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garded them with respect, and never molested or liked to see us molest these offerings to Manitou. This custom prevails everywhere in the valley of Lake Winnipeg, and it may truly be said that the medicine drum is heard far more frequently in some parishes of Selkirk Settlement than the sound of church bells.

A conjuror celebrated for the potency of his charms, will often exercise a very injurious influence over an entire band consisting of ten or twelve families, in deterring them from frequenting particular hunting or fishing grounds if they offend him. Out of numerous instances of this dangerous influence, I select the following. It occurred on the Dauphin River. When ascending that stream, we came upon a large camp of Ojibways. who were on their way to the Hudson Bay Company's Post at Fairford. Their usual wintering place was at the Pike's Head, an excellent fishing station, on Lake Winnipeg; but they had abandoned the intention of wintering there in consequence of a threat which had been conveyed to them from a noted conjuror of the Grand Rapids of the Saskatchewan, to the effect that if the band ventured to winter at the Pike's Head, "He would do something." This ambiguous threat was quiae sufficient to deter them from visiting their old haunts, and would probably be instrumental in producing much suffering if not actual want to many of the band.

Sacrifices and offerings are of very frequent occurrence among the Indians of the Saskatchewan Valley. The customary offerings consist of two, three, and sometimes five dogs. At the mouth of the Qu'appelle River, an Indian in June last, sets his nets and caught a large fish of a kind different to any with which he was familiar. He immediately pronounced it to be a Manitou, and, carefully restoring it to the water again, he at once sacrificed five valuable dogs to appease the anger of the supposed fairy. On approaching Long Lake, an arm of the Qu'appelle River Valley, the Crees warned us not to visit the lake by night, as it was full of devils. They told me very extraordinary tales of the dimensions and powere of these devils, and appeared to live in awe and terror of them. Like most heathen and barbarous races, the Indians suffer much from their superstitious fears. When the weather is fine, and their tents are well supplied with provisions; they are an independent and joyous people. Full of frolic, and fond of relating anecdotes, they laugh immoderately at any trifling joke or absurdity, and seem thoroughly to enjoy existence. A ridiculous incident occurred in the tent belonging to the chief, Short-stick, in which I played a more prominent part than I should have selected had any choice been offered me. I heard of this incident again hundreds of miles from the spot where it occurred as we journeyed homewards from the Grand Forks.

It happened thus. I visited Short-stick in his tent. After a long and tedious talk, which lasted seven hours, relating to the object we had in view in visiting the country, three of Short-stick's wives were visible, with their children, forming altogether a party of eighteen or twenty. I rose from the buffalo robe, where I was seated by the side of Short-stick, to examine some arrows which one of his sons was

making, and when my curiosity was satisfied, I sat down on what I thought to be a bundle of buffalo robes. I was a little astonished to feel the robes move beneath me, and before I could rise and look into the cause, I found myself projected into the middle of the tent among the embers, by means of some violent spasmodic action from beneath the supposed pile of robes. Short-stick aud his three wives, with the other inmates, shrieked with laughter, vociferating some words in Cree. Meanwhile, the buffalo robes were slowly thrown on one side, and to my astonishment, were revealed the huge proportions of Short-stick's fourth, youngest, and best wife. She shook a mass of hair from her head and joined in the laughter at my discomfiture. Other Indians hearing, the noise came in, and Short-stick, with tears in his eyes, told his friends how "the white stranger had sat upon his best wife, thinking she was a pile of robes, and how she tossed him into the middle of the tent like a buffalo bull pitching a colt."

As I passed near the door of the tent belonging to Short-stick's eldest son, who accompanied me, a young squaw outside was leaning upon sticks, evidently in great trouble, and weeping bitterly; the moment she saw us she hobbled into the tent with a low cry of pain and closed the entrance. I asked the interpreter what this meant. After some conversation with her husband, he said that the woman was suffering from a beating he had given her for a violation of her faith during his absence in the spring on a war excursion. "I would have killed her," muttered the husband, "but I thought it a pity to kill two at once. She had her choice, whether she would have her hair, her nose, or her ear cut off, or whether she would have a beating; she chose what she has got, and I would have killed her had I not known I should regret having killed both." It is needless to add that the woman soon expected to become a mother.

