come in with the produce of the hunt, the little building is usually crowded.
Mr. Lofthouse preaches in the Cree, Chippewyan and Eskimo languages, and having won the esteem and affection of his people, he has a powerful influence over them, and is teaching them with much success. He and Mrs. Lofthouse together conduct a day-school for the benefit of the children of the permanent residents. These number twenty-one, and the total population of Churchill is only fifty-one. On visiting the school I was much pleased with the advancement of the children, even the smallest of whom could read from the Bible. The girls were being taught by Mrs. Lofthouse to do various kinds of needlework, and by way of encouragement were being supplied with materials.
At the trading station, besides Mr. Matheson, Capt. Hawes and his family were staying at the time, he in an unofficial capacity. He was shortly to succeed Mr. Matheson, who was to be removed to some other post. Although not so well acquainted with the Captain as with Mr. and Mrs. Lofthouse, his face was also a familiar one to me, as we had met at Churchill in former years, when he was master of the Hudson's Bay Company's ship, Cam Owen, since wrecked on the coast.
For nearly two hundred years it had been the practice of the Hudson's Bay Company to send out from England every year one or two small sailing vessels with supplies to their trading stations on Hudson Bay. Almost without exception these little crafts were able to make their passages successfully, deliver their cargo, and return to England with a wealth of furs, oil, and other goods obtained in trade from the natives.
