trifling, and consisted chiefly of blankets and provisions, which they hung in canvas, slung on poles. The party kept a reckoning, steering by compass as at sea. At night they found themselves in some degree sheltered from the winds by the leafless woods; and by clearing away the snow, banking it up around, and making a fire in the middle of the space, they found themselves even warmer than in the Canadian houses in that rigorous season. "Three of the coldest nights yet," says the enthusiastic young nobleman, "I slept in the woods on a bed of spruce fir, with only one blanket, and was just as comfortable as in a room." All the rivers had long been completely frozen, and undistinguishable in the snow (which lay four feet deep upon the ground) from the land. The party were always on foot two hours before day, to load, and get ready to march. At three or four in the afternoon they halted; and were then occupied till night in shovelling out the snow, cutting wood, and getting ready for the bivouac. Immediately after supper they were generally asleep, and it was the rule that any one waking in the night should put wood on the fire, eat something—for much food was found essential to maintain warmth—and then sleep again. By day their journey was enlivened by hunting the moose, which they followed in their snow shoes, till the animal, impeded by the frozen snow, turned upon his pursuers, and was thus quickly despatched.
In this way they passed, in the worst season of the Canadian year, through a wide tract of country which the colonists had always considered impassable. In spite of their compass they diverged considerably from their direct path, and were thirty days on their journey,
