their countenances as thoroughly unchristianlike as could be conceived.
As soon as their hunger was satiated, and they had filled their pipes,
they were rising to go, but I asked them to remain as I had a few words
still to say to them. I then told them briefly who I was, where I had
come from, and my object in coming to Thunder Bay. I had heard, I said,
that they were all pagans at Koojeching. I was very sorry for it, and
very anxious that they should embrace Christianity. A change came upon
their faces as I spoke; they shuffled uneasily, eyed me suspiciously,
and were evidently impatient to get away. They probably thought that I
had got them into my tent with the idea of using some enchantments or
exercising some witchcraft upon them. I did not understand all they
said, but James told me afterward that they were all very angry. They
said they were all pagans, and intended to remain so. When I asked
whether, if I were to visit them some day, they would listen to me, and
if they would like me to come to see them and tell them about God,
Black Stone replied, "Come if you will, but as for my people they will
never become Christians" I heard afterwards that a Jesuit priest once
visited their settlement, and after he had left the small-pox broke
out. In then superstitious ignorance, they attributed the disease to
the priest's visit, and so determined never to accept Christianity.

I had arranged to visit the Lake Neepigon Indians on my way back down
the Lake, and took my passage on board a steamboat which was to call at
Red Rock at the mouth of the Neepigon River. But my purposes were
frustrated; the steamboats were under the direction of the military
authorities orders were changed at the last moment, and instead of Red
Rock I found myself at Michipicotun. At this place there is a Hudson Bay
Company Post and a small settlement of Indians. The approach to the Post
is very picturesque, the river being bordered by high-wooded banks, and
the clean-looking white-washed buildings of the Company presented a