the Canadian administration, to pass. Here we had a visit from the
custom-house officers. They were good specimens of their different
countries. The Canadian was a round, fat, jolly, handsome, fair man; the
Yankee was tall, slight, and black-eyed, with a cadaverous look,
increased by his close-fitting mackintosh and cowl. They did not give us
any trouble, and I felt sorry for their lonely life, and the pounds of
mud they had to carry with them everywhere.

Such mud! There is no wharf or planking of any kind, and all freight and
baggage is landed on (or into) the muddy bank. Barrels rolled through it
became unrecognizable, and were doubled in weight before they reached
their warehouse. Men worked on bare feet, with trousers rolled to their
knees, and the slippery, swashy look of everything was horrible. An
Indian (not of the Fenimore Cooper type) leant against an old
cooking-stove stranded on the bank, and an old squaw squatted on a heap
of dirty straw, watching with lack-lustre eyes the disembarkation. A mile
or two above Pembina is the American fort, with its trim barracks,
fortifications, mounted guns, sentries, and some military life about it.
Near it is the house built by Captain Cameron, when out with the
expeditionary force in 1867. The remainder of our journey up the Red
River of the North was uninteresting, and we hailed with delight our
arrival at Winnipeg, on Saturday morning, the 4th of June.

It took some time to disembark from the _Minnesota_. The emigrants
had been up at daylight, and after making haste to get their property
together, found that they had to wait the arrival of the custom-house
officer. At about eight o'clock, a waggon being procured to take our
luggage, we, carrying our travelling-bags and shawls, walked--for there
were no cabs nor omnibuses--into Winnipeg.