A thousand miles over the prairie in July is one of the most cheery and delightsome journeys that can be made. The prairie flowers abound, their colours have not yet taken on the full blaze of yellow to be seen a month later, and the mosquitoes have largely passed away on the prairies. The weather, though somewhat warm, is very rarely oppressive on the plains, where a breeze may always be felt. This long journey the party made with most reckless speed--doing it in three weeks, and arriving at Edmonton House, to be received by the firing of guns and the presence of nine native chiefs of the Blackfeet, Piegans, Sarcees, and Bloods, dressed in their grandest clothes and decorated with scalp locks. "They implored me," says the Governor, "to grant their horses might always be swift, that the buffalo might instantly abound, and that their wives might live long and look young." Four days sufficed at Edmonton on the North Saskatchewan to provide the travellers with forty-five fresh horses. They speedily passed up the Saskatchewan River, meeting bands of hostile Sarcees, using supplies of pemmican, and soon catching their first view of the white peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Deep muskegs and dense jungles were often encountered, but all were overcome by the skill and energy of the expert fur trader Row and their guide. Through clouds of mosquitoes they advanced until the sublime mountain scenery was beheld whenever it was not obscured with the smoke arising from the fires through this region, which was suffering from a very dry season. At length Fort Colville, on the Columbia River, was gained after nearly one thousand miles from Edmonton; and this journey, much of it mountain travelling, had averaged forty miles a day. The party from Fort Garry had been travelling constantly for six weeks and five days, and they had averaged eleven and a half hours a day in the saddle. The weather had been charming, with a steady cloudless sky, the winds were light, the nights cool, and the only thing to be lamented was the appearance of the whole party, who, with tattered garments and crownless hats, entered the fort. Embarking below the Chaudière Falls of the Columbia, the company took boats, worked by six oars each, and the water being high they were able to make one hundred, and even more miles a day, in due course reaching Fort Vancouver.