Volume 1

:
ROSTER OF RED RIVER BRIGADE. 49
both sides with willows, which grow so thick and close as
scarcely to admit going through adjoining
;
these is commonly
a second bank of no great height. This is covered
with very large wood, such as Hard, bois blanc, elm, ash,
and oak ; some of the trees are of enormous size. In the
rear of this are oaks alone ; then poplars and willows, as
mentioned above."
A7(£^. 2 1st. Early this morning, having examined the
baggages of my people, I embarked my brigade, now reduced
to 4 canoes, with 26 packages apiece. On board
are the following men and families
RETURN OF RED RIVER BRIGADE,
180O-OI.''
First Canoe.— i.
Alexander Henry: Bourgeois, in charge
of the brigade. 2. Jacques Barbe : Voyageur, conductor or
bowman (ducent). 3. Etienne Charbonneau: Voyageur,
" As regards these trees : Liard
of the F. is any one of the large species of
Popidus or poplars which in the West we commonly call cottonwood, as P.
balsamifera, P. monilifera, and the like ; Henry probably here means the
former of these two. Bois blanc is the whitewood, basswood, or linden, Tilia
americana. The elm is Uhnus americana. The commonest large oak, of the
Red r. is Quercus macrocarpa. What Henry calls "poplar," in distinction
from liard, is a species of the same genus, Populus tremuloid,;s , the common
aspen of this country, usually called by us in
the West quaking-ash or quakingasp,
from the shivering of its leaves in the breeze, and for the same reason
known to the F. as tremblier. The commonest willow along Red r, is Salix
rostrata. The ash of the text I have not identified— it is not necessarily ^ra;finus
americana in this case.
"^ This return can be checked by the list of names given beyond, p. 77, when
the brigade is separated in two at Reed r. , Sept. 3d. The total of the two lists
differs ;
but the total of the men is the same—21. Some irreconcilable discrepancies
in reckoning the women and children will be observed ;
but marriage,
desertion, birth, death, and copyist's mistakes are enough to account for any
such. The two lists of 21 men are identifiable in every case but that of No. 17
above. This stands as " Franfois Seni " in my copy; while in the list of Sept.
3d no such name appears, but " Roger " occurs instead.
As we know there was
no change meanwhile in the men of the brigade, these two must be names of the
same person, who can be given conjecturally as above. Several variants of
names will be observed
;
these are deduced from the two lists, and from other
passages in Henry, but there is no question of identity in any case. I shall
hereafter, in each instance of such variants in my copy, cause it to conform to