Note (return) — Chapter X

I set off the next day, ostensibly on a visit to Mr. S., but really with the intention of starting from his post on my intended "derouine,"9 arrived at Fort Coulonge among the drift ice, and on the 1st December started, accompanied by the interpreter Primeau and another man, all of us with heavy burdens on our backs. This proved the most toilsome trip I had yet undertaken; the smaller lakes only were passable on the ice, and the rivers were nearly all open. The difficulties we thus encountered necessarily retarded our progress, and occupied so much more time than we had calculated upon, that our provisions were nearly consumed by the time we reached the first Indian camp, where we expected to procure a guide to conduct us to the party we were in search of. We succeeded in hiring a young man, but we only obtained a small supply of flour, the Indians having no other kind of provision to spare.