During the night, Wisagun and Natappe returned to the tent, murdered the whole party, and were met, some time afterwards, by another party of savages, in _good condition_; although, from scarcity of game, every body else was starving. They accounted for their well-fed appearance, by saying they had fallen in with a deer, previously to which, however, the rest of the family had died of hunger. This horrible story was told to an Englishman in the Indian hall of a faraway post in Athabasca, by a party of Chipewyan Indians, come from their winter hunting-grounds to trade furs. They were the same men who had met the two Crees wandering in the plains after getting up their flesh by swallowing their family. The loathsome food had profited them, however, but a short while; for the Chipewyans had hardly told the tale, when "the hall door slowly opened, and Wisagun, gaunt and cadaverous, the very impersonation of famine, slunk into the room with Natappe, and seated himself in a corner near the fire. Mr C---- soon learned the truth of the foregoing story from his own lips; but he excused his horrible deed by saying that _most_ of his relations had died before he ate them." Notwithstanding this sanguinary tale, the Crees, who inhabit the woody country surrounding Hudson's Bay, are the quietest and most inoffensive of all the Indian tribes trading with the Company. They never go to war, scalping is obsolete amongst them, and the celebrated war-dance a mere tradition. But their pacific habits and intercourse with Europeans seem as yet to have done little towards their civilisation. Some of their customs are of the most barbarous description. They have no religion, beyond the absurd incantations of the medicine tent; and the amount of Christianity English missionaries have of late years succeeded in introducing amongst them is exceedingly small. They drink to excess when they can get spirits; and formerly, when the Hudson's Bay Company, in order to contend successfully with other associations, thought it necessary to distribute rum and whisky to the natives, the use of the "fire-water" was carried to a fearful extent. They smoke tobacco, mingled with some other leaf; are excessively lazy, and great gamblers. Polygamists, they ill-treat their wives, compelling them to severe toil, whilst they themselves indulge in utter indolence, except when roused to the chase. On the march, when old men or women are unable to proceed, they are left behind in a small tent made of willows, in which are placed firewood, provisions, and a vessel of water. Here, when food and wood are consumed, the unfortunate, wretches perish. The habitual dwellings of the Crees are tents, of conical shape, made of deerskin, bark, or branches. The manner of construction is simple and rapid. Three poles are tied together at the top, their lower extremities spreading out in the form of a tripod; a number of other poles are piled around these