THE VOYAGEURS. 79 clothes on, rifle at side, fully worn out with the day’s toil. Many a night I am so weary I cannot even eat, but the morn sees me up and at work as fresh as ever.

“I can make pretty shrewd guess as to the water we are in from the different shades of sand, rock or pebbles where a boat may float, and where she cannot, sometimes so close that the keel will grate on the pebble or sand. But I would shout ‘pull away boys, pull away,we’ll get over it all safe’- -and the feat was accomplished. You would hear one of them say ‘ sure Duke but you’re the divil—how do you tell at all, at all, the way of it. Why any one would think when we are scraping and scratching over the ground we’d never get through, but here we are safe and sound, and more power to your elbow.’ ” On the whole it will appear that the decision of Lord Wolselev to employ Canadian voyageurs was a wise one. The Government, too, by their liberal treatment of the boatmen on their return from active service, endorsed this view.