Volume 1

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228 PRAIRIE FIRE—AGRICULTURAL REPORT.
total forms a procession nearly a mile long, and appears
like a large band of
Assiniboines.
Oct. ph. Fire is raging at every point of the compass
thick clouds of smoke nearly deprive us of the sight of the
sun, and at night the view from the top of my house is awful
indeed. In every direction are flames, some leaping to
a prodigious height as the fire rushes through willows and
long grass, or low places covered with reeds and rushes.
We apprehended no danger, as the fire had already passed
near the fort. On the 6th two men returned with the
body of Mrs. Cameron, who died yesterday at the Grand
Passage, gth. We buried the corpse. 12th. We had
frost. I took up my quarters in my new house, which
was finished. Collected garden seeds, of which I have a
great
quantity.
Oct. i6th. Hesse ' and his woman arrived in a small
canoe from Red lake. ijtJi. Snow. I took my vegetables
up — 300 large heads of cabbage, 8 bushels of
carrots,
16 bushels of onions, 10 bushels of turnips, some beets,
parsnips, etc. 20th. I took in my potatoes—420 bushels,
the produce of
7 bushels, exclusive of the quantity we have
roasted since our arrival, and what the Indians have stolen,
which must be at least 200 bushels more. I measured an
onion, 22 inches in circumference; a carrot, 18 inches long,
and, at the thick end, 14 inches in circumference ; a turnip
with its leaves weighed 25 pounds, and the leaves alone
weighed 15 pounds. The common weight is from 9 to 12
pounds, without the leaves, 22d. The blacksmith making
coals.
Oct. 2/i.th. I went to the Hair hills on horseback to meet
the Assiniboines and Crees. Indians all sick with coughs,
and some at the point of death, which prevents all hunting.
Livernois had exchanged his mare for
a young wife, about
eight \sic'\ years of age ; it is common in the North West to
give a horse for a woman. On my return I killed five
^ Charles Hesse, clerk N. W. Co., appears at Grand Portage in 1799, and as
such with Henry, Lower Red r, , 1803-04.