In order to understand the character and nature of wild Indians, they must be seen in their tents when well supplied with provisions, and disposed to be cheerful and merry. In the prairies, on horseback; they are often quiet and watchful, always on the look out, and if twenty or thirty are in a band they generally manage to see a suspicious object in the distance at the same moment, so that a simultaneous note of exclamation is uttered by most or all of the party. In hunting the buffalo they are wild with excitement, but no scene or incident seems to have such a maddening effect upon them as when the buffalo are successfully driven into a pound. Until the herd is brought in by the skilled hunters, all is silence around the fence of the pound, each man, woman, and child holding, with pent up feelings, his robe so as to close every orifice through which the terrified animals might endeavour to effect their escape. The herd once in the pound the scene of diabolical butchery and excitement begins; men, women, and children climb on the fence and shoot their arrows or thrust their spears at the bewildered buffalo, with shouts, screams, and yells horrible to hear. But when the young men, and even women, jump into the arena amidst the dying and the dead, smear themselves with blood, thrust NO. 1.-VOL. XXX.

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their arms up to the shoulders into the reeking bodies of their victims, the savage barbarity of the wild prairie Indian shows itself in its true colours. Not even a scalp dancǝ over many fallen foes affords such a terrible picture of degraded humanity as do a large band of prairie Indians, some hundreds in numbers, during and after the slaughter of buffalo in the pound.

The condition of the Indians now is very different to what it used to be half a century since. Not only have imported diseases greatly diminished their numbers but game of different kinds has become so scarce that during some seasons starvation is no fiction.

In sickness prairie Indians are much depressed, and often seek conIsolation in the monotonous drum of the medicine man and his heathenish incantations, an infliction which the grossest and most debased superstition alone would tolerate; submitted to with hope and confidence, however, by men who are anxions and timid during the roll of thunder, invoking the Great Bird by whose flapping wings they supit produced, or crouching from the blink of his all penetrating eye, which they allege is the lightning flash.

THE BAR OF THE QUILIMANE RIVER,- When to Cross it.

November, 1860.

Dear Sir, I have just heard that the paymaster and four sailors of H.M.S. Boscawen were drowned on the bar of Quilimane River, when attempting to convey despatches to Dr. Livingstone. Having had some experience of this dangerous locality, which will no doubt. be again visited by our ships' boats, perhaps you will allow me to repeat the substance of a few of the remarks made on the spot, which you inserted in the Nautical Magazine of January, 1857.

In these I observed that it is not an uncommon opinion that the best time for boats to cross the bar is near half tide, as the breakers then mark out the channel, but that my own experience had led me to a different conclusion. I believe that, other circumstances being alike, the nearer high water the better, as the breakers, or dangerous waves, are then less frequent, and the area over which passage is safe is wider, that the last of the flood and the first of the ebb are generally the most favourable periods for entrance and exit,-and that when the tide is suitable early morning-before the sea breeze sets in, and when calms or light winds off the land prevail-may often be preferred. When intending to return to the ship at an early hour, it is advisable to sleep in the boat at Hippopotamus, or at the opposite (Tangalone) point, in order to be ready for a start at daylight. The boatpassage is almost always the best. With a moderately strong S.W. breeze it is, however, sometimes impracticable when the ship-passage may be taken.

The bar of Quilimane River has certainly earned the epithet "treacherous." At times the absence of a breeze, and a smooth undulating surface-especially after a calm of some duration-may at near low water invite confidence, which will not be diminished if nothing seen from aloft indicates a chance of danger. Nevertheless, under such circumstances, when miles away from the ship, a short towering, solitary, erratic wave, obeying an influence unfelt by the surrounding water, may suddenly rear its head and, rushing with force, fill and overset the boat before she has had time to fairly receive the mass. Such waves are most common near the entrance of the river, where the soundings are irregular,-narrow heaps or ridges of sand being probably heaped up by the effects of alternating and often antagonistic strong ebbs with freshes, and heavy winds from seaward.

