until valuable time had been lost. Considering the importance of this
canal to the Dominion Government, and that at a crisis the United States'
Cabinet could close Lake Superior to our vessels of war, I think some
steps should be taken by which the Imperial Government would become joint
proprietors of the canal, with an equal share in its management at all
times.] The "Saulte," as it is generally called, is a pretty little
village, situated at the foot of a hill on the north shore of the canal.
Having to remain an hour there, we went ashore, up the long straight
street, to a frame-house, or store, where there was an extensive display
of Indian work. The Lake Superior and Huron Red Indians are particularly
noted for the beauty of their embroidery on skins, silk, birch bark, and
cloth, in beads, porcupine quills, or silk. Their imitative genius is so
great that the squaws can copy anything, and I know people who have had
their crests and coats-of-arms embroidered upon their tobacco-pouches
and belts, from an impression on paper or sealing-wax. Generally they
copy flowers and ferns, invent their own patterns, or, what seems even
more wonderful, make them by chewing a piece of bark into the form they
require--the bark assuming the appearance of a stamped braiding pattern.
As the white people put an exorbitant price on the flour and trinkets
they give in exchange for the Indians' work, the latter ask, when selling
for money, what seems more than its full value; but many who travel that
way, provided with cheap trinkets and gaudy ribbons, get the work cheaply
enough.

There is quite a large Roman Catholic church in the village; but we had
to be content with a tiptoe peep through its windows, as after the
"angelus" the door is locked. There are some small trading stores, a few
scattered houses, long, pretty winding roads up the hills, skirted by
cozy little farmhouses and wheat-fields, and one or two dwellings of more
pretension occupied as summer residences by Americans. A little higher