The principal animals around Hudson's Bay are, the Moose-deer, rein-deer, buffaloes, musk oxen, and beavers; polar or white bear, black bear, brown bear, wolves, foxes of various colours, lynxes, or wild cats, wolverins, which are remarkably fierce and powerful animals, able to with stand the bear itself; otters, pine-martins, ermines, a smaller otter called jackash, which is very easily tamed, but, when angry or frightened, apt to emit a most disagree able smell ; the wejack and skunk, the last of which is re markable for its insupportably fcetid smell ; musk beavers, porcupines, hares, squirrels, castor-beavers, and mice of various kinds, one species of which, the hair- tailed mouse, is nearly as large as a common rat, and capable of being speedily tamed even after they are full grown. Amphi bious animals frequenting the coasts of the Bay are, the walrus, or sea-horse, some of which have been killed of so enormous a size as to exceed the weight of two tons ; seals of various sizes and colours ; and sea-unicorns in the northern parts. Of the feathered race, there arc eagles and hawks of various kinds, white and gray owls, ravens, cinereous crows, which are very familiar and troublesome birds, frequenting the habitations of the natives, and pil fering every species of provision ; woodpeckers, ruffed grouse, pheasants, pat tridges, pigeons, thrushes, gros beaks, buntings, finches, larks, titmice, swallows, martins, cranes, bitterns, earlows, snipes, plovers, gullemels, divers, gulls, pelicans, goosanders, swans, geese of different kinds, and ducks in great variety, particularly the mallard, long tailed, wigeon, and teal. There are several kinds of frogs, as far north as the latitude of 61°, which in winter arc ge nerally found in a completely frozen state, yet capable of reviving when thawed. Grubs, spiders, and other insects, are found in the same icy condition, from which they can be recovered by exposure to a gentle heat. Several kinds of shell fish are found on the shorts of the Bay, particu larly muscles, periwinkles, and small crabs. The empty shells of cockles, wilks, scallops, and other sorts, are fre, quently thrown upon the beach ; but none of these have been seen with the fish in them. There are few fish in Hudson's Bay. White whales are found in considerable numbers at the mouths of the principal rivers ; and the Company's servants, in the settlements on the west coast of the Bay, have been known to send home in some years from eight to thirteen tons of fine oil. A small fish, called kepling, about the size of a smelt, and very excellent for eating, resorts in some years to the shore in great num bers, but at other times is extremely scarce. No other salt water fish is found in the country, except salmon, which are also very plentiful at some seasons, and equally rare at other times. It has been observed, in short, that every species of game, whether quadruped, fowl, or fish, is remarkably variable at different periods ; and it thus be comes necessary to provide in plentiful seasons a quantity of such provisions as are most capable of being preserved. The geese are said to be particularly useful for this pur pose, when properly salted ; and it is nothing uncommon for 10,000 to be killed during a winter at the factories.* The natives who inhabit the countries around Hudson's Bay may be distributed under these three general denomi nations,----the Southern Indians, the Northern Indians, and the Esquimaux. The Southern Indians occupy the coun try lying between the south coast of Hudson's Bay and the territories of Canada, and that part of the western coast of the Bay which is situated to the south of Churchhill river, and extends inland to the lake of Athabasca or Athapuscow. They are the same as the Indian tribes who occupy the re gions to the north of Upper CANADA ; and we refer to the account of that country for a general description of the lead ing nations. The principal tribes who reside in the inte rior to the south-west of Hudson's Bay, and who used for merly to repair to the Company's forts, but now find their wants supplied at the trading houses nearer their own homes, are the Ne-heth-a-wa, and Assinne-poctue Indians. The latter arc the same as the Assinipoils or Stone Indians, originally a branch of the Naudowessies, but latterly incor porated with the Knisteneaux or Killistinoes. They are a numerous tribe, who extend over a considerable tract of country, and bring many peltries to the traders. The for mer, the Nehethawas, or Neheaways, are supposed to spring from the same stock as the Chipawas or Chepewy ans. From being scattered over an immense extent of country, they appear to be less numerous than they arc in reality. "They have been longest acquainted with the fur traders, and are the most debauched and corrupted in the southern tribes. The Southern Indians, in general, who have become known to the Hudson Bay traders, are of a middle size and copper complexion ; their persons gene rally well formed, and their features regular and agreeable. Their constitutions are strong and healthy ; and they are subject to very few diseases. They are chiefly affected with dysentery and a violent pain in the chest, which is as cribed to the intensity of the cold, but which is said rarely to prove fatal. The venereal disease is also common among them, but generally mild in its symptoms. They seldom live to a great age ; but arc observed to enjoy all their fa culties to the last. They are capable of travelling on foot with great expedition, and for many days in succession, pa tiently enduring the utmost degree of cold, hunger, and fa tigue. They excel in:hunting, which is their sole mean of subsistence ; and though long used to fire•artns, they are still remarkably expert in the use of their original weapons, the bow and arrow. When employed to procure provisions for the factories, at the rate of the value of a beaver skin for every ten geese, they frequently bring in 50 or 60 of these fowls a day, which they shoot readily on the wing.
