They will not be satisfactory to the
Indians. We request you will be pleased to make a strong representation
to their Honours at Home that this article be sent according to order
and sample. We now conceive to say anything further would be tiresome."
The Fort Simpson Factor on March 19th, 1830, reports to Montreal:
"The goods came. The white beads was too small and not according to
order or sample asked for. The Indians would not take them and left the
Fort dissatisfied."
The Trader at Fort Good Hope augments the story by recording that the
Indians would be better pleased in trade with two small kegs of the
special beads they wanted than with half a ton of any other trade goods
which London could manufacture and send out. The sequel of the story is
that, disappointed time and again in not getting their favourite beads,
the Loucheux Indians failed to bring in the autumn supply of meat to
Fort Good Hope and in consequence, before the snows of the winter of
1831 had melted, many of the white men attached to that post died of
starvation.
[Illustration: The Keele Party on the Gravel River]
We had gone North with the birds in spring and now, as we turn our faces
homeward, the first migrants with strong wing are beginning their
southward flight.
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