The hunting grounds of Yellow Head’s band, embrace the extreme sources of the Mississippi, and his village is the last fixed location in the ascent. Part of them go to Lac Travers, and encamp there, for the purpose of making the winter hunt. And from this point, they ascend southerly, which carries them still further into the red deer and stag and hind country of (the absolute head of the Mississippi,) Itasca Lake. The furs and skins collected, are exchanged for goods with traders, who visit them annually in the fall, and remain during the winter. These goods are brought in canoes from Michilimackinac, an estimated distance, as travelled, of 1120 miles. Of this distance there are only 18¾ miles land carriage, separated into five portages, at distant points. We may observe in this singular facility of internal water communication, one of the primary reasons of the heads of the Mississippi, being supplied with Indian goods at first from Montreal, and afterwards from New-York. Not only were these facilities early found to exist, but it was the track of interior discovery, while the Mississippi itself opposed an obstacle to the trade, by its difficult navigation, and the unhealthiness of the climate of its lower latitudes. Political considerations, also, entered into the earlier arrangements. Indeed, whoever is curious to examine into this matter, will find the history of the fur trade in north-western America, to be intimately blended with the civil history of the country, for about two hundred and fifty years after its discovery. Dating this discovery from the arrival of Jaques Cartier in the gulf of St. Lawrence, in 1534, (the first well settled era,) the traffic then commenced with the natives, and, soon assuming an engrossing character, may be traced through various modifications, up to the surrender of the lake posts to the American government in 1796. This momentous interval of two hundred and sixty-two years, is fraught with incidents of a deeply interesting character, which it will be sufficient here, to allude to. Through every change of things the fur trade continued to be, not only cherished, but formed one of the cardinal interests in the policy of the government which France and Great Britain successively exercised over this portion of North America. Under the French government the system was intimately connected with military and with missionary efforts, in a manner which was peculiar to that government. Licences to trade were granted by the governor general to superannuated officers, and other servants of the crown, by whom they were sold out to enterprising individuals. These persons went inland to exchange their goods for furs, and first drew upon themselves the epithet of _Couriers du Bois_. Great irregularities, however, existed. Civil and ecclesiastic power were alternately exerted to restrain them. And an order to prohibit the traffic in the article of brandy was issued by one of the French governors.