The Red River settlement extends beyond Fort Garry for about twenty miles to the northward along the banks of Red River, and about fifty to the westward along its tributary, the Assiniboine. The wealthier inhabitants live in large, well-built wooden houses, and the poorer half-breeds in rough log huts, or even Indian “lodges.” There are several Protestant churches, a Romish cathedral and nunnery, and schools of various denominations. The neighbouring country is principally open, level prairie, the timber being confined, with a few exceptions, to the banks of the streams. The settlement dates from the year 1811, when the Earl of Selkirk purchased from the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Cree and Sauteux Indians a large tract of land stretching along both banks of the Red River and the Assiniboine. The country was at that time inhabited only by wandering tribes of Indians, and visited occasionally by the employés of the North-West and Hudson’s Bay Companies, who had trading posts in the neighbourhood. Vast herds of buffalo, now driven far to the west of Red River, then ranged over its prairies, and frequented the rich feeding grounds of the present State of Minnesota, as far as the Mississippi. The first band of emigrants--Scotch families, sent out under the auspices of Lord Selkirk--reached the colony in 1812, and were reinforced by subsequent detachments until the year 1815. Never did the pioneers of any new country suffer greater hardships and discouragements than were experienced by these unfortunate people during the first seven or eight years after their arrival. They were attacked by the Canadians and half-breeds in the employ of the North-West Fur Company, who looked on them with jealousy, as _protegés_ of their rivals of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and were compelled to flee to Pembina. Here they spent the winter living on the charity of the Indians and half-breeds, and suffering the greatest hardships from the scarcity of provisions, and want of proper protection against the severity of the climate. When they returned to the colony they were again attacked by their persevering enemies, the North-Westers, many of their number shot down, the rest driven a second time into exile, and their homes pillaged or burnt. They went back a third time, but their attempts to live by the cultivation of the soil were defeated by various misfortunes. Crops promising to repay them a hundred-fold were devoured by swarms of grasshoppers, which appeared two years in succession, and all they were able to save was a small quantity of seed collected by the women in their aprons. These insects came in such armies that they lay in heaps on the ground; fires lighted out of doors were speedily extinguished by them, the earth stank, and the waters were polluted with the mass of decomposing bodies. The grasshoppers disappeared, and have not since re-visited the colony; but they were succeeded by myriads of blackbirds, which made terrible havoc with the grain.