Note O — INTRODUCTION.

The Continent of America is much wider than many people imagine, particularly Robson, who thought that the Pacific Ocean was but a few days journey from the West coast of Hudson's Bay. This, however, is so far from being the case, that when I was at my greatest Western distance, upward of five hundred miles from Prince of Wales's Fort, the natives, my guides, well knew that many tribes of Indians lay to the West of us, and they knew no end to the land in that direction; nor have I met with any Indians, either Northern or Southern, that ever had seen the sea to the Westward. It is, indeed, well known to the intelligent and well-informed part of the Company's servants, that an extensive and numerous tribe of Indians, called E-arch-e-thinnews, whose country lies far West of any of the Company's or Canadian settlements, must have traffic with the Spaniards on the West side of the Continent; because some of the Indians who formerly traded to York Fort, when at war with those people, frequently found saddles, bridles, muskets, and many other articles, in their possession, which were undoubtedly of Spanish manufactory.

I have seen several Indians who have been so far West as to cross the top of that immense chain of mountains which run from North to South of the continent of America. Beyond those mountains all rivers run to the Westward. I must here observe, that all the Indians I ever heard relate their excursions in that country, had invariably got so far to the South, that they did not experience any Winter, nor the least appearance of either frost or snow, though sometimes they have been absent eighteen months, or two years.[21]