Nay, more than once instance came under our observation of the master of a post having permitted a voyager to take to wife a poor child that had scarcely attained the age of ten years.

The masters of posts and wintering partners of the Companies deemed this criminal indulgence to the vices of their servants necessary to stimulate them to exertion for the interest of their respective concerns.

Another practice may also be noticed as showing the state of moral feeling on these subjects amongst the white residents of the fur countries.

It was not very uncommon amongst the Canadian voyagers for one woman to be common to and maintained at the joint expense of two men; nor for a voyager to sell his wife, either for a season or altogether, for a sum of money proportioned to her beauty and good qualities but always inferior to the price of a team of dogs.
The country around Cumberland House is flat and swampy and is much intersected by small lakes.

Limestone is found everywhere under a thin stratum of soil and it not unfrequently shows itself above the surface.
It lies in strata generally horizontal but in one spot near the fort dipping to the northward at an angle of 40 degrees.