The Principal Buildings Are Placed In The Form Of A Square Having An
Octagonal Court In The Centre; They Are Two Storeys In Height And Have
Flat Roofs Covered With Lead.
The officers dwell in one portion of this
square, and in the other parts the articles of merchandise are kept:
The
workshops, storehouses for the furs, and the servants' houses are ranged
on the outside of the square, and the whole is surrounded by a stockade
twenty feet high. A platform is laid from the house to the pier on the
bank for the convenience of transporting the stores and furs, which is
the only promenade the residents have on this marshy spot during the
summer season. The few Indians who now frequent this establishment belong
to the Swampy Crees. There were several of them encamped on the outside
of the stockade. Their tents were rudely constructed by tying twenty or
thirty poles together at the top, and spreading them out at the base so
as to form a cone; these were covered with dressed moose-skins. The fire
is placed in the centre and a hole is left for the escape of the smoke.
The inmates had a squalid look and were suffering under the combined
afflictions of the whooping-cough and measles; but even these miseries
did not keep them from an excessive indulgence in spirits, which they
unhappily can procure from the traders with too much facility; and they
nightly serenaded us with their monotonous drunken songs.
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