As there was very good pasturage for the horses, we resolved to rest a day here, in order to thoroughly overhaul our provisions, after their recent wettings, and obtain what information we could from the Shushwaps concerning our future course. The Indians brought in a plentiful supply of the poire, wild pear, or service berry, which we purchased for some needles and thread. This fruit grows on a shrub, two or three feet in height, with leaves resembling that of a pear-tree, but smaller, and it is said by the Hudson’s Bay people that wherever it flourishes wheat will also grow to perfection. The berry is about the size of a black currant, pear-shaped, and of delicious sweetness and flavour. They are much used by the Indians on both sides the mountains, who dry them for winter use. From these Indians also Milton, who had lost his buffalo robe by the recent misfortune, obtained a couple of marmot robes wherewith to cover himself at night, some large cubes of iron pyrites used instead of flints, and two curious stone pipes, which they willingly parted with, being as destitute of tobacco as ourselves. From them we learnt that there were but two families of them at this place, and the two old men of the society had three days before started in their canoes down the Fraser, to convey the miners, mentioned as having crossed the mountains just before us, to Fort George. These men had arrived in very destitute condition nine days before, without any clothing but their shirts, and having lived for a long time on partridges and squirrels. The Shushwaps could give us no information about the party of emigrants who had sought the Thompson valley the summer before. Whether they intended to strike direct for Cariboo or follow the river down to Kamloops, we could not ascertain. They told us that it was but six days’ journey on foot to the gold country-- probably meaning Cariboo--or not more than eighty or a hundred miles, but that the country was very difficult. An old squaw, a native of Kamloops, who had left there as a girl to become the wife of a Rocky Mountain Shushwap, assured us that we could reach that fort in eight days, and traced a rude map of the route for us. The correctness and value of her information will be appreciated from the sequel.