They believe, that immediately after their death, they pass into another world, where they arrive at a large river, on which they embark in a stone canoe, and that a gentle current bears them to an extensive lake, in the center of which is a most beautiful island; and that, in the view of this delightful abode, they receive that judgment for their conduct during life, which termi

nates their final state and unalterable allot

ment.

If their good actions are declared to predominate, they are landed upon the island, where there is to be no end to their happiness; which, however, according to their notions, consists in an eternal enjoyment of sensual pleasure, and carnal gratification. But if their bad actions weigh down the balance, the stone canoe sinks at once, and leaves them up to their chins in the water, to behold and regret the reward enjoyed by the good, and eternally struggling, but with unavailing endeavours, to reach the blissful island, from which they are excluded

for ever."

Mr. Mackenzie believed it practicable to penetrate across the continent of America, he was confident of his personal qualifications for such an enterprise, and encouraged by his friends and commercial associates to undertake it. Accordingly on June 3, 1789, he embarked at Fort Chepewyan, on the south side of the lake of the hills, in a canoe made of birch bark. The crew of the canoe consisted of four Canadians, the wives of two, and a German; an Indian called the English Chief, his two wives, and two young Indians, with their followers, filled two other small canoes. These men were engaged in the twofold capacity of interpreters and hunters. Mr. Le Roux, one of the company's clerks, had the charge of another canoe, which carried provision, cloathing, amunition,

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »