The canoes, however, which go so far up the country, never return the same year; those intended to bring back cargoes immediately, stop at the Grand Portage, where the furs are collected ready for them by the agents of the company. The furs are made up in packs of a certain weight, and a particular number is put into each canoe. By knowing thus the exact weight of every pack, there can be no embezzlement; and at the portages there is no time wasted in allotting to each man his load, every one being obliged to carry so many packs. At the Grand Portage, and along that immense chain of lakes and rivers, which extend beyond Lake Superior, the company has regular posts, where the agents reside; and with such astonishing enterprize and industry have the affairs of this company been carried on, that trading posts are now established within five hundred miles of the Pacific Ocean. One gentleman, indeed, a partner in the house at Montreal, which now holds the greatest part of the shares of the company, has even penetrated to the Pacific Ocean itself. The journal kept by this gentleman upon the expedition is, it is said, replete with information of the most interesting nature. That it has not been laid before the public long ago, together with an accurate map of his track, is to be imputed solely to an unfortunate misunderstanding which took place between him and a noble lord high in the confidence of government. In the first attempt which this adventurous gentleman, a Mr. M‘Kenzie, made to penetrate to the ocean, he set out early in the spring from the remotest of the posts belonging to the company. He took with him a single canoe, and a party of chosen men; and after passing over prodigious traits of land, never before traversed by any white person, at last came to a large river. Here the canoe, which was carried by the men on their shoulders, was launched, and having all embarked, they proceeded down the stream. From the course this river took for a very great distance, Mr. M‘Kenzie was led to imagine that it was one of those rivers he was in quest of; namely, one which emptied itself into the Pacific Ocean; but at the end of several weeks, during which they had worked their way downward with great eagerness, he was convinced, from the gradual inclination of the river towards another quarter, that he must have been mistaken; and that it was one of those immense rivers, so numerous on the continent of North America, that ran into Baffin’s Bay, or the Arctic Ocean. [Sidenote: M‘KENZIE’S EXPEDITIONS.]