I was informed at Quilimane that many lives had been lost on it: its dangers were probably no small recommendation of the place as the great Portuguese slave depôt of former times. A barge of H.M.S. Cleopatra was capsized on it. Shortly before my first visit an experienced native pilot and all his crew perished. Soon after my last trip a small Hamburg vessel was wrecked on it; and, as you observed with reference to my former communication, after my notes were penned the officer commanding the flag-ship's tender, a marine officer, and three blue-jackets were drowned. I may here mention that the officer had often crossed the bar, and had advised me, on my leaving the Cape for Quilimane in search of Dr. Livingstone, to take the bar at near low water, when the true channel would be plainly visible; and on my return, finding him about to sail on the same duty, I gave him the result of my own experience; but he unfortunately perished on the bar at near low water.

It would appear prudent to employ two boats in crossing this bar, or those of the other mouths of the Zambesi, as it is improbable that both would meet a disaster at the same moment. The Cleopatra's barge's crew were rescued by the pinnace, which was following close astern. The Dart's boat was without a consort, and drifted twenty miles before she grounded on the coast with three men, who alone had continned to hold on occasionally by her.

Perhaps valuable lives would be saved if a small lifeboat were kept at the head-quarters of the stations on which our ships' boats have at times to cross dangerous river bars.

I am, &c.,

M. S. NOLLOTH, Captain, R.N. To the Editor of the Nautical Magazine.

P.S.-I should not have ventured to offer an opinion on so important a subject as the crossing of this dangerous bar, on the strength of my own casual visits, had it not been confirmed by an experienced pilot in reply to questions, and by all the circumstances which have come to my knowledge. I hope future visitors wi give you the result of their experience.

A NEW METHOD of Finding the Latitude by Double Altitudes OF THE SUN BY MEANS OF Logarithmic Differences.

This method, first published by Lieutenant Pagel, of the French Imperial Navy, is shorter and easier than any other.

Rule 1.-With the lat. by acc. or assumed lat., as convenient, the polar distance, and the first altitude reduced to the second place of observation, compute the hour-angle.

2. Write down at the side of the log. secant of the lat. the tabular difference doubled; at the side of the log. sine of the half sum minus altitude, the tab. diff., prefixing the sign to these quantities, because the secant and sine are increasing, and prefix the sign to the tabular diff. at the side of the log. cosine of the half sum, because this log. is decreasing; and take the sum of these three quantities and double it, which call s.

3. Seek the half sum of the four logarithms among the sines or cosines, and take out the corresponding tabular diff., which call d. If both observations were taken on the same side of the meridian a.m., prefix the sign to d; but if on the same side of meridian p.m., or if on different sides of meridian, prefix +; divide s by d, and you have an error (a) with its proper sign upon the hour of the place.

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4. With the 2nd alt., pol. dist., and lat. compute the 2nd hourangle, and find the 2nd error (b) in the same manner.

5.-If one observation be a.m. and the other p.m., take the sum of the hour-angles; if both be a.m. or both p.m. take their difference, and the result is the computed interval, to which always prefix the sign, and to the interval measured by the watch, and take the difference of these intervals with the sign of the greater.

6. Again, if the observations were taken on different sides of meridian, take the sum of the errors a and b; but if the obs. be on the same side of meridian, and of prime vertical, take their difference; (if on different sides of prime vertical, the proper sign of the amount of the errors is to be changed).

7.-Divide the sum or difference of the intervals by the sum or diff. of the errors a and b, and you have the correction in minutes, with its proper sign to be applied to the lat. by acc. orassumed latitude, to obtain the true latitude very nearly.

and

Note. The navigator should understand the use of signs according to the first four rules in Algebra, which are easily learnt. Remark.-The one altitude ought not to be taken too near the meridian when observed on different sides of meridian, and the time from noon not less than an hour, or the observer may be deceived by false signs of a and b.

The following circumstances most favourable for finding the true latitude by this method are:-1. When on different sides of meridian, the verticals of observations should be as near to each other as possible: the altitudes should be nearly of the same height. 2. When on the same side of meridian.-The verticals of observations should

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