They are extremely artful, addicted to every species of fraud and pilfering, and ready to boast of their thefts when successfully executed, so as to escape detection. At the same time, nothing can exceed their honesty and fidelity when entrusted with a charge. They are frequent ly employed by the Hudson Bay traders to take packages into the interior parts, and to bring down the articles which arc procured in return. An Indian with his wife will em bark in his canoe packs of 60 or 70 lbs. each, containing ar ticles which would enable him to live in affluence for many years, and with which it would be easy for him to abscond, without the possibility of being traced. Yet this valuable property, so completely in their power, they will convey hundreds of miles, through unfrequented lakes and rivers, and deliver at the place appointed, with the utmost punctu tuality, for the reward of the value of six beaver skins for each pack. They are humane and charitable to the wi dows and children of their departed relatives, and are na turally mild, affable, and friendly in their manners; but, in their moments of intoxication, they are invariably roused by the slightest provocation to the fiercest quarrels and inost barbarous murders. Even when the women have taken care to remove their weapons, they rarely fail, on such occasions, to mutilate one another with their teeth and nails. They are also extremely licentious in their sexual in tercourse, and give themselves up without restraint to every species of incestuous debauchery, with mothers, sisters, and daughters. They have no manner of regular govern ment or subordination ; but choose a temporary leader when they go to war, or form a party for trade. By the use of spirituous liquors, which they drink to the greatest excess, and with which they are too readily supplied by the Europeans as the most alluring article of traffic, they are debased in their minds, enervated in their bodies, dejected in their spirits ; and are daily becoming a more emaciated, puny, indolent, and worthless race.
The Northern Indians occupy the extensive tract of country which reaches from the 59th to the 68th degree of North Latitude, and which is upwards of 500 miles from east to west. Their territories are bounded by the Church hill river on the south, by the country of the Athabasca In dians on the west, by Hudson's Bay on the east, and by the country of the Dog-ribbed and Copper Indians f on the north.
The Northern Indians are generally above the middle size, robust, and well proportioned ; but have less of that activity of body and liveliness of disposition, which com monly distinguish the Indian tribes of the western coast of Hudson's Bay. Their features are of a peculiar cast, and different from those of any other race in those countries. Their foreheads are low, their eyes small, their cheek bones high, their noses aquiline, their cheeks fleshy, and their chins generally long and broad. Their complexion is of a copper colour, but rather inclining to a dingy brown ; and their hair, like that of the other tribes, black, straight, and strong. Few of the men have any appearance of a beard till they arrive at middle age, and then it is very small in quantity, but exceedingly bristly. They endeavour to pull out the hairs by the root, though they seldomefiect this very completely. They have no hair under their arm pits,
or on any other part of the body, except in those places which nature directs them to conceal. The skins of the women are soft, smooth, and polished ; and, when they are dressed in clean clothing, they are entirely free from any offensive smell. All the tribes of the Northern Indians have three or four parallel black strokes on each cheek, which are produced by introducing an awl or needle un der the skin, and rubbing powdered charcoal into the wound after the instrument is drawn out. As almost the whole of their country is little better than a mass of rocks and stones, scarcely producing any other vegetable food than moss for the deer, they have few opportunities of col lecting furs, and subsist chiefly by hunting and fishing. A few of the more active or restless among them, who have acquired a taste for European articles, collect the furs from the rest, or from the Dog-ribbed and Copper Indians, or from their own hunting excursions towards the inland districts, where the proper animals abound ; and, after car rying these to the factories with great risks and fatigues, barter, on their return, the fruits of their traffic with their less ambitious countrymen for necessary food and clothing. But the greater part, though they may have visited the factories once in their lives, lead a happier life, and enjoy a more comfortable subsistence in their own country. Their real wants are easily supplied ; and a hatchet, ice chisel, file, and knife, are almost all that is requisite to en able them, with a little industry, to procure a plentiful sup ply of food and clothing. They subsist chiefly on venison, and generally spend the whole summer in hunting the deer on the open plains, or catching fish in the rivers and lakes. Ns they have no dogs trained to the chace like the South ern 'Indians, and as they seldom have powder and ball in sufficient abundance for the purpose, they make use of their bows and arrows in killing the deer, as they pass through the narrow defiles, into which they drive the herds in the following manner. Upon seeing the deer, they be take themselves to leeward, lest they should be smelled by the animals ; and then search for a convenient place for concealing the marksmen. They next collect a number of sticks, like large ramrods, with a small flag at the top of each, and these they fix upright in the ground above fif teen or twenty yards from each other, so as to form two sides of a very acute angle, terminating in the defile, where the huntsmen are concealed behind loose stones, heaps of moss, &c. The women and boys then divide into two par ties, and going round on both sides, till they form a cre scent behind the herd, drive them straight forward be tween the rows of sticks into the place of concealment, where they are shot as they run along. The same mode is employed, in the winter season, to drive the deer into a pound or inclosed space fenced round with bushy