Sir George Head, elder brother of the great South American explorer and Colonial Governor, was a sort of Ralegh on a small scale, inasmuch as he figured in the various rôles of sailor, soldier, traveller, and courtier. The greater part of his time from 1814 to 1830 was spent in and about Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ungava, his military duties at Halifax, as chief of the commissariat, giving him plenty of opportunity for combining pleasure with business in long journeys northward. Late in the autumn of 1828 he set out on a tour north-westwards from Halifax, intending to devote his six months' furlough to hunting among the Cree Indians of New Brunswick and Eastern Quebec. It was not a journey that would commend itself to people who love the sun and the fireside, for though the district for which he was making is in the same latitude as Cornwall, the average winter temperature may be put down as 19° F. A coach took him and his servant across country as far as the Annapolis Basin, whence it was only a sixty-mile run by steam packet to St. John; and here there was no difficulty in obtaining a large canoe with three Delaware Indians to paddle it and act as guides. Of the St. John River, up which quite big steamers travel over two hundred miles nowadays, comparatively little was then known, except its lower reaches, and its source, which lies north-westwards in the State of Maine; and even the Indian guides would not undertake to go many miles beyond Fredericton. "What do you mean by 'many miles beyond'?" asked Major Head, when, on passing that town some days later, the Indians reminded him of their contract. "Ten miles, or perhaps fifteen. We are strangers beyond that, and, though the Cree Indians are akin to us, they do not love us." This was perfectly true, for the Crees, Blackfeet, and other of the less civilised Algonquin redskins despised the Delaware Indians as mere cockneys. In the end, the guides promised that they would go as far as the next town, which was twenty miles farther, admitting that they might possibly have business there. The nature of that business soon leaked out, for suddenly the Indian in the bow dropped his paddle, snatched up a spear from a small bundle of those implements that lay to hand, leant over the side, and brought up a salmon nearly three feet long. The other canoemen at once abandoned their paddling and stood expectant, spear in hand. The Major had never caught salmon in any other way than with rod and line, and he, too, took up a spear, determined to distinguish himself; but, though they waited patiently for another hour, not a second fish was seen, and at length the Indians picked up their paddles again and moved on.