Produced by Peter Vickers and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) A narrative of what was seen and accomplished by the Contingent of North American Indian Voyageurs who led the British Boat Expedition for the Relief of KHARTOUM up the Cataracts of the NILE. OUR CAUGHNAWAGAS IN EGYPT. BY LOUIS JACKSON OF CAUGHNAWAGA. CAPTAIN OF THE CONTINGENT, With an introductory Preface By T. S. BROWN, Esq. Montreal: WM. DRYSDALE & CO., PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS AND STATIONERS, 232 ST. JAMES STREET. 1885. Entered according to Act of Parliament, in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-five BY LOUIS JACKSON, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture and Statistics at Ottawa. [Illustration: LOUIS JACKSON, Captain of the Contingent.] PREFACE. The Indians of Caughnawaga are an offshoot from the Mohawks, one of the divisions of the Six Nations, formerly in pseudo occupation of western New York, and known to the French by the general name of Iroquois. Long before the cession of this Province to Great Britain, they were settled at the head of the rapids of the St. Lawrence opposite Lachine, on a tract of land ten miles square, or 64,000 acres held in common, but lately separated into lots to be divided among the people as individual property. Contrary to what has been the too common fate of aborigines brought into close contact with foreigners, the Caughnawagas, with some mixture of white blood, have maintained throughout, their Indian customs, manners and language, with the manhood of their ancestors, in an alertness, strength and power of endurance where-ever these qualities have been required: in the boating or rafting on our larger rivers and the hardships of _Voyageurs_ in the North-West. As a high tribute to this known excellence, the call for Canadian _Voyageurs_ to assist in the boat navigation of the Nile was accompanied by a special requirement that there should be a contingent of fifty Caughnawagas. They responded quickly to the call, performed the task committed to them in a manner most satisfactory as described in these pages, and returned to their homes at the end of six months, after a voyage of more than 12,000 miles, sound and resolute as when they started, with the loss of but two men. There is something unique in the idea of the aborigines of the New World being sent for to teach the Egyptians how to pass the Cataracts of the Nile, which has been navigated in some way by them for thousands of years, that should make this little book attractive to all readers, especially as it is written by one born and bred in Caughnawaga, who, with the quick eye of an Indian, has noticed many things unnoticed by ordinary tourists and travellers.