actually commenced. I felt we were beginning an eventful page in the
history of this poor people, and earnestly sighed to God for His help
and blessing.

"The next day, the 28th May, we arrived at our new home about two p.m.
The Indians I had sent on before me with the raft I found hard at work,
clearing ground and sawing plank. They had carried all the raft up from
the beach, excepting a few heavy beams; erected two temporary houses;
and had planted about four bushels of potatoes for me.

"Every night we assembled, a happy family, for singing and prayer. I
gave an address on each occasion from one portion of Scriptural truth
suggested to me by the events of the day."

And a much larger number were not long in following. On June 6th a
fleet of thirty canoes arrived from Fort Simpson, bringing nearly three
hundred souls; in fact nearly the whole of one tribe, the Keetlahn,
with two chiefs. Not many days, however, elapsed before the dreaded
cloud overshadowed the coast. Small-pox broke out at Fort Simpson, and
seized upon the Indians; and although for awhile they were content to
ward it off, as they thought, by incessant conjuring, yet when some of
the leading medicine men themselves fell victims to the disease, a
great fear fell upon all, and they fled in all directions, but only
spread the fatal scourge more widely by so doing. Many came to
Metlakahtla, and though Mr. Duncan refused to receive some, he could
not refuse all. "For the temporal and spiritual welfare of my own
people," he wrote, "who now clung to me like timid children, I was kept
in constant labour and pressing anxiety. Death stared us in the face on
every hand. But God remembered us in the day of our calamity;" and of
the original settlers only five were cut off. One of these was Stephen