the gold of the troops in return for what they could
conveniently spare, were not slow in availing themselves
of the permission. Dried bears' meat, venison, and Indian
corn, composed the substance of these supplies, which
were in sufficient abundance to produce a six weeks'
increase to the stock of the garrison. Hitherto they had
been subsisting, in a great degree, upon salt provisions;
the food furtively supplied by the Canadians being
necessarily, from their dread of detection, on so limited
a scale, that a very small portion of the troops had been
enabled to profit by it. This, therefore, was an important
and unexpected benefit, derived from the falling in of
the garrison with the professed views of the savages;
and one which, perhaps, few officers would, like Colonel
de Haldimar, have possessed the forethought to have
secured. But although it served to relieve the animal
wants of the man, there was little to remove his moral
inquietude. Discouraged by the sanguinary character of
the warfare in which they seemed doomed to be for ever
engaged, and harassed by constant watchings,--seldom
taking off their clothes for weeks together,--the men
had gradually been losing their energy of spirit, in the
contemplation of the almost irremediable evils by which
they were beset; and looked forward with sad and
disheartening conviction to a fate, that all things tended
to prove to them was unavoidable, however the period of
its consummation might be protracted. Among the officers,
this dejection, although proceeding from a different
cause, was no less prevalent; and notwithstanding they
sought to disguise it before their men, when left to