We next crossed the Cascade Portage which is the last on the way to the Athabasca Lake, and soon afterwards came to some Indian tents containing five families belonging to the Chipewyan tribe.

We smoked the calumet in the chief's tent, whose name was the Thumb, and distributed some tobacco and a weak mixture of spirits and water among the men.

They received this civility with much less grace than the Crees, and seemed to consider it a matter of course.

There was an utter neglect of cleanliness and a total want of comfort in their tents; and the poor creatures were miserably clothed.
Mr.Frazer, who accompanied us from the Methye Lake, accounted for their being in this forlorn condition by explaining that this band of Indians had recently destroyed everything they possessed as a token of their great grief for the loss of their relatives in the prevailing sickness.
It appears that no article is spared by these unhappy men when a near relative dies; their clothes and tents are cut to pieces, their guns broken, and every other weapon rendered useless if some person do not remove these articles from their sight, which is seldom done.

Mr.Back sketched one of the children which delighted the father very much, who charged the boy to be very good since his picture had been drawn by a great chief.