I gladly accepted their invitation to visit them. It was the meeting of a father with his children, after ten months of absence and dangers. I dare say the joy was mutually sincere. The greater part of the tribe had been converted during the past year, at Kettle Falls. These families were absent at that time. I passed, therefore, several days among them, to instruct them in the duties and practices of religion. They then received baptism, with all the marks of sincere piety and gratitude. Gregory, the name of their chief, who had not ceased to exhort his people by word and example, had the happiness to receive baptism in 1838, from the hands of the Rev. Mr., now Archbishop, Blanchet. The worthy and respectable chief was now at the height of his joy, in seeing at last all his children brought under the standard of Jesus Christ. The tribe of these lake Indians are a part of the Kettle {217} Fall nation. They are very poor, and subsist principally on fish and wild roots. As soon as we shall have more means at our disposal, we will supply them with implements of husbandry and with various seeds and roots, which I have no doubt, will thrive well in their country; this will be a great assistance to these destitute peolpe. The second lake is about six miles distant from the first. It is of about the same length, but less wide. We passed under a perpendicular rock, where we beheld an innumerable number of arrows sticking out of the fissures. The Indians, when they ascend the lake, have a custom of lodging each an arrow into these crevices. The origin and cause of the custom is unknown to me.[158]
The mouth of the river McGilvray or Flat-Bow, is near the outlet of the Lower Lakes. It presents a beautiful*
