Volume 1

PROGRESS OF THE SEASON, APRIL AND MAY. 211
with a new cart to Portage la Prairie by way of White
Horse plains, which is a little above the Grand Passage on
the Assiniboine. 26th. Fire raging all over the plains,
causing a great smoke ; Indians still drinking. One woman
stabbed another with a knife in four places, but I supposed
none of them dangerous, being all flesh wounds, joth. The
Indians made a barrier in Panbian river to take sturgeon on
their return down the current. Men brought me in a few
outarde eggs. Women were gathering rat-tails to eat. This
root is about the size of a pipe-stem, and from 6 to 10
inches long ; a number of them grow from the same stalk,
in pools and marshes
;
they are of a yellowish color, tender
and pleasant to the taste, at all seasons, but particularly in
the spring. They are preferable to the esquebois.
May 1st. W> take plenty of sturgeon. Settled the
men's accounts and hired some of them for three years,
but the Kamanistiquia route deters others from settling
for the present.
Our men and the X. Y. fighting and quarreling.
Augustin Cadotte and his men arrived with their
t^aggage from Pinancewaywining. Indians drinking ; two
of them stabbed, but not dangerously. 5th. I started
Mr. Cadotte with a man for Riviere aux Islets de Bois,
with one of our new carts. This invention is worth four
horses to us, as it would require five horses to carry as
much on their backs as one will drag in each of those
large carts. 6th. Indians arrive daily and drink continually,
yth. I planted potatoes, turnips, carrots, beets,
Sowed cab-
parsnips, onions, and cabbage-stalks for seeds.
bage seed. loth. We finished planting eight kegs of potatoes.
I2th. My beau-pere desired me to take his second
daughter, saying one woman was not sufficient for a chief,
and that all great men should have a plurality of wives, the
more the better, provided they were all
of the same family.
He set a striking example of this himself, as he had for
wives three sisters at that time. Cadotte returned with a
cart-load of sugar and skins ; his wife was delivered of a
daughter. ijth. X. Y. embarked for the Forks. The