Having had various altercations with the Indians, the party reached Red
River, bringing about 900 lbs. of buffalo meat in each cart, making more
than one million pounds in all. The Hudson's Bay Company took a
considerable amount of this, and the remainder went to supply the wants
of the Red River Settlement for another year.
CHAPTER XXII.
WHAT THE STARGAZERS SAW.
The writer remembers meeting in Boston, a good many years ago, a
scientific explorer, who along with two companies, one of whom is the
greatest astronomer in the United States, as an astronomical party in
1860, made a visit through Red River Settlement, on their way to the
North Saskatchewan to observe an eclipse. The disappointment of the
party was very great, for, after travelling three thousand miles, their
fate was "to sit in a marsh and view the eclipse through the clouds, so
heavy was the rain."
The three astronomers have given their account under assumed names in a
little book, of which there are few copies in Canada. Their view of Red
River Settlement in 1860 is a vivid picture.
What an extraordinary Settlement! Here is a Colony of about ten
thousand souls scattered among plantations for thirty miles along the
Red and half as many along the Assiniboine River, almost wholly
dependent for intelligence from the outer world on one stern-wheeled
steamer.
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