trees. These pounds are of various sizes, according to circumstan ces, and are sometimes about a mile in circumference. The door or entrance is not wider than a common gate, and the inside of the space inclosed is so crossed with hedges as to form a kind of labyrinth, at every opening of which also are placed snares made of thongs. As soon as the deer are driven into the pound, the gateway is blocked up with trees and brushwood, prepared for the purpose; and while the women and children walk round the outside of the fence, to prevent the imprisoned animals from breaking through or leaping over, the men are employed in shoot ing those which run loose, or in spearing those which have been entangled in the snares. About the end of March, or beginning of April, when the snow, slightly thawed during the day, is frozen during the night into a thin crust, which easily bears the Indian on his snow shoes, but sinks under the hoof of the deer, it is a common prac tice to kill the moose deer, by literally running them down. The hunters, lightly clothed, and armod only with a bow and arrows, a knife, or broad bayonet, generally tire the deer in less than a day, though sometimes they continue the chace for two days before they can come up with the game. These animals, however, when incapable of running farther, make a very desperate defence with their head and fore feet, and unless the Indians are provided with a short gun, or with bows and arrows, they find it necessary to fasten their knives or bayonets to the end of a long pole, in order to stab the deer, without, coming within reach of their feet. The flesh of the animals killed in this manner is so over heated by the long run, that it is never well tasted. In taking fish they make use of nets and hooks at all seasons of the year. Their fishing nets are made of thongs cut from raw-deer skins, (much inferior to those of the Dog ribbed Indians, which are made of the inner bark of the willow tree,) and are furnished with various appendages, such as the bills and feet of birds, toes and jaws of otters, &c. which the superstitiously consider as essential to their success. These nets are always used separately, and plac ed at a distance from each other ; and on no account would they unite them together, for the purpose of stretching across the channel of a narrow river ; because they im agine that one net would become jealous of its neighbour, and would not catch a single fish. In fishing with hooks, they are equally influenced by superstitious notions ; and. all the baits which they use are compositions of charms, inclosed within a piece of fish-skin, so as to resemble a small fish. These charms are bits of beavers' tails, otters' teeth, musk-rats' entrails, squirrels' testicles, curdled milk taken from the stomachs of sucking fawns and calves, human hair, &c. ; and almost every lake and river is sup posed to require a peculiar combination of different articles. A net or hook that has taken many fish is valued accord ingly ; and would be taken as an equivalent for a number of new ones, which had never been tried, or which had not proved successful. In winter the hooks are let down through round holes cut in the ice, and are kept in constant motion, both to allure the fish, and to prevent the freezing of the water. From want of fuel, they are frequently oblig ed to eat their victuals in a raw state ; and this they occa sionally do from choice, especially in the case of fish, which they seldom dress so far (even where fire is at hand) as to warm it thoroughly. A few of them purchase brass kettles from the European factories ; but the greater part still prepare their food in large upright vessels made of birch bark. As these vessels will not admit of being ex posed to the fire, the water is made to boil by a succession of hot stones being introduced ; a method which effects the purpose very expeditiously, hut mixes much sand with the victuals, in consequence of the stones frequently mouldering down in the kettle. They employ also the ordinary methods of broiling their food, or roasting it by a string. They make a favourite dish, by boiling in a deer 's paunch or stomach a mixture of minced meat, blood, and fat ; but the fat is chewed by the men and boys, to prepare it for mixing more intimately with the other ingredients, and the half-digest ed food, found in the animal's stomach), is carefully added to the mess. in winter, when the deer feed upon a species of fine white moss, the contents of their stomach is accounted so great a delicacy, that the Indians frequently eat it warm out of the paunch, as soon as the animal is kill ed. In like manner, they pull out the kidneys of the deer or buffalo, and eat them from the new ly slaughtered animals, without any dressing. They often drink the blood, as it flows from the wound in the carcase, and ac count it a most nourishing sort of lbod, as well as an ex cellent quencher of thirst. They ::re remarkably fond of the womb of the buffalo, elk, deer, &c. even when they are some time gone with young ; and are not desirous of cleansing the bag very completely 1efore boiling it for use. The young calves, fawns, beavers, &c. taken out of their mothers' bellies, are reckoned most delicious articles of food ; and all the parts of generation, belonging to any ani mal which they kill, whether male or female, are carefully eaten by the men and boys, partly as a dish which they re lish, and partly as a superstitious observance, which they consider essential to their success in the Chace. The deer skins also, freed from the hair, and well boiled, are fre quently used as food. Even the worms, which infest them after the rutting season, are squeezed out and eaten alive as great delicacies. When animal food is scarce, the natives boil a kind of hard crumply moss which grows upon the larger stones, and which forms a very palatable gummy preparation, sometimes used to thicken other kinds of broth, and particularly esteemed when cooked in fish liquor. All the Indians around Hudson's Bay, South ern, Northern, and Esquimaux, constantly swallow the se cretion which comes from the nose ; devour the maggots which are produced by the flesh fly ; and delight in a hand ful of lice as much as a European epicure is known to re lish the mites in a decayed cheese.