It Is Attached To The Long Spinous
Processes Of The First Dorsal Vertebrae And Seems To Be Destined To
Support The Enormous Head Of The Animal.
The meat which covers the spinal
processes themselves after the wig is removed is next in esteem for its
flavour and juiciness and is more exclusively termed the hump by the
hunters.
The party was prevented from visiting a Stone Indian encampment by a
heavy fall of snow, which made it impracticable to go and return the same
day. We were dissuaded from sleeping at their tents by the interpreter at
the North-West post who told us they considered the whooping-cough and
measles, under which they were now suffering, to have been introduced by
some white people recently arrived in the country, and that he feared
those who had lost relatives, imagining we were the persons, might vent
their revenge on us. We regretted to learn that these diseases had been
so very destructive among the tribes along the Saskatchewan as to have
carried off about three hundred persons, Crees and Asseenaboines, within
the trading circle of these establishments. The interpreter also informed
us of another bad trait peculiar to the Stone Indians. Though they
receive a visitor kindly at their tents and treat him very hospitably
during his stay yet it is very probable they will despatch some young men
to waylay and rob him in going towards the post: indeed all the traders
assured us it was more necessary to be vigilantly on our guard on the
occasion of a visit to them than at any other time.
Carlton House (which our observations place in latitude 52 degrees 50
minutes 47 seconds North, longitude 106 degrees 12 minutes 42 seconds
West, variation 20 degrees 44 minutes 47 seconds East) is pleasantly
situated about a quarter of a mile from the river's side on the flat
ground under the shelter of the high banks that bound the plains. The
land is fertile and produces with little trouble ample returns of wheat,
barley, oats, and potatoes. The ground is prepared for the reception of
these vegetables about the middle of April and when Dr. Richardson
visited this place on May 10th the blade of wheat looked strong and
healthy. There were only five acres in cultivation at the period of my
visit. The prospect from the fort must be pretty in summer owing to the
luxuriant verdure of this fertile soil; but in the uniform and cheerless
garb of winter it has little to gratify the eye.
Beyond the steep bank behind the house commences the vast plain whose
boundaries are but imperfectly known; it extends along the south branch
of the Saskatchewan and towards the sources of the Missouri and
Asseenaboine Rivers, being scarcely interrupted through the whole of this
great space by hills or even rising grounds. The excellent pasturage
furnishes food in abundance to a variety of grazing animals of which the
buffalo, red-deer, and a species of antelope are the most important.
Their presence naturally attracts great hordes of wolves which are of two
kinds, the large, and the small.
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